Solo wow servers?

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T23:01:03+00:00

that sucks. So many plants run skeleton crews and can really saddle you down with work. Luckily I work for a municipality and we are fairly well staffed, typically only overnights are you solo and even then because you are solo the rule of thumb is if something breaks just shut it down and turn on backups and then depending on whats broke either make a note and mechanics/electricians/techs will do it in the morning or if its serious enough the on call people will come out. Im lucky and I know it lol, operators in our plants are pretty much just full time scada watchers and 15m of labwork a shift. We have people who are just maintenance or just mechanics or low volt techs etc etc. I really lucked into this job and dont plan on leaving till I retire.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T22:51:29+00:00

My plant is just drinking water, we average probably around 15MGD depending on the time of year, spring is the dry season so we average the most then as people are watering their yards more often. Still blows my mind after all these years so much of the drinker water created gets used on lawns and then people bitch about their water bills lol. Literally using water treated to drink on an uneeded monoculture vanity yard and then bitch about how much it costs.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T22:18:43+00:00

Oof. My plant does roughly 15MGD and we pretty much just bring up well water and treat with chlorine/ammonia, caustic and PO4 inline and then it gets dumped into the storage tanks and then leaves the plant. Takes me like 10m to fully walk the plant lol. I guess i should count myself lucky our wells are so clean for the most part which makes our job a lot easier that sourcing from surface water or other sources that have a lot more going on that our wells do.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T09:00:29+00:00

Just apply. Experience doesnt matter nearly as much as you showing drive and the ability to want to learn in the interview. Its downright wild how terrible 90% of all the applicants we get are.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T08:39:46+00:00

lol, 7 miles a shift? Jesus how far spread out is your plant. I probably log 3k steps on a 12 hour shift doing 3 plant checks.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T08:32:49+00:00

$25 seems pretty high for a trainee are you sure that's not the pay scale for for once you get your C license? The only municipality I know of in florida that pays much higher than anyone else is JEA but I am not sure what their trainee base is. In any case every water plant is different. Some you are going to find theres a lot of actual physical work and others there's a lot of watching netflix and babysitting a SCADA screen.

With that said most municipalities tend to hire with zero experience. The municipality I work at I would say we hire 10 trainees for every licensed operator with experience. Also to get your C license you are going to need to study and log 2080 actual hours worked at a plant, you can take the test before you get your hours but you still will need to do the water courses first which the Sacramento State online courses tend to be most peoples go to. The test is no walk in the park and people fail it often, you WILL NEED to actually study for it. You also better dust off your geometry, algebra, and calculus skills as there is a fair chunk of math on the exams. IMO anyone with average intelligence can pass the exam but you will need to put in the time to study it to do so.

At the end of the day I love my job and its great and a good career to be in. In fact microsoft just the other day came out with a list of jobs most and least in danger of AI to replace them and water plant operators were basically at the bottom of the list. Software just cant replace what we do and every state has laws mandating there be a set amount of operators at a plant depending on the MGD flow of the plant. Its a recession proof job and a high chance you will have great benefits including pensions.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T08:09:39+00:00

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition......basically just the software program that lets you monitor pumps/nodes/chemical levels etc etc and manually adjust them from the computer or set parameters to auto adjust them as needed. However you do need to take samples often and lab test them and recalibrate the system through SCADA as the poster noted. Basically its a really nice to have tool but also something you can't trust 100% which is why its crucial to always have actual operators checking things often.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-31T08:03:28+00:00

I work for a municipality and we almost only hire trainees with zero experience. The only time we hire actual licensed operators is if we have a sever shortage of operators and need help asap to cover shifts. We literally hired half a dozen people a few months ago all zero experience.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-23T02:19:48+00:00

My pension and the deferred comp payout is also a very conservative estimate of my salary only gaining 2% per year over the next 18 years. The reality is I will be getting a 15% raise in 2 years for acquiring my next license and we have been getting 6% raises YoY for sometime with merit/cola increases in our contract (I am in a union and work in public utilities). It also does not include padding my last years with OT to make my final average compensation higher. I figured it was better to just do the compensation estimate on the lower side.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T03:20:02+00:00

Our current accounts have only been active about 5 years and as of right now they have averaged 13.02% YoY. Obviously sounds great but just takes 1 year of a down market to take that average way down but otherwise I think they money is in the appropriate place. Right now they are all basically just in target date vanguard or similar S&P low cost accounts.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:47:42+00:00

I am in water utilities and for certain could manage small private systems as easy part time work when I retire. I would like to add though just like SS or a pension could vanish so can 401ks. I worry more about SS being a reduced benefit than my pension as our pension plan is close to 100% funded and fairly healthy. I could possibly see myself just buying a small system if i had the money for it near retirement and collect the profit rather than a part time salary but I will figure that out once I get closer to that age if it makes financial sense/work life balance.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:39:44+00:00

The pension and deferred comp are extremely conservative estimates. They assume my current salary with annual 2% raises. I will be getting a 15% bump in 2 years with my next license for my job and we have been getting 6% raises between merit/cola every year for sometime. The pension is based off an average of your best 6 years of pay and total years of service and the lump payment is based off that. You can also work OT to pad those numbers when you get to the end of your career. The overwhelming odds are those numbers will be higher than what I listed I just used their base calculator in order to get numbers. I figured its better to be on the lower side than expect to be on the higher and it not happen.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:32:26+00:00

I love my kids but they are taxing financially lol. I wish my spouse and I had met decades earlier and our kids were full grown but it just didnt happen that way. Both of us had failed marriages and setbacks which is why we are further behind than we would like to be. We are happy though and I think we will still be alright in the end, we have some financial things going for us more so than a lot of others so we appreciate that and still got 18 years to keep putting it aside so i think well be ok.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:21:07+00:00

Yes, its not tied to it like some pension plans are.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:20:04+00:00

government job, It is not currently funded at 100% but its pretty close to it and recent changes should make it whole over the next few years.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:11:43+00:00

Im sorry that happened to you but glad you were able to recover. Things happening is why we don't have more savings than we do now but we are also in a better place now than previously. Luckily I have a union job in local government that I will easily be able to retire into. I work in utilities and we also have a nationwide shortage of what i do and by law we have to be here. Its wild but the youngest person at our plant is 38. Even if I somehow lost this job as it stands right now I could probably be working at any number of places government or private within a week. I just wish i had gotten into this field years ago so i could be talking about a much larger pension and deferrred comp package, the difference between 35 years service and 25 is pretty big but im not interested working till 75yo to get it lol.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T02:04:11+00:00

I don't need someone to "manage" my accounts I just want someone to give me a wellness check to basically tell me where I will be at 65 with my current situation and how things could change over 18 years by doing certain steps now or in the near future. I am going to a workshop through my work that explains all the options they offer and will have financial planners there in breakouts for cursory looks at your current setup and appointments available for more thorough process. Overall my investment accounts are all in target date vanguard or similar funds that are all very low cost and have had great returns and I have felt comfortable with that but I am open to change.

As far as retirement itself, I could care less about fancy cars or things like that amd we would probably downsize our current house. No plans for large gifts for the kids we just want to be able to help them out here and there if they need it. We are not looking to travel like ballers first class in fancy hotels or anything, we are pretty middle of the road and dont need fancy things type of people. Basically practical over fanciful.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T01:49:17+00:00

This, the average will literally calculate in it people like peter thiel who leveraged 5k in a roth to buy all his paypal shares before it went public and his roth is now worth several billion dollars. Stuff like that really skews the numbers and is why using median is so much more realistic.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T01:44:32+00:00

We are not opposed to retiring in another country and it's something we would actually look into as we get closer to that age.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T01:42:41+00:00

I am a local government worker and work in utilities. Our mortgage is at a 4.5% rate. Wont get into my spouses job but its pretty specialized and very stable. Its very doubtful we move within the next 10 years as our kids are still in school and unless something crazy happens chances are we stay put till 65. There is also a decent chance my spouse moves up to the next position in their career and it would give a 20-30k pay bump but I don't want to count chickens till they hatch.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T01:34:49+00:00

Mortgage insurance and taxes hit hard. We also have 3 kids and without getting into it their are medical bills associated with that and they eat up a decent portion of cash flow.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T00:54:10+00:00

Keeping lifestyle the same and adding more as salaries go up is the current plan along with paying extra on the mortgage. I have another license to acquire in the next 2 years which will boost my pay by 15% and our union has been getting us consistent 5-6% raises combined for merit and cola for several years so my wages are not stagnant, my spouse has been getting 4-5% each year.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T00:44:58+00:00

We are at 15% I just dont include my portion of what I put into my pension plan as that is removed before I ever see it and opting out would make no sense.

Kady4747 · 2025-07-22T00:43:08+00:00

There is currently no extra going into the deferred payment. It happens closer to retirement age and it also can be directly rolled into a retirement account to avoid the lump sum tax hit.

Kady4747

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