well last wedensday I put in my two weeks notice to my boss. Heres the story. I finished up high school half a year early, I was suppose to work with this guy on an apprentice ship program for heavy equipment operating. the company was Fifth Generation Ent. So this program would have been, counting towards my graduation credits. you need 52 credits to graduate. I only had 48, so by starting to work for him and get my 450 hrs in I would get a passing grade and those 4 credits needed to graduate. he agreed to sign the papers and take me on fulltime. a few weeks before I started they canceled the program and had decided it wasnt eligible for an apprenticeship program. so I went back to them with my 450 hrs from the previous summer from working fulltime and they gave me my 4 credits so I ended graduating half a year early still. So Jeff the owner of *** decided to keep his part of the deal and have me run his machine fulltime from the beginning of febuary till present. I started running his Cat 312, and now have 900 and change hours on it. I have learnt alot from him, and wouldnt have the hours if it werent for him. So here I am 17 years old and running a hoe, as well as recently I took over the entire excavation part of his company so I managed and kept that going for him for the last 2 1/2 months. I did everything from getting jobs, to dealing with contracts, organizing other companys to come in and do work, etc. you guys know the stuff. anyways I work with him part time from october to febuary, and fulltime from febuary till present. I worked my way up from 8 an hour to 14 an hour. It took me 10 months to get to 14. I hadnt seen a raise in awhile. I caught wind he was looking to hire another operator for the mini. thats fine we had lots of work and I couldnt do it all myself. I was exspecting to see a raise. insted I found out that our new employee was specificly told not to tell me what he was getting paid. Keep in mind thie guy has ZERO time on a machine and lacks a major part of common sense. I remembered back to when Jeff had told me Harley wouldnt work for anything less then 14 an hour. I put 2 and 2 together. He was making 14 at the minimum. He started at 14 with zero experience. I had worked for 10 months, and was basicly running the company or that part of it and was only getting 14. I waited a few weeks, and still no raise came. I confronted him about it and his reason for paying him that, was that he took a pay cut from 22 an hour to 14 an hour. Yes he quit his 22 dollar an hour job for 14 dollars and hour. theres the common sense part. His other reasons were, hes married, has a child and a mortgage. well as far as im concerned that has no bearing on what u pay someone. if so thats a very unfair advantage. after all knowbody forced him to quit his secure job. I took offense to that and when I had felt like I ment something to the company, I immediatly felt worthless to them. I also volunteer at my local fire department. Im now 18 and yes I am a volunteer fire fighter. this only has a meaning to the story because this other job came from there. So I was at fire practice and got talking to one of the other guys theres and he owns a decent sized trucking company. they recently bought a volvo ec210. Marks brother, Eric is the one that looks at the excavation part and runs the hoe for their family run company. So mark came to me and offered me a job running their new machine that they were in the process of buying. So I agreed to go and run the machine for them to see if they liked how I ran it. they were very pleased at how I ran the machine and asked when could I start. So I took the job. put my notice in and now Im waiting for the last few days of that to expire. The problems with ***, On most of the lots I was preping for foundations, he would have the finals pins put in well before I was done. thus making my life more hard, and trying to work around pins and not moving them. He was also a family run company but very UNORGANIZED. so inturn I had more then one boss. Actuly I had 3 bosses, which of none didnt communicate with each other. so I would get pulled off one job, and taken to another then chewed out as to why I didnt finish this other job etc etc etc. the BS was getting more then I could take. I didnt get any gas money so I did not haul a tidy tank around for him, and stopped trying to look after his machine. I needed fuel and never got fuel, if I was low on coolant I was told to keep running the machine. and would not see it for a few weeks. grease was near impossible to keep on hand. most times the machine went a few weeks in between each greasing because he wouldnt buy me grease when I needed it. the hydraulic oil was the same and motor oil also the same. the only way I could get the stuff was to buy it with my own money, and submit the reciept to the office. and at 14 an hour it aint enough to be buying that stuff inbetween pay checks. he never agreed to give me a company card so I could look after a machine properly. it was very hard I have grown up around heavy equipment all my life and know how to maintian them but if I dont have the resources its hard to look after them. None the less I could keep going and going about the way he ran things around there and went on about doing things. But its time I get to the new company. So Ive started at 18/hr, raises up to 25/hr. Plus Gas card for my truck to carry the tidy tank for the New Volvo EC160. Plus company cell phone. Eric is a great guy and after finding out how long the other guys have been there for I know they are a great outfit to work for. they arnt so rushed like *** was, and like to do things properly and would rather see quality more then production. altho still maintain a reasonable pace. I would say they are bit laid back, and just overly nice people. they way they go about doing things. Also Eric caught wind that I knew how to do service hook ups and doesnt him self (does more land clearing the sub work) so we arew going to trade our experience and teach each other different things. He also has offered to pay for my Air ticket and class 1 drivers liesence. *** wanted me to get those but never wanted to fork out the money. I think im going to be really happy here, and its going to be so nice to finaly get off that 97 cat 312 and on to the 2006 volvo 160, which is 100% fully loaded with everything. gotta love companies like that. anyways just thought Id share my career a little bit... does any one else care to share about their experiences and how they got in to running hoe etc.
Started at 17 running a dozer and hoping on a hoe whenever i got the chance, eventually got good enough to where i clould do whatever needed to be done. worked for that company digging basements, backfilling, clearing, grading, etc for a year, then got the job i have now with a bigger company with new equipment. Old company had poor equipment maintnence, old equipment, no benefits, not a whole lot to look forward to as far as advancing my career. new company has nice benefits, nice equipment, company truck gas card and cell phone, room to advance, and more work than we can handle. we have a good 3-4 years worth of work lined up as of now.
As of today I now have a company truck as well. which is pretty awsome. so I wont have to use my truck as work truck and haul the tidy tank around.
Now if only they would get me a new one, with a service body
The average wage here for a person working in the excavation is 15-20 dollars per hour if your a experienced operator then you make 25 per hour. The company I worked for I was pretty much shop mechanic and do everything I had a company truck we don't need fuel cards the contractor had fuel tanks in his yard. Its the way most contractors are they have 2000 gallons of diesel fuel and 1500 gallons of gas for the P/U trucks. Most contractors won't hire anybody if they don't have a minimum class 3 license. Also excavation contractors want people that can do repairs so you have to beable to change the tires on the truck repair hydraulic lines and cylinders on the excavators. A contractor wants you to have some welding skills too myself welding is my trade then I picked up mechanics learning on my own and working with HD mechanics. I'am currently not working in the excavation business the work around this area has slowed down. The contractors have enough work to keep their guys busy and thats about it. With the interest rate inching higher its going to kill the housing market. Last year you couldn't even get a excavation contractor not so this year.
I dont know what part of BC your from but thats very different from things around here. Our housing market (victoria) keeps climbing and climbing even as the rates go up and up. the contractors around here hire an operator as an operator and have their own mechanics fuel and grease the machines every night. I know of one company that the operators dont even warm up their machines. they show up to work and the machine is already to go and warmed up. HOW NICE IS THAT! Im not working for one of those companies, I do fuel and grease the machine and will do some wreching on it. average wage around here is 18 - 25 for your average operator depending on experience. then a well experienced operator is looking at anywhere from 25 -35 an hour depending on the outfit. and very few of the operators here hold a class 3 liesence. or do any wreching on the machines. Since I just turned 18 Im working on getting my Air and class 3 till I turn 19 then I will go for my Class one so that I can haul around the machines for him aswell. only 2. The operators here do strictly that. and there is so much work for them nobody is threating them and saying u have to do more. there is actuly a shortage of operators. Im lucky enough to be able to do my own wreching and normaly do the serivce and hydraulic lines, I wont touch anything else after that. and most companies exspect us to call a techy in for that stuff. welding, we also have some great welding companies here and are on call when we need them. as for fuel, We have so many cardlocks around that theres no point in spending the money on a tank and have them fill it up all the time. plus the card locks are closer to the job sites. and most guys take the trucks home at night and dont go to the office till friday. Here the link to my new toy. 2004 Volvo EC160LC, Hyrdaulic Quick EX, HYD Thumb, rock gaurds, fully loaded, 1500 hours. cant wait till it arrives. :bouncegri Copy paste link, Sorry http://www.machinerytrader.com/list...5362082&guid=C505216EBF5A4551BEEFF9C89E3ADB38
MVFD, Looks to me that you are going to be very successful in the operating business. Only 17 years old and the experience that you are getting already! The sky is the limit my friend, eventually you might even have your own company:yup You guys were talking wages out there. On the front page of our newspaper (yesterday)it talks about our province losing their workforce, as many are heading out west and also talks about not being able to compete with the wages being offered out there. As high as $56 per hour is what some operators are being paid (according to this write up) in Alberta. That is not to far from you guys. My question is....where?? If this is the case our province could lose another one
what!?,leave nb are u nuts? i'd go but hmm 300 grand for a 3 bedroom home,300 grand could buy me a large chunk of land here with sand and gravel on it.
I think you will see the housing market is dying off yes developers are pushing ahead with these subdivisions thinking they are going to sell the lots but I think they are in for a surprise. Like I said its happened here already the market has cooled off. You must be going to work for a larger company the companies around here are up to 4 guys plus the owner. A few of these guys have been at it for the last 30 years. If you want to run excavator and make bigger money go to Alberta if you have some experience you start at 25 dollars per hour. One of the guys that I work with says his daughter is working running excavator in Alberta she makes more money than he does. I thought about going to Alberta but I like it here on the West Coast I'am thinking about the Interior of B.C. somewhere around Williams Lake. Its getting to expensive on the south coast of B.C. and too many NIMBYS moving in they don't want any industry once they build their house thats all they want. They don't want logging or mining they think B.C. can survive on tourism and computers. With the B.C. gov't screwing around with the forest industry its causing large logging companies closing their doors putting 150 guys out of work isn't good.
Yes, Ive got about 1000 hours now, Just did an add up on my hours today.. 1000 and change, 1037 actuly. I do hope to maybe have my own company. oneday :bouncegri Ford LT 9000, I think the market isnt going to drop off like they have predicted. alot of those predictions have been changed to our market leveling off. some of the big companies around here have 8 year contracts that they havnt started yet. not so much for housing but road improvments, sewer projects, etc. the boom its certainlt going to reach its peak soon. but I doubt it will drop much after. most likly level out for a few years yet. but there is going to be alot of laid people when that time comes... as for working for a big company its not, its very small. he has a 2003 EC210B and my new machine 2004 EC160LC. they also have about 6 dump trucks. the large company here owns 36 excavators all 210 volvos and just shy of 25 dump trucks then other misc equipment. then the next one has 31 excavators and about 40 or so dump trucks, again same with the misc equipment, and the 2 others share the same spot at 14 machines and a few dumptrucks. other wise most of our small guys are 3 and under.
In my area we have 4 subdivisions going here each of them prolly have spent in the hundreds of thousands of dollars developing the properties in hope of making a big profit thats not the case. Actually those large companys with alot of equipment usually don't and can't take on smaller projects. Right now Bel Pacifc is working in this area they have two of their Volvo machines working in this area well beat. I think Volvos are like Komatsu buy them cheap then get rid of them soon as the hours get up there. All I can say is don't get your hopes up to high if you want to really learn alot is find a smaller company a familly run operation. Oh ya don't get involved with the union BS if they want you to join the union walk away.
well this is exactly that. His brother runs the trucking part of it, his olderest brother looks after the paper work and he runs the excavation part of it. his dad now just over see's everything ans watches the money roll in. I think working for a smaller company offers me more diversity in my job. doing smaller job is so much better then being stuck on a site for months on end.. doing the same repetative things over and over again. Id mauch rather have the selection of jobs to keep me from getting bored or running hoe. I plan to work my ass off for this company, and hopefully will go somewhere with it.
Thats the spirit. Maintain that attitude and you will go far with that company. That is the same way that I felt when I started working where I am at when I was 16 years old. I have 33 years working here now.:wink2
Come right down to brass tacks...I probally would not leave N.B. but the thoughts of operating one of those graders and the prospect of almost doubling my salary is very appealing. You are right about the housing. Unless you can find a reasonable place to rent or buy there is no sense in making big bucks if you have to invest most of it into a place to live. I'm to dam old to even be thinking about it anyway.:laugh
You can't hardly buy ANY home here for under 300,000, and any new construction the houses are 500k plus. housing market went nuts the last few years here, but it's slowing way down. One developer here has a ~50 lot development going in and he's only sold 2 houses, i think he's got about 10 in construction right now. Last summer we couldnt build the houses fast enough. I wouldnt even have the hole dug and the houses would be sold.
awww you can't rent the cat 24 from atlantic in fredericton? :wink2 seen cbc compare cities last night fredericton vs. vancouver and toronto wow glad i live here.i agree the money is attractive,have a buddy close by who trucks roundwood for area sawmills and gets a little over $13/hr for 60 hours a week and loves it but can't figure out why no one wants to work with them
Hey all, I am new to this forum. I ran an excavator for about 3 weeks digging up rock for a landscaping company. Does anyone know the best way in finding employment either in victoria, vancouver, or alberta running a excavator? Also what do operators make an hour? Thank you for any help.
3 weeks experience eh, sounds like you'll find a job working in a trench, not running equipment.
Hi Sharkbait! Welcome to the forum! From what I can understand there is lots of work in your area. Where you don't have a lot of experience it might narrow it down a bit as probally a lot of companies are looking for experienced operators. But in saying that, there are lots of openings for operators in Alberta so I am sure you could get a job no problem. As far as wages.....we have forum members from your area that would be able to answer that question for you:yup
working in Alberta. Sorry if this is the wrong thread. I moved here a year ago easter. within two days I had 5 interviews set up for the week. They didnt happen. My first interview was mor of a formality, we talked for a couple hours, I road around with the Super and then he said grab your boots. I want you to go to work. considering that he hadnt seen me operate (finishing grader, hoe, dozer and loader) he offer me a fair wage to start (23, I was used to 14 in Manitoba) This year I hav gotted a sizable raise, and a new machine as well. Most of the companies here (paving,dirt,excavation) pay union wages or a little better. and for them most part I have found that some of the dirt and excavating companies go year round, with maybe a month off Xmas. As for the housing. Buy now if you can and sell in a month. youll make money. New houses in most of the city are starting at 350 000 and climbing fast. there isnt enough trades here to build them fast enough and that is the problem. Demand is there, supply isnt.
I would move to Alberta but I would miss the West Coast too much I may end up with mountain withdrawl being in a area that is flat as a table. If I still had relatives in Calgary I would prolly move there is no real future in B.C. the gov't keep saying there is but they don't know what in the hell they are talking about. Its all about the Olympics that is going to sink B.C. further into dept they will have to raise the taxes even more to pay for the billion dollars they will spend on the ***** olympics.
I agree! everythings is being planned around the olympics. What about after the olympics? I hope it doesnt sink us.. But I figure if the economy drops in a few years I will go to alberta and run hoe for awhile. make some money, and move back here and take up fire fighting ( thats where my heart really is) Sharkbait, As for wages they very place to place and also is determined by the experience. Not very many people get a chance like I did to run a machine with zero time on one. Most will start on a hand operated excavator :yup You can usually count on anywhere from 2 years, to as much as 8 years before the employer will think your ready to run a machine. the theory behind that is by being around the machines for a period of time you will understand the blind spots, saftey concerns and alot more about the job and the work involved with it. You also need to let them know your interested in running machines oneday and would like a chance in the future. Try with a smaller company, and one that isnt in the union. most places will start you at 18/hr with over 1000 hrs on a machine. unfortunetly 3 weeks wont be enough to impress the company. And remember when running a machine, Get good before you get fast. I would put your resume in with a few different places and see what comes your way. do you know anyone with a hoe? if so why dont you talk to them about playing around on it for a while? Good luck
If operators are in such a demand in Alberta then there is a good chance that an inexperienced operator could get a break. Some companies (from reading previous posts) actually prefer training someone new so that they can be molded into their way of doing things. What about rent in Calgary? Out of this world to I suppose.
What about rent in Calgary? Out of this world to I suppose.[/QUOTE] That depends on how you want to live. I have a decent apartment, 1100 sq ft, and I pay 700 and that includs heat, light , and water. I have herd appartments going for a LOT more. Same if you want to rent a house. Step sister is paying 2200 a month for here place, but it is a littler fancier and in a lot more snobby part of town. There is a group of young Newfies that come out for the season and they rent a house. Last I heard. there was about 8 of them in a two story, 4 bed room house. They split the rent and it cost them about 300 a peice/month. it depends on how you want to live. There are plenty of openings for Excavator operators, and then a lot of them usually go to the piplines in the winter to make a lot more money.
Thanks for the replys. I have been thinking about moving to calgary, don't really know anyone out that way though. So do most companys not work through the winter time? I wouldn't mind having time off to fly home. What about the girls in calgary :wink2
You'll find with alot of companies that they will lay off the guys that are lower on the list over the summer. since thats when everything softens up and its alot harder to get the drills in. Most of the work, as far as Im aware from friends and family that work the oil fields they work the most in the winter months since everything is frozen.
if you can try to land a camp job grab it,free food and a bed to sleep in.stay away from the liquor and drugs if u can and u'll be fine,hear alot of horror stories and friends that went out and came back crystal meth addicts
A friend of my brother's is working in Alberta driving truck in a camp situation they supply you a place to live and you work 20 on 8 off he is making 6 grand a month. I don't think I could work 20 days straight I have done it with the job I have now a person gets pretty testy.
The good thing about Alberta, is that not all of the work is in the north, and have to live in a camp. There is more than enough work in the rest of the Prov. and a lot of it can go year round like some of the Dirt Companies did this winter, and im told the last couple. ( the odd day off due to cold)
Alright, I decided I am going to move to calgary. Should I just show up in calgary and start handing out resumes? Or should I try to find a job before I go? I only have about 3 weeks time on an excavator, I don't mind doing labour work if it will lead into an excavator. Anyone know of any company's around calgary? I emailed some that had websites, Should I be calling the others? Any help would be apprieciated. Thanks
You better find a place to rent first I looked up classifieds online to see what is to rent in Calgary or Edmonton there isn't much and the places are for rent isn't cheap. Take a trip out there and see what you can find you may want to take a tent with you so you have a place to stay
It would be safer for you to apply to the companies online. they take alot of people that way. I just talked to a guy tonight that works in fort mcmurry for 4 months 1 month off, and he gave me some names to look up on google, and said the best way is to apply online. I would also think about buying yourself an 18ft trailer that you can live in for awhile. it might not be the best living but its the cheapest. and if u did go to a camp youve got everything there... just make sure you buy one with a roomy shower. I know lots of people that went to alberta and bought trailers to live in. but make sure you buy them from ALBERTA, other wise youll freeze your ass off in the winter months as BC trailers dont usually come insulated for the -20 tempertures. Good luck. Im thinking I will start looking to see whats out there. but dont plan on sending any applications out for a long time yet... gotta see where I go with this new guy. Im always looking for an oppurtunity.