I've been a wireman for about 5yrs now, but I've always wanted to be a programmer. I went on Allen Bradley's website last weekend to see how much their Contollogix programming courses cost. They offer classroom and e-courses, but you have to contact the sales dept to get cost info. Monday I told my boss what I wanted to do. I told him I would pay for the courses, and asked who I needed to talk to to get the ball rolling. He said he'd set up a meeting with the president of the company. Wednesday I got my meeting with the president (he's a nice guy, down to earth, easy to talk to). I told him I want to program Controllogix, I didn't expect the company to foot the bill, and all I wanted was sponsorship, and some guidance from the engineering dept as I navigated through the courses. He was taken aback by my ambition. He said our company could teach me more than Allen Bradley ever could, and he'd set me up with the right people to train with. I told him the sooner the better, and to let me know if I have to pay for anything. 20 minutes after that meeting the HR lady assigned me to phase 2 of a steel mill upgrade (I wired all of the cabinets and panels for phase 1). She said I'll be sitting in on an engineering meeting Thursday morning. I was issued a company laptop with all of the programming software for Controllogix, and the rest is history so to speak.
I'm working in the engineering dept now with some very good engineers. The group leader for this mill upgrade pulled me aside before the meeting and told me in so many words that I asked about programming at the exact right time. He showed me an email that was sent out to the engineering dept from one of the higher ups stating that our company was having problems with hardware going out in the field with software issues. The guy in charge of software wasn't doing his job (he didn't mention any names but we know who he's talking about), and it was costing our company and our customers time and money. The higher up was concerned about the future of the company if this kept up, and highly recommended bringing in new people to cross train. The group leader said I'm the guinea pig, the first in line to do anything like this. He said the engineering dept needs someone to pass information down to to keep the company going, and to help take the burden off of them so they can focus on other projects in the works.
I spent all day Thursday and Friday configuring hardware. I'm not an engineer by any stretch, but I built the cabinets for the last phase, and I have a working knowledge of what the parts do and need to do. I asked why I was configuring hardware, and the answer I got was a blank piece of paper slammed down on the table and the following explanation...
"This is what we have right now, nothing. You can't program because there's nothing there to program. You have to configure the components, get a layout ready for drafting, and wait for drafting to give you something to go by before you can even think about programming. You're going to learn the process from square 1, and by the time the programming portion of this job comes around you'll know exactly what needs done software wise..."
Basically this is trail by fire, and I'm going to burn while I learn. I was intimidated at first, but not so much now. I know what I have to do, tap every bit of knowledge I have and make something out of nothing. Sorry for the long winded post but I'm very excited to be in the engineering dept now moving towards the career I want. If you would have asked me what I'd be doing 5yrs ago this certainly would not have been the answer!
I'm working in the engineering dept now with some very good engineers. The group leader for this mill upgrade pulled me aside before the meeting and told me in so many words that I asked about programming at the exact right time. He showed me an email that was sent out to the engineering dept from one of the higher ups stating that our company was having problems with hardware going out in the field with software issues. The guy in charge of software wasn't doing his job (he didn't mention any names but we know who he's talking about), and it was costing our company and our customers time and money. The higher up was concerned about the future of the company if this kept up, and highly recommended bringing in new people to cross train. The group leader said I'm the guinea pig, the first in line to do anything like this. He said the engineering dept needs someone to pass information down to to keep the company going, and to help take the burden off of them so they can focus on other projects in the works.
I spent all day Thursday and Friday configuring hardware. I'm not an engineer by any stretch, but I built the cabinets for the last phase, and I have a working knowledge of what the parts do and need to do. I asked why I was configuring hardware, and the answer I got was a blank piece of paper slammed down on the table and the following explanation...
"This is what we have right now, nothing. You can't program because there's nothing there to program. You have to configure the components, get a layout ready for drafting, and wait for drafting to give you something to go by before you can even think about programming. You're going to learn the process from square 1, and by the time the programming portion of this job comes around you'll know exactly what needs done software wise..."
Basically this is trail by fire, and I'm going to burn while I learn. I was intimidated at first, but not so much now. I know what I have to do, tap every bit of knowledge I have and make something out of nothing. Sorry for the long winded post but I'm very excited to be in the engineering dept now moving towards the career I want. If you would have asked me what I'd be doing 5yrs ago this certainly would not have been the answer!
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