engineer

senior engineer

field service engineer

engineering intern

intern

PPL Corporation

Typical Day:
 Is nothing like Ive ever experienced. Their posted job description is very different, so beware. I could go on and on but there's simply too much. 

The pony (tractor tailor) arrives daily, the driver unloads the containers of material. Some material was ordered by someone with computer access. The material in the container (or jit) , might be tools, or for specified work orders, or materials kept on-hand. Its not known what the materials are for until a person with computer access looks up the requisition numbers that are on each of the boxes to see if any of the material is for specific jobs. Once that is determined, the materials are distributed to each job's jit, and other material can be put away in a desgnated location. It's not rocket science, but they want you to think it is. Once everything is put away, the on-hand material is replenished as needed, from the excess material stored at the facility. Then you sweep, clean the yard, or clean fork-lift windows, or band transformers if there are any, or sort out yellow numbers. This is because new people are given limited information. So there is not a lot to do, because they refuse to assign or train a new person to any meaningful task. If you have ESP or can read minds, that would be a huge help.

I was not allowed to touch any material in the daily delivery until someone with computer access looked at the requisition numbers and told me what could be put away. This could take anywhere from 2 hours ("wait until the linemen are out of here and I'll get back to you") to 4 hours, or until someone decided to come out from hiding in the office, but only long enough to tell me what, in that particular delivery, could be put away. Then they would return to the office. I was not given a desk, or a computer or trained so I couldn't look the numbers up myself. 

Some of the linemen seem miserable and conceited. They walk past, no eye contact, without acknowledgement of your presence. No speaking. They are supposed to document what they take out of a designated area, but since they rarely speak, and there is a serious lack of communication, it's not known if they do that. 

Management is clueless and incompetent. 

This is the worst environment I've ever been in. The culture is toxic. There were a handful of nice people, maybe 5, who were decent humans. And the contractors were decent also.

You are forced to join the union and pay dues, but you do not get a union booklet and you have limited representation, because Spec temps are temporary.

What I know I learned and really already knew is when you're a worker and most of the people you work with daily are slackers and ignorant beyond belief .... well, that's a problem. And then your review is based on the slackers' assessment of you. 
There are better places to work. 

I worked for PPL for approximately 1 1/2 years. I noticed that Management was not secure in their positions and were moved frequently sometimes with no notification at all. This made it extremely difficult for new employees in new departments. With each new boss came new goals and ideas, only to come in and realize someone else in your department was plucked from their job and relocated to another department or offered a severance package. The job you bid may not be the job your in two months later. There was no stability in my department. Jobs were left as is with no updates from relocated or departed employees. Training was next to impossible due to work load and deadlines and lack of people to provide training. Tracking documentation was just as frustrating caused by frequent movement and left as is.

A normal work day was 10 to 12 hours in the office which did not include the time you worked from home on week nights or weekends. There is no flex time or overtime. They are not open to new ideas and seem to put up a wall to the new Managers who were brought in from reputable companies making their jobs more difficult. There was a bonus but your portion could be distributed to whom ever they felt like giving a larger portion to even if the group as a whole met the same goals.

Positive notes: Benefits were great. There are a few stable departments which work normal hours and the bosses have been in the department a reasonable amount of time and have experience in what they do. There is harmony and nice working conditions if you are fortunate enough to land in one of those few departments.

I was overall very disappointed. I had such high hopes for this to be the company I retired from. I worked for two other large Utilities and absolutely loved my job and would lay down my life for them. I saw so many good people move on to other companies which was a big loss for PPL.

My day begins by greeting my co-workers, grabbing a cup of coffee and firing up the laptop. Upon catching up with email and voice messages, it is time to prioritize my work for the day. New jobs will be found in my inbox and previous work would still need to be completed.

With almost eight years within this position, I have learned a great deal about what it takes to create a sound design regarding all of the potentials in overhead and underground design. The employees are passionate about what we do. We just want to do a good job, feel proud of what we have accomplished and go home safely.

The hardest part of the job would definitely be juggling all of the tasks associated with meeting customer deadlines, having a backlog due to storm duty (assessing), meetings, as well as Company initiatives. One would need to feel proud after finding a happy medium.

The most enjoyable part of my job is being given a task and a deadline. Everything in between is up to me. I have been given the training, tools and resources to do what I need to do. Having designed a project and then going back and seeing our crews build it really gives me the chills. I just look at a successful build and realize... "I designed that!"

I take great pride in my work. I share passion in the success of my employer and fellow co-workers. I like to be involved. In doing so, I have partaken in several activities which build character, leadership and confidence. Not to mention the betterment for my co-workers and the Company. I also attend company-sponsored classroom trainings to further develop skills and learn new skills.

I am now ready to work for an employer in the Houston, TX area in which I can learn, as well as help others. I am looking for a new challenge.

•	Provided end user consulting support for Microsoft Outlook 98 and other software applications as needed, with specific customized attention to executive level management.
•	Provided primary support in the Customer Feedback Event process, supporting efforts to improve internal customer relationships within the organization.
•	Assisted in the development and dissemination of training and communications materials for numerous organizational software and operating system migrations.
•	Served on many task teams, some of which include: migration from TOSS to MS Mail to MS Outlook, MS Office97 migration, HP OpenMail to MS Exchange, and the SPOC (single point of contact) help center efforts.
•	Provided backup Help Center assistance troubleshooting end-user-computing problems, as necessary.	
Analyst – Rates & Market Research	1990-1994
•	Assisted senior level analysts in forecasting sales by rate classes.
•	Assisted in the development of mainframe customer-specific rate projection programs for Industrial and Commercial marketing personnel use.
•	Involved in all aspects of development and moderation of surveys and focus groups for various market research projects.
Secretary to Sr. Vice President – Nuclear	1982-1990
•	Served as secretary to senior vice president – nuclear performing daily tasks including: typing, telephone answering, maintaining schedules and serving on various administrative task forces which required a very high degree of confidentiality and dependability. 
Secretary	1975-1981
•	Performed various secretarial duties in several departments throughout PPL, including: Fuels, Human Resources, Real Estate and Financial.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Much like this survey, you can never satisfy upper management at PPL regardless of how many hours you put in or what you accomplished.  Even the highest accomplishments achieved in the morning are forget before the afternoon.  The pay was good, but the stress will be the end of you before you ever get  to see retirement.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The hours are long and fully expected.  There is no such thing as going "above & beyond", as that is the expectation.  Executives feel it is a privilege to work for the company and nobody working there is worthy of such an honor.  To sum it up, "you can beat a person until they are quiet, but you can't beat a person until they are happy."  That simple logic escapes those who are currently in charge at PPL.   

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic, confrontational, hostile, one "upmanship", don't hire anyone more competent than you or you might end up working for them, build a team and they will accuse you of covering for each other, make the other person look bad as often as possible, otherwise the company might want to get rid of you instead, cooperation is frowned upon, anyone with more than 10 years of service has a target on their back. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Disheartening, degrading, exhausting, like running a marathon at the pace of a 40 yard dash.  Stressful!  Much like COVID-19, anyone with underlying conditions such as heart issues, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, etc., should avoid the company as it could be the end of you!

PPL offers strong benefits in terms of time off, health insurance, 401K matching, and vacation and holiday pay.

However, there are significant areas for improvement, particularly in leadership, storm work, and career advancement.

Leadership: Some managers exhibit egotism, indecisiveness, and a lack of appreciation, trust, and empathy for their teams. There is a tendency to criticize and assign blame without taking responsibility, which creates an atmosphere of fear rather than collaboration. Favoritism is also an issue, leading to low morale, stunted innovation, and reduced overall performance.

Storm Work: Full-time employees are assigned storm roles and placed on-call for a full week every month, with the nature of these roles varying widely in difficulty and alignment with job descriptions. The allocation of these roles seems arbitrary, and some require employees to work long, overnight shifts without additional compensation, despite being salaried day workers. The expectation that fulfilling these storm duties is a "privilege" can feel unfair and burdensome.

Career Advancement: Opportunities for growth are limited, particularly under leadership that is difficult to satisfy and often dismissive of employee accomplishments and overall well-being. The focus seems to be more on advancing PPL's vision, with little consideration for individual career happiness or development.

Issues with upper management.  They have people in place at high levels with barely any yrs of experience managing large groups but have employees beneath them with 10+ yrs of experience that are managing up to help them understand their jobs.  Put someone in place to stop the bad judgment that takes place everyday. 1 person given the power to make a difference against the upper Management to say No this isn’t gonna work and No we will not put this policy/rule in place would improve morale 100% you have these people working everyday for you now but they are being overlooked for these type of roles, employees are leaving in waves. Micromanagement is rampant. There is a good ol’ boy club friends hunting buddies put in high positions and the experience they have is dismal.  Being hired off Merit isn’t a reality.  Lost focus on serious things with safety.  Being questioned over and over after putting in a near miss or good catch but not focusing on SIF’s.  Word of advice stop focusing on the small things go after the bigger things referring to safety.  We are all humans here but treated like red headed step children when an employee makes a little mistake that is not serious.  Then you implant more policies/rules and make employees fearful to report!  You’ve also had positions above supervisor (many leaving as well) that are very experienced leaving why isn’t PPL retaining top talent. 

Overrall, a good job for the long term but all LGE/KU offices are closing except for 4 (Louisville, Lexington, Pineville, and Morganfiled). If you have an internet/power outage or ANY issue with your equipment, you are req'd to go on site immediately with all of your equipment to finish your shift to one of those 4 locations. They give you 45 mins and then it counts against you. There should be more leniency on this especially if the equipment failure is a company issue. With only 4 locations, it was a long commute to have to travel onsite until issues were resolved for many co-workers.  The other issue is having to be "on call" when there are major widespread outages and sometimes having to work 16 hour shifts. The job itself is stressful and the training is broken into several sections so it can take around 18 months to be fully trained but you will be trained to work the "on-call" shifts within 2 months. The entire job consists of answering inbound calls. If you do not enjoy staying on the phone, look elsewhere! 

Good place to work. The comradery between workers and their immediate supervisors was strong so long as there was respect between the two. The most difficult portion was outages. That was 14-15 hours/day, seven days per week for one to five months. Most people got along well. There were times when management made decisions that did not resonate with the plant, but they were still followed. I learned the processes for getting work done at a nuclear power plant and coal fired plants. I learned how to look up different prints for different systems in order to determine equipment location. This was utilized for tag placement in order to isolate equipment for repairs or maintenance. The most enjoyable part of the job was learning how everything worked together. Having been trained on a PWR (pressurized water reactor) in the Navy, working on a BWR (boiling water reactor) was very different. It was also fun learning how to work on coal fired plants, especially the new scrubber systems and how they help make drywall.

On a typical day, I work with team members who accept incoming calls from customers with payment troubles.

Higher levels of management have poor communication and a few unattainable goals.  As a result, this poor communication and unrealistic expectation trickle down to the customer-facing employees.  As a result, customer experience and compliance can suffer in an effort to meet the various metrics necessary to retain employment.

The various vendors utilized are not well trained and the errors result in a lot of extra work.

A typical day consists of handling escalated calls, attending meetings and conferences, coaching team members, reviewing errors, monitoring calls and working with the training team.

Upper management turnover is high and as a result, the vision for the company is constantly changing.  This too trickles down.

PPL has gone through many changes over the last 10 years.  The company does a lot of work for its customers that other Utilities would not. While the practices and policies alight with regulatory guidelines, the training is poor and non-sensical.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Engineer 12 salaries reported	$85,667 per year
Senior engineer 3 salaries reported	$102,333 per year
Field service engineer 2 salaries reported	$62,500 per year
Engineering intern 5 salaries reported	$24.92 per hour
Intern 4 salaries reported	$23.75 per hour

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