I have a new engineer-in-training who joined the company back in October. Last week we did a site vist to a fertilizer plant. We spent four days tramping around in the ammonia, nitric oxide, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and other similar fun gases - the peak experience was riding the elevator up 15 stories to the top of the ammonium nitrate prilling tower wearing hard hats, hearing protection, goggles, and respirators. Later we were told "Oh, we never use that elevator...it breaks down all the time". At one other place in the plant there was enough ammonia leaking into the air to make my eyes water, though thankfully the respirators worked well.
I told my new EIT that this was the worst site-visit she'd ever likely have to make working for our company.
We have a perennial problem getting enough electrical theory work for our EITs - sometimes in the consulting business you spend months and months doing things like contract administration or site visits. Perhaps at a consultant with a larger electrical department this gets easier, our firm does mostly heavy civil so we electricals and mechanicals are pretty much in the "necessary evil" category.
Any good tips on how to train an EIT?
Bill