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Q&A session with a Dominion Energy night-shift trouble-call lineworker
William, a Dominion Energy journeyman, lineworker, answers questions about his career.
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Dominion Energy lineworker William Waymyer shares his experiences working the night shift.
Journeyman, William, works through the night responding to trouble calls within his community.
One day when I was coming home from high school, I saw a guy doing work on a pole in my neighborhood. I didn’t know what his job was called, but I found it intriguing. From that point on, that's all I ever wanted to do. In 2000, I started my career at Dominion Energy in customer service as a meter reader. It was a little challenging but then I had the opportunity to come to electric operations as an apprentice lineworker. I went through the apprentice program and have been a lineworker ever since.
Today, I am a lineworker who focuses on trouble calls. I work the night shift and handle service calls which can be a wide range of things – tree limbs on lines or pole fires. It's usually just one or two people in a bucket truck responding to these calls.
As a lineworker, we're responsible for the vital foundation of our infrastructure. I mean, what can you do without power these days? We recently had a call where a car ran into a pole and we had to respond because once a circuit goes out – churches, schools, hospitals, government offices – the whole community can be impacted. It could be 1 a.m. in the morning, but we're always here and ready to go.
“We're just as valuable as first responders. We respond to car accidents, storm restoration, and various other outages daily, but our value is never seen until the lights go out.”
Storms can definitely add a little bit of complexity to our jobs. Working in the dark of night is hard enough and then you add cold and rainy conditions, it makes the job tougher. And sometimes we're walking through the woods with possible downed lines or tree limbs while trying to watch out for animals. It's things of that nature that most people don't realize we’re experiencing – but either way, we answer the call.
A few weeks ago, we had a call about a power outage. When we arrived, we started looking for the cause of the problem and saw three raccoons hanging out on the top of the pole. The line was dead, so they weren’t in any danger, but we couldn’t do our jobs until they were safely removed. After 10 minutes, they eventually jumped off but that’s just a little taste of situations we deal with.
My favorite part about my job is the camaraderie and just being a part of a team. I enjoy bringing the young guys along, teaching them the best that I can and then seeing their growth over the years – it's a rewarding feeling. I also hope to be a living example that diversity matters. And for people that look like me, to show them that this career is possible with hard work, determination, patience, and a little bit of initiative.
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