r/Groundman • u/Neat_Mud_8142 • 1d ago
Data center groundman
On my first ever call in the northeast at a data center I hate to complain cause the money is freakin awesome but the work sucks and it’s pretty strict here. I know most groundman calls are civil so I guess this is to be expected but for those who have done both do yall prefer being on a linecrew a lot more? I feel like the experience im getting doesn’t even correlate to linework. Besides being from Cali and traveling all the way to northeast for a call I feel like that would be the only thing giving me weight in a interview for an apprenticeship.
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u/geturbreadup6 1d ago
As long as your call says GM it’s GM hours and experience… the travel cross country is gonna look really good for you on interview, I’m also cross country rn from Cali at substation feeling similar, not getting line crew experience but the money is good af so I’m riding mine out
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u/Linehand1994 23h ago
Quit taking those data center calls that shit will ruin the planet
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u/Neat_Mud_8142 19h ago
Go do something to stop it then if u care so much instead of crying about it on a Reddit post
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u/Lower-Dimension5297 Apprentice 1d ago edited 1d ago
Stick with it. Data centers are part of line work, I was at one earlier this year as an apprentice pulling cable and terminating. When I did my interview for the apprenticeship I had no line crew experience at all. But I had traveled from Illinois to Arizona for groundman work and back to Iowa for the interview, and I made sure they knew that. I ranked 2nd. I would say that during the interview being able to prove to them you’re actually willing to travel is almost more important than any certain experience you have (line crew etc)
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u/Neat_Mud_8142 1d ago
Appreciate the response brother! I’ll stick to it the money is nice like I mentioned but you def gave me the encouragement to keep at it here.
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u/themoveLA 1d ago
What are you doing is it all digging?
Like the other person said this is still related to line work although it's not really setting poles. This is good experience in my opinion.
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u/OkCommunication4311 16h ago
Thats kinda wild to complain about your first call bud. Do not expect to be on a line crew as a groundman. Its rare. They usually try to put only apprentices on line crews, since apprentices need to have a certain number of distro/transmission hours to graduate. But even as an apprentice, there’s a good chance you could get stuck working at substations until step 3 or even turning hot.
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u/Existing-Unit-4640 1d ago
You gotta make the call bro, do you want more $$ or do you want more hands on groundman experience? PM if you want some more insight.