CAREER DEVELOPMENT
bearer of bad news and it’s not fun. When a job is quoted for four to fi ve weeks of maintenance, that’s what the customer expects. You don’t get more time to repair the issues you fi nd. You are pressured to get them done and still meet the same out date. This usually means mandatory overtime and more pressure from management. Throwing more people on a job is not always the answer. Some jobs can’t be rushed to save time. You must maintain your quality standards. If you work with a fl eet of like aircraft, the jobs can become
mundane and repetitive. While repetition of tasks can increase effi ciency, it doesn’t do much for excitement. You need to learn to discipline yourself so that you can maintain your motivation for each project. You need to look at each aircraft with the same intensity as the one before it or you will miss something. Just going through the motions of inspection while your mind is somewhere else is a recipe for disaster. I was often moved from project to project while working in the hangar. When one project was bogging down or ran into unforeseen issues, I usually went over to help the project leads out until we could get things moving again. This meant that I missed out on the satisfaction of working on a project from beginning to end. Working in a large shop with many mechanics, you kind of get lost and there isn’t much individual acknowledgement of a job well done. I know it’s a
team eff ort but there were always those team members who put in less eff ort than others. It can get discouraging to carry other workers’ weight. I’m sure I could come up with many more “cons” about this job but this is not my intent. I would rather focus on the positive aspects of a career than the negative issues of a job. These are some of the pros and cons of each type and
it’s up to you to decide for yourself which type would be more suited for you. There is a major shortage of helicopter mechanics in all areas I mentioned, so if you are serious about any of them, you should be able to fi nd a job. There might be concessions that you need to make such as location, but that would be with any job. As my dad used to say, “A job and life is only what you make it. It can be a positive experience or a negative one. It’s up to you.”
Terry L. Peed has been in aviation for more than 45 years and is a licensed A&P and IA. He is the chief inspector for Helicopter Specialties Inc., a certifi cated FAA repair station that performs heavy helicopter maintenance, completions with painting capabilities and avionics installations.
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October | November 2015
HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com
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