My Situation/Relocation Advice
Hey yall, first off, I found this sub a few weeks ago and honestly you guys have helped a lot with your answers and bringing up things I never thought about, I'd like to say thank you. Now a little about myself, I'm 19, and I found out about this trade through some career research I had done in a vocational program through my school. So, I did some research on my own time, and this trade really captivated me, I don't have that much construction experience, but through the vocational school, me and my class built a house under the supervision of a teacher, who had been in construction for 20 years, and he was great. I loved the work, anyways, I had asked my other teacher about how I could get into the elevator union, and he said he knew someone that worked for the elevator union, and she said they needed people, so he offered to connect me with her. Well, news flash, he never did, and every time i would ask, he'd say he would get in touch but never would. Point is, since then I've gone and done research on my own time. I have some notes on the types of elevators that exist, how they work, how their safety mechanisms work, and I also discovered a channel called MQ elevators on Youtube. The channel is pretty much an elevator mechanic that records himself on call fixing elevators. This channel helped me see what to expect when working in that field, and, when I saw him talk about anything I didn't understand, I would do research. What I noticed is that in most of his videos he would always have the prints for the elevators he worked on, and so I'm working on that skill. Regardless, through his videos I got to see how he would diagnose and fix the issues with the elevators, and I also got to see parts of an elevator that I hadn't known about. For about a year and a half now, I've been gradually checking the NEIEP website for their recruitments, and I had been waiting for applications in Local 2 in Chicago to open up. The recruitment got pushed back a year so instead I've applied to Local 55 in Peoria Illinois, and Local 34 in Indiana. I've looked at the EIAT study guide on the NEIEP website and it gave me a bit of an idea what to expect, but I'm also taking the iPrep study course to ensure I'm ready. Now, regarding the commute, the drive to Local 55 is about 2 hours from where I live, and Local 34 is a different story because I have relatives that I can stay with an hour away from Indianapolis. I am aware that the job takes travel, even more so in Local 55 because it covers 52 counties, so that's not an issue. I had seen someone in the sub talking about how you could apply to pretty much every local in the country and work there for a year or two, then try to transfer to a different local, but I was wondering how relocating would work. I don't mind moving at all, but I've just graduated from highschool a year ago, so I don't have a crazy amount saved up, or enough to just move in general. That being said, I know that some companies assist with relocation, so I was wondering if there was anyone in here that has had to move and how that went for them. If so, I'd like to know, and thank you guys for your time.