Plant Mech - Antarctica

[longstroke]

Hope its alright to put this up, if not, apologies and please remove:

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/employme...php?JobID=1004

[Local Diggers]

23k salary, freeze your fingers off and miss your family? that pay sucks

[longstroke]

You have a point (or 3), but it is incredible and even the pictures don't do it justice, not that I can upload any from here with this rubbish internet - I'm on ship.

Has no-one else on here worked for BAS in Antarctica? I'm a little surprised with the number of members on here, although the active/semi-active numbers are a lot less.

Just in case it is a potential issue, I work for them, but as a mariner and have no connection with recruitment for this job.

[fastrack]

they advertise in the farmer's weekly also i tried to get a job with them in 2005 but i was unsuccessful. At the time id just returned back to the uk after living in america for 2 years.i wasnt really bothered abt the pay it was just the exsperience of actually being 1 of those people lucky enough to go to anatartica.
ok so you gonna freeze ur pods off for £23.000 a year but what u gonna spend that money on when u are there? you cant go round the corner to the shops can you

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Local Diggers

23k salary, freeze your fingers off and miss your family? that pay sucks

Longstroke,

A colleague of mine did it back in the early 90s, its a good adevnture but ....
no offence at all to you......but it would need to be a lot more to tempt most tech-savvy folks. As I understand its basically Civil Servant-type job. A technician's job in the workshop of a local Ag. College is 21k a year......and that's the west country......almost as quiet as Antarctica, but not so cold

just saying........thats all

Richard

[longstroke]

Richard,

No offence taken - its not what I do either so I had no idea on wage scales. I'm on the ships where we have been doing 4 months away so 6 months away but not cooped up would be great, but I'm not sure if I've the right skills to be a plant mech. Although if I was chasing the money I wouldn't be here either as commercial companies are paying a substantial amount more.

From what I've seen of the Plant Mech job it has parts of a tech's/fitters job in a plant workshop in the UK, but combined with a lot of operation of machinery, and generally getting all the jobs done to keep the bases operating.
Its definitely not all workshop based.
Technology is moving in, which I'm not a big fan off for remote places, or when you can't pop into the dealer, unless you are able to stock stuff that no main dealer would, although that still wouldn't stop the hassle of delving into the guts of a gearbox for a faulty sensor.
If you need it and its not on the shelf you aren't getting it for several weeks if a plane is going that way, or several months if its the middle of winter and -50degC.
Or you can try and make it yourself which is increasingley difficult with more modern machinery.
I suppose that is the main difference between a workshop fitter and a Mech in Antarctica and consequently we have some clever blokes who do impressive things where the manual says take it to your dealer/fit a replacement part.

Farmers sons often turn out to be excellent, and one is now a top man, due to the 'Make it happen' attitude.
(If you're reading this it's meant as a complement, and a thank you for letting me help (play)!)

[Richard]

Originally Posted by longstroke

Farmers sons often turn out to be excellent, and one is now a top man, due to the 'Make it happen' attitude.
(If you're reading this it's meant as a complement, and a thank you for letting me help (play)!)

Maybe some truth in the last statement Longstroke

I been living and working in the former Soviet countries for almost the last 18 years on product support of Ag eqpt, everything from travelling out and fixing it myself in the early days to providing dealer support now.

I should have written a book about the adventures :-)

[longstroke]

Interesting - have you seen many Kirovets tractors?
Would you have any idea of the cost of importing a Kirovets K701 (The 15L V8 turbo diesel version, or I believe they made a bigger engined one)?
:-)

Keep the idea of the book going, there has to be milage in that as not many people will have your experiences.

[JD450A]

Applied and got an interview for a more operator style role a couple years ago. Didn't get it and really it was the last time I intended to apply as realistically settling down is now a larger priority.

[AtlasRob]

When I went out to Algeria in 1979 it wasn't for the money you could earn almost as much on muckshift here, but what an experience and as stated you can't spend any money as there is nothing to buy.
Add on 10k living expenses that your not forking out for and another 5k for the vehicle your not running and it's a more realistic figure 25+10+5 + experience of a life time oops!