the first timer Decon experience (Westinghouse, Duke Energy)
I work at the Brunswick plant, 7 days a week, 12 hour shifts, so I'll touch on the major points. After accepting the offer letter, a week or so later I received multiple emails with the same message containing my report date to King's Mountain in NC, where their training center is. At King's, it was a full week of a large amount of computer based training, along with a few actual classroom trainings. A few people seemed to have trouble completing the computer trainings, but most finished quickly. During this time, they're also working on the final steps of your background check so they can issue you a Duke security badge to gain access to Brunswick. Once you've completed all training and you finally obtain your badge, you have to report to Brunswick early the next morning, a 5 hour drive. The first day at the actual plant, you'll first report to a separate education center and go through some onboarding, before heading off to the actual plant with your fellow new arrivals. The education center assigned a veteran worker who's worked at Brunswick before to serve as a guide for me and the others to escort us to parking, and the various admin buildings we needed to go to for further plant checking in. Eventually I reported to the RP/Decon building nicknamed the 'Spa' and checked in at the front desk. There's various departments for decon's and RP's to actually work in, and the front desk assigned me to the Drywell dept. There are other departments such as refuel, general purpose (BOB?), reactor. Everyday I arrive by 6am to the Drywell briefing room for a morning safety brief and general info brief with my fellow Drywell decons and RP's, and afterwards head to our break room. If you're not working, you will generally always be expected to be in the break room and be available. I usually head to breakfast after the morning brief. From what the veteran workers here tell me, Brunswick's cafeteria is actually considered to be the best of all the Duke Energy plants in the area (which are Brunswick, McGuire, Catawba, and Oconee). It serves typical breakfast food like scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits & gravy, hashbrowns. The default meal costs 8 bucks and change, but you can ask for extra eggs or whatever for increased cost. Lunch always has burgers and fries available, along with a rotating menu of healthier food such as grilled chicken with various vegetables.