The Humble Meter Monkey

[ukants]

The oft reviled “meter monkey” has come in for a bit of stick by just about every spark I’ve come across on the usual sites [screwfix, diynot, iet]; but are we being too harsh? I came across one today who’s made me think. Okay he’s a bit of an exception, I think, but still. My naturally superior attitude towards him took a bit of a knock when it turned out he had the same quals as me (2330 part 3, 2381, 2391) and had actually more self-employed experience than I had! Curiosity replaced condescending and I asked about what some might construe as a lack of ambition. Then he reeled off what he considers the benefits of his job compared to mine:

- guaranteed wage (£16.5k basic). Okay not huge but he has no mortgage or loans (git!); regular 37.5 hours a week ( and 1 in 3 emergency call out weekend cover); no worries or hassle with insurance, part p, quotes, equipment (inc. transport), paperwork, quiet periods, customers not paying on time or at all, extra unaccounted for hours sourcing parts, quoting for jobs you don’t get, looking up regs etc. No sleepless nights worrying about problems/ lack of work/ bad test results etc.
Okay, he got me at a vulnerable time as I’ve just had someone default on a payment for the second time in as many weeks. I’ve no doubts there’s more downsides to his job than just the relatively low wage and the overall derogatory attitude of others in the industry towards his position…..BUT…I can see where he’s coming from. Can you?

 

[Steve]

I earn about the same as him.

My job is relatively unskilled and i do similar hours.

Everyone!! Become a retail duty manager!

 

[RF Lighting]

I think the major difference is the fact that he is employed, whereas you are self employed.

I am employed, and I have a guaranteed minimum wage (i.e. before overtime) every week, and have no worries about the things you listed.

(I hardly ever do domestic work, so no part P to worry about )

I leave work and forget all about it until the following morning.

 

[plugwash]

I would imagine meter work gets pretty boring, one meter position must be much the same as the next and afaict any problems with the supply discovered by the meter guys get passed to a different department.

 

[Roo]

Sounds like you'd be surprised how many of my colleagues are sparks.

When I first started meter fixing I think I was the only one in my area that wasn't qualified as a spark.

All the other lads had been here since the days of the board and trained with the board as sparks, when their job went they were offered meter fixing.

I've now moved area's due to moving house and now there is only one of us out of 6 that is a qualified spark, mainly because we've had a lot of new starters and we're not trained as sparks just get the training for working on our network.

There are various course's that my work provide which means if I wanted to get a qual i could and as AFAIK it would be free to do.

I like my job and couldn't really give a toss if a spark looks down on me,

I'm at home for dinner at the minute and have been on a job this morning where a group of sparks were working on an estate removing storage heaters (as their all being fitted with gas CH) and fitting new CU's to all the house's.

They had left 2.5 T& E from NEW CU (so I presumed it may be live) dangling in the cupboard with some yellow tape on the end.

As I've mentioned I'm not a spark but surely it wouldn't of taken them 2mins to remove it, the new CU was also loose from the wall and they had snapped the lug on one side of the clear plastic cover and so it was just placed over the mcb's and RCD.
Just because of what I consider to be lazy bas**rds like that I don't look down on sparks and call them all lazy.

They'd also cut the seal on the time clock and removed all cabling to it which then didn't allow the clock to tell the meter to use the low rate hence the customer was paying the higher price 24/7. (That was what I was there to sort).

I know it happens and people do look down on people in different jobs but until they have done the job or learnt about the job (timeclock above) they shouldn't.

 

[JohnD]

glad to hear there is an option of retraining.

my worry about someone being a meter-man is that he might get stuck in a deadend job with no hope of future advancement e.g. if he starts having kids, wanting a bigger mortgage, a new mistress or whatever.

I suppose it must be worse for people who join one of those meter-management sub-contract firms.

 

[Roo]

I see what your saying John but no....

We are forever being told there are loads of course's available to us not just electrical either, it's something called OPEN LEARNING.

I'm not to sure but I think the company I work for got recognized (by someone or other) for offering employees non job related training a few years ago.

I must admit you can only see most of whats available on the works intranet, and when your not working in the office it can be a pain to get near a works computer.

But if I really wanted to do something or look at whats available I could just walk into the office and ask a boss for the nearest available computer.

We also get told once a month of all vacancies within the company, a mate of mine has gone for a team leader's job a few times.

Come to think of it I was told the bloke that is now in charge of my dept (the old metering) started off as a meter reader and worked his way up, don't know if it's true as I've never asked him

 

[JohnD]

I started at the bottom and worked my way down

 

[securespark]

What you get to next depends on which way up she is...

 

[qwilpen]

roo

if you work for sp then our ops manager is an ex meter reader.

 

[djrichie_t]

Not like back in the days where electricity board people were treated with respect.... but all is not lost. When i finished my apprenticeship as an electrical fitter, my job was to work on, maintain, install and commission very high voltage equipment upto and including 132kV.

Part of our job was this 'joint agreement' thing where we were sometimes asked to help out with other departments if they needed it... and muggins had to go round on metering/installation inspections for a few weeks to cover the backlog.

Yep i met some sparkys there who tried looking down on me in the same sort of way but as soon as I told them my real job/qualifications (C&G232LCGI parts 1 2 and 3 before carrying on to engineering) they soon shut up. Consequently I had to fail some of their installations too, which they thought was 'just passable' - part of what had to be done before connecting a meter and authorising the supply onto a new installation.

Now im too chilled out kinda guy to care really but if im needed people know where to find me

Must be summin about being 34

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Some network/supplier jobs can be interesting, varied and challenging....

 

[djrichie_t]

just remember not to touch anything thats earthed, nor reach across to shake hands with his colleague working on the other line.... on a different phase

Yeah it can get very interesting.... especially working in substations where you have live 132,000 volt busbars a few feet away, what was worse the safety guidelines let you work alot closer than you thought would be possible.

Worst bit is when picking up tools/spanners, they get charged up and if youre not expecting it, it hurts when you grab hold of them.

Oh heres someone having a play with a few thousand volts.... if that was me the metal fillings would be resonating like anything and i would taste metal for weeks!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4kXgDBFhw&feature=related

And this very similar sort of thing happened in a village near us, and we had to sort out the aftermath. I only just started my apprenticeship and got lots of overtime from it ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkDCS8xeobg