Substation Engineer Trainee Review

Trainee substation SAP. Preparing safety documents for work on and around high voltage equipment

yes

Whilst I do enjoy working here there have been times of high stress, like cramming a 28 week degree program into 12 weeks or having jobs cancelled last minute after travelling halfway across the country mid week.

We have to complete a log book for the program, its listed as one of our conditions for graduating from trainee status. However, borderline no information is provided or assistance given for finding relevant jobs, and in some cases the log book isn't relevant to where we work or even possible. I.e. one unit requires us to be the person in charge on a major maintenance for an SF6 Circuit breaker. As a company, we do not do major maintenances on SF6 breakers, all work in that regard is contracted out externally. Also, as a trainee based in london, for a london team, I have had to spend a month in the midlands working away to gain experience working with Oil Circuit breakers. Whilst this was interesting and enjoyable, we don't have any oil circuit breakers in my base location team, or any of the teams nearby. There are in fact very few, if any oil circuit breakers left that haven't been replaced in all of the london and south east area. I appreciate the expereince and learnt from it, but for my job in london it has very little carry over and came at great cost to the company, and disruption to home life. Outside of this, a lot of support is available, I believe its just an issue with the log book being set by the training centre but completed out in the field.

My team in london are very helpful, its just not always possible to complete the work asked of me by staying with them. I do enjoy the autonomy, we just need an easier and more accurate way of actually finding work.

Yes

I can't seem to select an answer above

Read and understand the log book ahead of time and get yourself access to the plan for work for the whole country as soon as possible