Arellan, Jose

Job shadow narrative

Job shadow
My job shadow was on maintenance technician in a Corrugating facility located in Tulare
California. Mr. Hernandez has and currently been performing this job for the last seven years.
While shadowing Mr. Hernandez many duties were performed varying from fabricating to
electrical work and maintaining industrial boilers. I chose this particular job shadow because
they pay varies; it starts from a low 45k and may be as high as 90k a year.
The first part of the day was being in a facility, I was able to oversee the process of how
boxes are made. There are many steps to making a box and it takes a group of individuals to
achieve this even though one might not perceive. They had several machines with each one
came a trained operator to run the machine. What stood out to me was the fact that they had a
large amount of machinery and operators but they only had a small amount of technicians to
make repairs to all the machines.
One thing that caught my attention was the electrical work. I was able to be a spectator on
some electrical trouble shooting being performed on a machine because it wasnt operating
properly. I was surprised by how the machines worked and all the components (relays,
contactors, drives, wires, and a plc); it takes get a machine to run and perform one simple job.
When a machine doesnt operate how its supposed to the maintenance crew has to repair it in a
timely manner to continue producing product so the company can sell and make profit.
One thing that I learned there is that theres more than one type of voltage and those
voltages are used on different applications and the higher the voltage the higher the risk. A good
example is residential electricity and commercial, in a household there are 120 volts AC and 220
volts AC. In commercial electricity you have multiple voltages it varies from (2 volts DC to 560

Arellan, Jose
Job shadow narrative

volt DC) and (120v, 207v, 220v, 277v and 480v) AC The higher voltages are used to control
mainly all the motors and all your lower voltages is your control voltage and what that does it
turns your motors on or off.
A couple things that caused me to be a bit hesitant towards this job field was the fact
when a machine is down youll have production personnel attempting to rush you into fixing the
machine when its down. But one mustnt hurry because when working on equipment like this its
very dangerous and one has to take the proper steps as to fixing the machine. These steps are
what are called lockout tag out, and these steps are needed to protect people working on these
machines. If these steps arent taken it can cause serious injury or even death!
After spending a day with Mr. Hernandez I now know that working in the real world isnt
something to be messing around with. This job can be very challenging if a person doesnt have
the proper mentality and patients. I have come to realize that this job can be challenging for just
one individual, so thats why working as a team and cooperating with each other is the way to
succeed in this job.