r/IndustrialMaintenance

Hey guys,
Got an on-site interview this Thursday for a 1st shift Maintenance Mechanic position at Altium Packaging in Tracy, CA. The pay range is listed at $28.17–$36/hr. 
A quick rundown of my background:
Current job: Working full-time at Amazon doing warehouse ops. Used to 10-hour shifts, fast pace,
Mechanical side: I do all my own work on my cars (spark plugs, cooling system, oil changes, fluid flushes, standard hand tools) and I'm getting my ACT WorkKeys Silver NCRC.
The gap: I don't have direct industrial pneumatics or hydraulics experience yet, but I get the basic concepts. 
A few questions if anyone’s worked at Altium or in blow molding:

1. What’s the floor culture like at Altium?
2. What are managers usually testing for when interviewing entry-level guys?
3. Realistically, what are my chances of getting an offer around the $28/hr base with my background?
4. Anything specific I should watch out for or study before going in on Thursday?
   Thanks for any insight!

I recently graduated a technical school with an associates degree in industrial maintenance and landed a gig at a very new manufacturing plant.
The company I work for pays very well for my area (30/hr) and has great benefits such as a quarterly bonus, good healthcare, and a 10 percent shift premium.

The problem is that it’s menial and all I do is checks, and filter changes. It’s very laid back, but feels boring to me. I thought I would be diagnosing technical problems, using tools and what I learned in school to gain skills learning different machines.

I am coming from a residential HVAC background where I was constantly grinding to get through the day to get the client heating and cooling by the end of the day. At that job I was making 19 an hour which was horrible for what I was doing, but I got a ton of satisfaction from my old job even if I was working as hard as I could.

I just expected more and I want to develop a skill set where I can fix malfunctions everyday.

I don’t plan on quitting this job for a while since it pays and I want to save money, but I am just underwhelmed and hoped for something more.

Has anyone else experienced something similar, and if so what did you do about it?

I’m helping rework the parts area for a maintenance shop that supports several pieces of equipment across two shifts. We have bearings, belts, fittings, electrical connectors, and repair kits in different sizes, but most of it is sitting in open bins or one large cabinet.

When something breaks down, people end up checking three different places or borrowing parts from another job. We have already had repairs delayed because an item showed as in stock but had been mixed in with returns or old parts that were no longer usable.

I’m looking at configurable cabinets with drawer labels, minimum quantities, and separate sections for active spares versus questionable returns, but it still needs to be quick to use during an urgent repair. How would you set this up without turning it into a paperwork-heavy system?