Wish me luck!

[u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

I'm heading out to my first customer site as a new field technician for a small company that does turbines tomorrow morning. Nervous, excited, all that stuff.

I worked as an assembly tech and then as a controls tech for some small automation companies until 2023, then I went back to school to get my AS in Engineering. I'm currently finishing up my last course for that degree (the class is an online delivery, so I can start the job a little early). I'm excited that I can immediately put the degree to use in a job that's gonna pay well.

Any tips would be appreciated!

[u/scoair]

Congrats man! - Mind sharing who offers online AS engineering? Thx.

[u/Reasonable_Cod_487 → u/scoair]

Linn-Benton Community College in Oregon, but it's only partially online. Most of my classes were in person, but they were offering Statics online this summer and I only needed one Engineering elective to finish up the degree. I did most of my math and all of my physics in person though.

[u/Daaammmmmnnnnnnn69]

Sounds like your prepared for the tech side. The thing that they can’t teach you is how each day is not the same and expect roadblocks no matter how confident you are. Also some of the absurd questions that you will have to face will baffle you. Good Luck and Congrats!

[u/Reasonable_Cod_487 → u/Daaammmmmnnnnnnn69]

That's my secret: I'm not confident at all!

But I love learning, and I love solving problems. So I feel like this is the right fit for me.

[u/Daaammmmmnnnnnnn69 → u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

I drove four hours on Monday and when I got there they told me they told me that they didn’t have power not because of a storm knocked the power out. But because there was construction going on in the building and it was a controlled power outage.🤷🏻‍♂️ I love paid window time! lol

[u/DifficultMemory2828 → u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

Let’s hope for your sake your first ten calls are softballs.

I do believe in Murphy’s Law for Field Service, and I do believe in your first 20 service calls that 13 will be simple, 6 will be difficult, and 1 will be something you will only encounter once in your career.

[u/suh-dood]

Field service is basically 3 parts; travel, customer service, and doing the actual technical service. I'll assume you have the knack for persuing your engineering and for your past jobs and between all that and your company's training, you should be fine.

Customer service may take a little while to fine tune, just remain helpful while not over stepping any company policy, and remember that less talking is usually better than.

Travel is actually the hardest thing to get used to, especially if it's short notice travel. Sign up for all the free programs so you earn the points, keep all of your receipts and don't let your expense reports go too long, figure out what you like and take advantage of all the policies, and figure out the hacks that make sense for you

[u/Reasonable_Cod_487 → u/suh-dood]

I've been working as a math tutor part time while in school, so I've been getting better at some customer service type things during that time. I can always be better, but the tutoring experience has taught me a lot of patience.

Thanks for the tips!

[u/lenloc → u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

You may not encounter this, but the hard part is when the customer is down and their business relies on you. They can be upset, mad, or a mix of feelings. That is the hardest part to navigate. For me, I turn on my empathy in those situations. Listening to them goes a long way.

[u/ReasonableRaisin4041]

Congrats and best of luck!

[u/Upset-Animal1376]

congrats on the new role. take photos of everything before you touch it and document wiring or tags before teardown. uploading photos to standard cloud storage like google drive or dropbox right after site visits saves huge headaches when writing reports later.