GE T.A. vs Control and Instrument Engineer

Hello,

I would like to listen to a personal experience of GE TA or Ex TA!

Currently I am working as a "Control & Instrument" Engineer for Oil & Gas project. I am employed on project basis. Most of the projects I have worked on are Offshore Platform (17 years on various locations).

Recently I received an offer from GE Oil & Gas to join them as a Control T.A.

I would presume that some of you on this forum are TA or Ex TA. If you guys don't mind sharing some inside info in terms of the following...

- How do you like TA job when compared to an ordinary Control & Instrument job?

- How has this job affected your personal life?

- Would like to keep your career as T.A. or want to go back to do many more things as an ordinary Control & Instrument Engineer?

All your thought is a valuable input.

Thanks and Regards,

Green man

Hi Buddy,

Both jobs stay same. Working for GE is like working for the whole world... You have opportunity to move around the world for your job. You feel great travelling and meeting people around various sites. You gain lot of knowledge from GE as it has a very strong backbone and don't forget it is the biggest company in the world to produce gas turbines. I have great respect for GE.

It is up to persons if they wanna travel around or just stay in one location.

What do you want from the experience of being a GE Controls T.A.?

Money?

Travel?

Experience and training?

Professional advancement? (If so, what do you see yourself doing when you want to stop being a Controls T.A.?)

Do you like travel, especially on a moment's notice? Do you like traveling from one job directly to another, with little or no time at home or in between?

Do you like being an investigative specialist?

Do you like working under pressure and time constraints?

Will you be doing new unit installations or control system retrofits or maintenance outages, or all three?

You need to be able to find a lot of personal satisfaction from your work.

And, it *will* become your life. It can be a good life, or a bad life; it all depends on your attitude, and that can change with time and familial circumstances. Family relationships and friendships are tough when you travel a lot, and as a Controls T.A. you will be traveling a lot. Controls T.A.s are at a premium right now, there aren't enough to go around. Good ones are even harder to find, and will be worked, er, uh, working, that much more and harder.

It can be a very satisfying job; it just depends on your attitude and circumstances, and your expectations. You will work with many of the best and brightest in the business, but you will need to ask a lot of questions because one of the most frustrating things for people when they join GE is that they think there is this huge well of documentation and procedures and training. Things change so fast and documentation is the last thing to be written (especially for controls-related equipment) and most "procedures" are learned from others or developed by yourself during your extensive on-the-job training, which is nearly every day. Learning new things can be fun, if you have the time and aren't under pressure.

Also, you should be prepared to put in a lot of time studying and reflecting to be the best T.A. you can be. I'm talking about taking some time after each assignment, and thinking, "How could I have been better prepared for that assignment? What could I have done to improve my performance on that assignment?"

The money is good, and it is attractive. Just remember: nothing is free. You will earn good money, and you will travel a lot. You will meet a lot of really interesting people, some will be nicer than others, and some will be extremely pleasant and easy-going and others will be downright hostile. As a Controls T.A. working for GE, most Customers don't care how many hours you have to put in (until they have to sign your timesheet!), or how many days in a row you work. They just want the work done, and they generally consider Controls T.A.s to be a necessary evil, with heavy emphasis on the evil part. They think when the last flange bolt is tightened the unit should be ready to start, and that's just *not* the case, almost ever.

Me, I miss the work; but Customer expectations are so high these days and things are changing so fast and with so little "notice" or documentation, that virtually every time you step on a new site you will be learning something new (in some cases unlearning something you just learned!), and you will be expected to know it before you got on site, and you will be under pressure to get it done yesterday. The technical aspect of the "job" is only a small fraction of the "job". The harder part, and the much larger part, is the interpersonal part, and that's getting tougher by the day as units get more expensive and more complicated and more Customers don't really understand the units and don't really care to know the details. Sometimes the round corporate symbol can be a target.

The above might seem downright negative. The positive aspect of the job is that when you get to do something correctly, and when you solve a problem and get a unit running again, and when you get a few minutes (and that's about all you'll get) to actually explore some part of the world you've been sent to you can feel really good. Really good. But, that comes from within, not from the money they pay you, and that's true of just about every job.

Remember: We really only work for the money (most of us anyway). Any
other satisfaction we get comes from inside, and depends on our attitude. What we're willing to look past, and where we're willing to find the satisfaction we need, and recognizing what gives us satisfaction.

So, what are your expectations? What do you need to be satisfied with your job?

And, give a little thought to what you're going to do after you've been a GE T.A. It changes your life, and your perspective. And, if you get accustomed to the money, when you get tired of the rest of it you will find it very difficult to find something else that pays as well.