I've been working at a tire plant 33 miles away for around 8-1/2 years now, Continental Tire's Mt Vernon, IL plant, ~60 acres under roof. A help wanted ad came up in the local paper, a local plant, less than 7 miles from home, was looking for maintenance workers that could run mills, lathes, weld, and program PLC's. I had an abundance of about every required and desired skill, so I applied.
I started last Monday, the new job makes electrical cables, drawing copper or aluminum wire and making cables, 2 Awg to 1500MCM. The position just seems to be a good fit, they are in need of someone with my skill set and the tire factory outsourced the work that I could have done for them. I feel uneasy about changing jobs at this time, going from mid seniority to bottom man, but in the new position my skill set most closely matches the top mans skills, they hired me to help because they had no one else that could upgrade obsolete equipment and change the program as required. So I save 52 miles a day in driving and have a job that should fit my interests and skills better.
I'm enjoying learning the new processes anyway, drawing and annealing the wire at least has some metalworking!
RogerN