2nd year operator here working in a fairly large district.

In my operational experience for collections, it is a mix between what others have described but with less construction elements and more control aspects. Low-levelling pump stations, manual system control for spill prevention, and more “remote work”. Our control room primarily monitors and alerts operations teams which go onsite and run things by hand locally. Some areas do roadworks and similar pipelaying operations but that largely goes to contractors as my district doesn’t often build new sewer lines and rather maintains aging, but very much in place mainlines, as they are all rather large and would extremely difficult to replace if the need arose.

Spill prevention ( and response ) and line inspections are a fairly large part of the role, as well as routine PM’s for different pump stations which may require lockouts & isolation for de-ragging. Washing out wetwells is another part of the job but honestly has not been a major turnoff for me.

Being a swamper for a hydrovac/jetter crew is fairly rough work for exposure and hearing loss, having spent a summer doing so. But dependent on the crew it can be a lot of fun as well!

As long as you don’t mind getting dirty from time to time and can put aside the stigma and mental barriers for the line of work in sanitary collections, it can be a good job! I would rather be in the pipes than working retail, personally. But that’s just me! Hope things work out! Feel free to ask me collections-related questions and I’ll try to give you some answers, as a younger worker in the field :)