What do you enjoy most about your pipe welder career?

What do you enjoy most about being a pipe welder? What do you dislike the most? Is it challenging? Are there many opportunities to learn and advance?

What keeps you at your job?

Money, laying in the bottom of a ditch with mud oozing into your ear and hood, leaving the motel at 14below zero for another 10 to 18 hours plus, money, rainouts, rattlesnakes in the ditch in the mornings in South Texas, 45 to 50 mph.winds in Wyo. again, money, sleeping in the truck because it is too far and you're too tired to drive back to the nearest town, Working with someone who is better than yourself, that can push and challenge with a sense of humor about it and doesn't have so much ego they aren't any fun to work with. Working with a crew that knows how, and doesn't mind actually working. And again, MONEY.
Opportunity? I went offshore again for old times sake. The ones I saw there had the best of everything,(except perhaps wages) fitting to the welders specs, gaps, high-low,just so, and didn't get run off for bad welds. Most of the crew I worked with were new to welding, and if they made 4-6 welds on some of the easiest inspection I have EVER seen without a repair, crowed pretty loud and the celebration was ON! As far as advancement, know ahead of time that if you are any good at all, there will always be a pipefitter, boilermaker/fitter,Ironworker, or some other former craft fitter as your foreman. Welders that CAN are going to be welders. Of course, there are exceptions such as welder foremen on pipelines that normally come from the welders, and I'm sure there are other exceptions. I have worked as a Fore.Gen.Fore. Supt.,but I also have a pipefitting background (Pipefitters Local 211).

MONEY, working with good people, dislikes? working behind bad fitters- unacessable joints- getting burned- leaves,scars yaknow. Yes their are opportunitys. Apply with a mechanical contractor as a fitter weldor helper, learn the trade, practice welding at every opportunity, ask questions, get ten years experience, buy a rig, go out on your own, starve like the rest of us. What keeps me at my job? MONEY

LOL,,,, WAITING untill I got good at it and telling the fools I learned with to FU ** off and not getting fired

Noel

then there is always MONEY ..... LOL

LMAO. Yeah what they said!