• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

San Francisco power company lineman in the group?

We pretty much only hire our linemen thru pulaski technical college. They have a program we designed and its only like $9000. We also have scholarships and any of our family can be sponsored for a free ride thru. Our apprenticeship program is 3-5yrs according to experience. The CDL is whats a killer right now. Here in arkansas its like $8000 to get one. You cant just show up with an old dumptruck and take the test like the old days. He will have to have that to drive any company vehicle and be on DOT drug test regimens
 
Get a CDL as soon as you can anywhere you can. They have gotten hard to get and that makes or breaks us from hiring linemen. Also these linemen schools are where we hire from. California is hurting for linemen, and we are too here in arkansas
Good advice for a carreer in the ND oil & gas industry as well. The only place i know where if you can get out of bed in the morning, have a drivers license and can show up there's a $100k a year job waiting on you with a little experience. No experience $80k not uncommon.
 
Good advice for a carreer in the ND oil & gas industry as well. The only place i know where if you can get out of bed in the morning, have a drivers license and can show up there's a $100k a year job waiting on you with a little experience. No experience $80k not uncommon.
The sky is the limits for a tough young man these days. He can make a solid mint then sit back and idle and start a family after a few years. One young man i taught instruments and controls to when he worked for me as an electrical contractor at GE just got a job with chevron and reported to duty in one of the —-stan shitholes. His coworkers said they rotate out after 6mo because they reach their $275,000 tax free limit and take the rest of the year off. He spent a year in north dakota learning with an oil company then went to the north slope for a bit. Hes going to be rich and i just laugh every day at the demand he will bring in 10yrs
 
Getting hired on as a lineman with PGE is notoriously hard because of the insane money. It helps to know someone on the inside. If he doesn’t already know people needs to make some new friends there.
 
You cant just show up with an old dumptruck and take the test like the old days. He will have to have that to drive any company vehicle and be on DOT drug test regimens
Here in Texas 20 years ago when everyone was getting up to speed to get our CDL’s, there were copies of four different tests with answers floating around. If you were half savvy, you could memorize those tests and do the exam in fifteen minutes and get 90% or more of it right.
 
The sky is the limits for a tough young man these days. He can make a solid mint then sit back and idle and start a family after a few years. One young man i taught instruments and controls to when he worked for me as an electrical contractor at GE just got a job with chevron and reported to duty in one of the —-stan shitholes. His coworkers said they rotate out after 6mo because they reach their $275,000 tax free limit and take the rest of the year off. He spent a year in north dakota learning with an oil company then went to the north slope for a bit. Hes going to be rich and i just laugh every day at the demand he will bring in 10yrs
Yeah I did many of those tough young man jobs back in the day for 30 years before the pay scale increase lol
 
Getting hired on as a lineman with PGE is notoriously hard because of the insane money. It helps to know someone on the inside. If he doesn’t already know people needs to make some new friends there.
Actually their grid is so bad and their union is so strong we lost 90% of our linemen to pg&e and their baseload contractors about 3yrs ago. They were paying $90-$95/hr and $500/day per diem and got in trouble for setting more than one pole a day. Theyre still hiring anybody thats ever twisted a wire and wants to sign the book. Severe shortage of manpower and an overwhelming amount of work to do

Heres a posting

 
Actually their grid is so bad and their union is so strong we lost 90% of our linemen to pg&e and their baseload contractors about 3yrs ago. They were paying $90-$95/hr and $500/day per diem and got in trouble for setting more than one pole a day. Theyre still hiring anybody thats ever twisted a wire and wants to sign the book. Severe shortage of manpower and an overwhelming amount of work to do

Heres a posting

Things must have changed over the years. It used to be very clicky. 20 years ago if you weren’t related it was almost impossible to get in.
 
Hedghog you are right the feed is still above ground, but they replaced the poles with bigger thicker poles and put them twice as close together. The feed is out on the main roads and doesn't have the tree problem the rest does. I am confident it is not totally storm proof, but they are trying and thats a start. I was working in georgia when we had the last storm and it was not super close but , my wife said it neever went out for more than 2 minutes a couple of times.
 
Hello group,

If you are a lineman for any of the San Francisco area power company's, please PM me. I like to get recommendations about a career as a lineman.

Thanks
Here in Suckatomato SMUD has a linemen's training facility it is impressive or at least was I have not seen it in many years, I am sure with the way electricity is SO much cleaner they will keep needing more linemen
 
It is for my son. He is 19, tough guy and is a certified welder.

I don't know if the lineman schools are legit or just out there to get my cash. Any suggestions?

Thank you all for your replies.
PG&E has their own lineman schools, one is not to far from where I line, its right outside of Tracy, Ca. My good friend was a lineman for PG&E from age 19 and retired from there, he was an instructor at the school. Even if he gets a job with PG&E as something else its a good idea, just get on with them then he can transfer within, its a foot in the door. They can't find enough people that want to work, my buddy said people would show up and were lazy like a lot of people today, he said 2-3 days and he would send them on their way.
 
You cant do that when you cant even make it to lunch on the first day because you cant bring comfort animals
My first line foreman was a Seabee WWII vet. South Pacific. He was 6-5 and when he barked you got to it. I started as an apprentice in 1970 for $2.93/hr. Times sure have changed. I retired in 2010 and was making 44.00 /hr. as a lead lineman. Loved almost every minute. Also our company ran their own training center. Jeff
 
Last edited:
How much of a young mans game is that? I figure 35 is getting to be old for that job.

A guy I used to abalone dive with used to bring his father in law (nor deceased, I believe) who was a PGE lineman for many decades. He used to bitch a lot about how much easier things were compared to when he started. I'm not implying that it's easy work; just relaying his frame of mind.
 

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Forum statistics

Threads
165,900
Messages
2,206,091
Members
79,207
Latest member
bbkersch
Back
Top