The first thing that hit me was the scale of the project. There were never more than 15 electricians at the hospital. Even when I worked outages, there were maybe 25 to 30 electricians, tops. I showed up my first day in Ashburn and there were over 100 electricians - just electricians - at the jobsite.
The work is completely different too. I was used to running small pipe, 3/4" or 1", pulling wire in conduit, wiring equipment, etc. I've found myself in a world of 3" pipe (or bigger,) load banks and bus duct in rooms the size of football fields. There's 35,000 volts coming into the building. Even the control voltage is 600v!
All of this is, of course, incredibly cool. Running big pipe is just like running small pipe but you get to use a table bender. Landing wires in load banks is just like landing wires anywhere else except the wire is bigger. All in all, it's a very cool job. I just wish Ashburn, VA wasn't so far from my house...
