I think it's the workplace equality thing too. In some fields, being a woman is enough to get hired.

Good point, didn't think about that. I assumed it would be harder for her because of the nature of the job..

I know a guy who was doing smokey environment rescue or some shit and he was up in Fort Mac at some safety seminar.


They had a huge classroom with 100+ guys in it and they were running down a checklist of things to do in an emergency, one of the instructors was quizzing everyone on something like, in what order do you rescue personnel?

Someone yelled out "By skin colour, whites first, pakis last"

The whole room laughed!

That's the mentality up there, as far as I've heard!

i make jokes like that often and im EI.

Well that's it. You heard 1 story and it's obviously like that. Or the folks who actually work there can tell you what's up.

It's a male dominated work place. If you can't handle some teasing or joking you're gonna be an outcast in any male dominated work place.

Every single woman I've worked with in industrial has had an epic sense of humour.

I'm a chink up here.

That's pretty much what I heard too. Really bad for keeping your skills up to date too.. But lots of free time to study/online courses I guess. Any idea what the pay is like and how in demand they are right now?

Also, if people are seriously thinking of entering that kind of job market, but don't want to live in Fort McMurray, there are lots of jobs available in NISKU which is just south of Edmonton (across from the airport). It is one of the world's largest energy industrial parks, and a lot of the stuff that gets built there makes its way up to Fort McMurray. Not sure if the pay is the same as Fort McMurray, but it is a good start as every company had a Help Wanted sign out front when I drove through there last month.

Goddamn you couldn't pay me 200k to live anywhere east of Main street

As far as "oil patch" jobs go the money isn't very good. But you'll make more than the equivalent job in the mainland and since it's such easy work you can easily do a 5 week hitch and not be completely burnt out. From what I was told you get a day rate, then you get paid substantially more if you actually have to do some medic work.

No Kidding.. you are not there actually building anything. I think medic is a good side thing to have but if you want the big $ you still have to get dirty or high up in management.

It seems the undertone in this thread is how to get a job in the oil sands without much training and/or upfront cost, won't get you dirty / laborious but gets you tons of money. I haven't seen any unicorns like that have you?

IMO medic is right up there with security in terms of the worst possible career path to take advantage of in the oil sands.

Again IMO, absolute quickest way to make the most money is via NDT/Inspection. Notice I didn't say the easiest, it's far from the most labor intense job, but some people still can't hack it.

An expensive, though excellent introduction into the field is offered at SAIT, from here you can get out and immediately work towards your hours, end up with various CGSB tickets in less than a year... and then hello 200K/year if you work like a dog and you're not a retard.

Non-Destructive Testing Foundations | SAIT Polytechnic | Calgary, Alberta

There is also the glorious fact that these tickets could even get you work locally with a decent wage as well :)

You should venture east of Main Street more often. The blow is still pretty good. :toot:

I'm off the booger sugar!!!

Finally got my GPO certificate (after graduating last year). :toot:

Not that I'll use it ... or remember anything from it.

Hoping I can get a solid 6-figure (or at least high-5-figure) job here, but if I can't, what can a 3rd class power engineer with instrumentation and gas processing certificates in addition to DDC programming and HVAC experience make in AB?

Hope to have all of them done by the end of next year.

150k - 250k, thats if you want to work in the oilsands. But im sure some city jobs pay right up there as well. Dunno if you will need ALL that at the job you apply for, still helps to make the resume look better.

For sure.. I was just looking into doing it for the short term while waiting to take the next level paramedic course. Definitely do not wanna be in industry paramedicine as a career.

My cousin is looking to get into a job at fort mac when he's done schooling, he's a first year electrician. Any suggestions for good companies ?

This. They're always looking for inspectors, and the pay is great. Plus, once you have some experience, getting a contractor job allows you to make a ridiculous amount of money if you're not looking for job security.

Yea lots of racism up here.
Especially towards to middle eastern demographic.
And oddly enough the Jamaican black people are racist towards the African black people.

Mostly towards Newfies.

Well I work in retail up here and two of my managers are black, I am asian and I have 3 Caucasian managers. Often times when we get called up the customer would ask to speak to a white manager.... They usually say "I want to speak to someone that's actually Canadian"
I have had to kick a few people out of my store for calling my staff the n word.

Now I don't hire anybody on the tfw program, but because a lot of my staff are not white, people automatically assume that these staff are on foreign work visas (which they are not) and they make comments about how as a company we need to hire more good old fashioned Canadian workers. (which means white people to them)

Racism is everywhere, unfortunately.

Having worked in a few small towns... I must say a lot of times it is ignorance rather than pure racism.
Hard to believe, but a lot of small town folks have a hard time understanding how you can be "Canadian" if you are not white or I guess native (but there is a lot of racism there too).
When I worked in vernon, I had staff that had never been to vancouver and have a hard time believing me when I tell them that over 50% of the population in Richmond is asian.

Can confirm did somethign similiar. Quit after my second rotation because I hated how bored I was.

Just scrolling instagram today I saw that my cousin who is a hairdresser went up to work on a rig.

It makes no fucking sense to me. He has a successful youtube channel and Hairdressers do well (easily 70-80k a year) but chose to go become a rig pig.

I'm guessing he's doing a rotation then comes back to cut hair?

Either way good luck to those that head up. Thinking about doing my 3rd year of my apprenticeship up north.