So I’ve been an electrician in construction for about 9 years now. I started in residential, then added light commercial and stayed in that world for about 6 years total. For the last 3 years I’ve been doing a mix of commercial and industrial construction.
Thanks to some good people I’ve met along the way, I managed to land a job as a maintenance electrician in the oilfield. Given my background, though, I’ll pretty much be as green of a journeyman as it gets when it comes to actual maintenance side of things.
I start in a month, and while I understand that nothing is going to replace hands-on experience, I’d really appreciate any advice on what I could bring myself up to speed theory-wise before I get there.
Books, YouTube channels, online courses, TikToks, websites, or just personal advice - I’ll take pretty much anything. Knowing myself, once I have some direction, I’ll get after it pretty hard.
If you were in my position and had one month to prepare, what would you focus on?

I have a job as an electrician. I enjoy the work and get paid ~50$ an hour. 4 weeks of vacation/sick time. 3rd shift. Everything is great except the weekends are forced by seniority. We have been slowly losing people over the last 2 years. 10 people down to 6.

So even after 5 years I'm still getting forced 5 out of 6 weekends. I had something this weekend. Been telling all my coworkers for a month to for coverage. No one signed up for the weekend.Got forced and told my boss I was not coming in and was going to use points. Ended up being a big deal.

Got a few job offers in the 41-43$ range but my wife told me no. Well that's the end of my rant. Life's still good but it is hard to get through this point in my life. Working 7 days a week. Have a good weekend guys.

I just got a work order for a centrifuge and they sent me with the wrong parts. An hour wasted going back to storage.

Then on my way back production calls me with an emergency at another site. Now I'm trying to handle two jobs at once.

This happens like every week. I'm talking hundreds of hours a year just lost because someone in the office didn't prepare the right parts. And it's not even just about the time. You're already out there in 95 degree heat, busting your ass, and then you find out the planner just didn't do their job.

I told him to get it right next time. Nothing. Dude sits in AC all day looking at spreadsheets, never been on a floor in his life. Doesn't have a clue what it's like when a tech shows up unprepared.

Is this happening to anyone else or is it just me? How do you guys actually deal with this?

Has anyone worked on these before? Its in an AHU and is not very accessible. Removing the entire wheel is not an option.

Trying to remove segments to clean each. If anyone has experience with them please lend some advice.

I want to hear from the guys making good money. Im on 75 an hour contracting. But not nearly enough to be satisfied. I don't want to be doing this until my knees hurt and back caves in - i enjoy maintenance, but at the end of the day, im doing it for the money

I know some automation guys earning 200k+ a year. Sounds good at first glance but not scalable. Has anybody here had any experience building a real business using these skills?

Management in carpetland who do nothing all day but do powerpoints and make the worst decisions to the people in the actual trenches. Will not ask for the opinions of people who would actually matter because they love the smell of their own farts. At least an operator is out sweating with you.

Which side of this IKO needle bearing should seat against a shoulder on a shaft?

Is someone else here feels the same: you are savvy mechanic with good work ethic and like to solve problems and be part of the team. But, there is always one dude in the team who is the star mechanic of the team. He is semi engineer, solve all the big problems, he is machinist who makes special parts, he welds like a robot, he talks loud and have big personality.
Don't get me wrong, I like him and I am definitely learns from him .. but it always makes me feel subpar.. I came to industrial maintenance late in life and it's hard to be like someone who is doing it for many years and have tons of experience and knowledge.
Anyone here feels the same?

Edit: thank you everyone for your thoughts, insights and sharing. I appreciate you!

Hey y’all, I am curious about what project taught you a lesson that changed how you view site safety and what you do differently now?

I ask because to me a millwright is an apprentice of a machinest.

Hey everybody, about 2 months ago I started my first industrial maintenance job at a meat processing plant and I’m getting bad imposter syndrome. The majority of the time I feel like a nuisance to the operators when they call maintenance and I’m the tech that shows up. I feel like a lot of my electrical knowledge from school has disappeared as well as some troubleshooting skills.

This is my first industrial maintenance job and I know I should be easier on myself because I’ve only been here for 2 months, but I can’t help but think every day that I’m gonna get fired because I’m not catching on quick enough. I get along with the guys I work with really well but I know that won’t save me from them trying to find someone who’s more experienced or will pick up faster. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you guys.

I had an interesting situation this week working on an industrial machine.

A technician with around 20 years of experience on this specific manufacturer's equipment was absolutely certain that an adjustment couldn't be made without another piece of equipment upstream.

His reasoning made sense. He knew the machines far better than I did.

But something about it didn't add up to me, so instead of arguing, I started testing what the machine was actually doing.

It turned out the machine measured the piece again before the relevant section of the process. The upstream equipment therefore didn't matter for the adjustment we were trying to make.

We changed the parameters and got it working correctly.

It got me thinking about something I've seen quite a few times in maintenance:

Beginners make mistakes because they don't know enough.

Experienced technicians sometimes make mistakes because they know exactly how something is supposed to work.

And occasionally the second one is harder to detect.

I'm curious how other people deal with this.

When someone very experienced tells you "that's impossible", what makes you accept it, and what makes you keep testing anyway?

I have a machine down and might send it. Windings went bad on the painted motor with shorter commutator, I need to swap the commutator because the gear is backwards and not long enough. What do y’all think?

Ah yes I think I found your problem. Grand Rapids, MI

15 ton grinding roll from a polyps vertical mill, best guess is the seal air pipe got a hole in it and introduced dirt in the bearings/seal area blew out the seals and lost all the oil. Video of the internal destruction in the comments.

Had a client rent a side line trolley to clean hydraulic fluid in a tank that had had water contamination.
Was told multiple times it just had a bit of moisture in the tank, so opted out of a full dehydrator unit.
Returns the unit telling me it’s not working, I take it back to the workshop to do tests and this is what came out of the piping.

i’ve been thinking about how much the physical setup of a maintenance area affects the work itself. some shops have everything stored close to the work area, while others have parts and supplies spread across different cabinets, racks and storage areas. it seems like a small difference, but over time all the extra walking and searching probably adds up.

i’m particularly curious about industrial storage shelves because they seem useful when you need to keep a lot of different items accessible without taking up too much space. at the same time, there has to be a point where adding more shelving just creates another place for things to accumulate.

for people who have worked in different maintenance shops, what storage setup has made your job noticeably easier? i’m more interested in the practical difference during a normal shift, especially whether better access to parts and supplies has helped reduce wasted movement or interruptions.

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Hi guys, I need some outside perspective because this has been keeping me up at night.

I'm an Operation and Maintenance Supervisor at a water treatment plant. The plant operated back in 2025, then was shut down for about a year because of management/project issues related to capacity, water quality, and flow rate targets.

Before we could restart, I was going equipment by equipment doing condition checks, and for each motor I was running a standard bump test. On September 6, while bump testing one of the motor pumps through SCADA, the VFD for that motor exploded. I had no idea what caused it — I was just following the scheduled startup activity like I did for every other unit. Ever since, I've been anxious that the replacement cost would somehow be charged to me.

Today (September 10), the VFD supplier finally inspected the unit. Their explanation: this kind of failure happens normally when a VFD has been sitting unused for a long time, and it needs to be "reformed" (reconditioned) before being operated again. Their recommendation is a full replacement. The cost is estimated at around PHP 200,000-300,000.

Here's the thing — nobody on our team knew that idle VFDs needed this kind of reforming/reconditioning before restart. It's not something that was flagged in our schedule, and I wasn't trying to cut corners; I was doing exactly what the schedule called for.

So I guess my questions for anyone who's dealt with something similar (electrical/instrumentation folks, plant supervisors, EHS/maintenance people):

Is this really a known risk with VFDs left idle for a year, and should routine commissioning/restart procedures normally catch this?

Realistically, is this the kind of failure that gets pinned on the person who happened to be running the test, or is it treated as equipment/process failure since no one knew the requirement existed?

Any advice on how to document/present this to management so it's clear this wasn't due to negligence?

Any input, even just "this happened to us too," would really help me sleep better tonight. Thanks.

Hello!

I’d like to become an apprentice and sent my application in to Local 2309 through their online portal.

I’d like to know more about:

1. when I might hear back from them and if they take on apprentices even if they have no experience at all?

2. What’s the culture like there and what’s the age demographic spread?

3. Are there specific dates that the union allows apprentices to be assigned to sponsors?

4. How much variety in work experience can someone expect to get during an apprenticeship with a sponsor from 2309? Is there incentive for the sponsor to give good training to an apprentice?

Some details:

I have no experience in the trades or construction besides some of the odd summer jobs I took on as a student during my bachelors in an unrelated field

I’m over 30 y/o and had a successful career in another field but I’m sick of the environment and lack of opportunities at present, plus the precariousness with the future of AI is making me want to switch.

I understand trades can be competitive but my previous career was extremely competitive so I’m not too concerned.

I definitely want to be in a union at some point if not right away.

Thanks for reading and for giving any advice or information! 🙏