It's inhumane what we do to ourselves

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mdshunk

mdshunk

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The other thread about installing a bolt-on breaker in a hot panel got me to thinking about other stuff we do to ourselves. It's almost inhumane sometimes when you stop to think about it.

Working in the rain or snow to restore power
Working at great heights.
Working in blazing hot attics.
Kneeling over an open toilet flange to take a leak.
Sitting on buckets or a cold floor for lunch break.
Crawling though Lord-knows-what sort of dust and debris in crawl spaces.
Working in muddy ditches.
No proper light or proper heat until our work is done.
Cleaning out cobwebs with your head, because nobody has been where we need to go in the last 50 years.

No wonder people aren't exactly lining up to become electricians. I vote we all get raises. :smile:
 
No, your not getting it.

When you value working for yourself, anything is worth it.

The helper does not work for himself.
 
ramsy said:
No, your not getting it.
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I get it all right. Just a poor attempt at humor.

But I agree. We will subject ourselves to many extremes for a paycheck. But we're not the only trade who does it.

Take an HVAC service tech. First cold snap of the winter, he's beatin' feet between houses getting heat back on. And he doesn't have the luxury of sticking around to 'warm up'. As soon as the temp starts back up, he's off to the next job. First heat wave of the summer is the same.... opening condensors in the hot sun. Yet as soon as it's working, they're off again.

Plumbers can get into a lot of muddy, dirty ground work. Probably more than us, really.

I know I wouldn't want to be a sheetrocker. Measure, cut hang. Repeat until you're 30 and you've got a back back and knees. Then you become a mudder.

Bricky? Forget it. Two on top of one, one on top of two. Yawn!

And painters? Gimme a break. Talk about sheer boredom! About is fun as (pun intended here) watching paint dry.

Out of all the trades, I'll take electrical hands down. So much variety, and so much to learn. Today, I worked on a fire alarm system. Start of next week, it's trim out a house. Wednesday is the start of a basement remodel. Thursday has a service call. Friday is a bid job for a school. Pipe one day. NM the next. I love it!

Do we have what you would call less-than-desirable work to do? You bet. But I wouldn't want to spend all day sitting at a desk banging keys.


Oh, wait. I do! Darn it! :grin:
 
mdshunk said:
I vote we all get raises. :smile:
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GASP!!! We can't do that. How dare we force a price increase on the poor people of America. Our raise may be the difference between somebody being able to afford a home or not. :wink:

Some of you will get this and think it is funny and some of you will think I am taking a jab at you. You are both right. :grin:
 
We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungratefull. We have done so much for so long with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing!:grin:
 
mdshunk said:
Working in the rain or snow to restore power
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And working live.
Working at great heights.
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And working live
Working in blazing hot attics.
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And working live
Kneeling over an open toilet flange to take a leak.
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Must have been an advancement in the industry I missed. Most times it's "open up the back door and let it fly" if you're lucky.(My apologies to the female electricians in the forum but at least when you're on the job the GC provides a Port-o-San)
Sitting on buckets or a cold floor for lunch break.
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You can always go and start up your truck and turn on the heat.
Crawling though Lord-knows-what sort of dust and debris in crawl spaces. - Working in muddy ditches. - Cleaning out cobwebs with your head, because nobody has been where we need to go in the last 50 years.
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Or like finding out that there are dead rats and feces after you're in there with no Tyvec suit or face mask.
No proper light or proper heat until our work is done.
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I've done some of my best work in these conditions (Or at least I used to !!!)
 
one of the bigger issues is that we do all these nasty, dirty things for nothing because we weren't taught any other way...and then we hire guys and pay them even less to the do all the nasty, dirty things...and we don't teach them even as much as we were taught...so they get fed up and go out on their own...they then do those nasty, dirty jobs for a little more than we were paying them, but less than we were charging for them...so the work stays the same, but the pay rate drops...

and yes, we wonder why a guy would rather go through 6 months of computer training and get a job for $30k+ working in an office, then spend 4+ years at <$20k busting his tail in all types of weather and literally risking his life every day...

I wonder...

it also explains why we are having incredible trouble attracting talented people...unless we as contractors up the ante, we are in trouble...
 
emahler said:
it also explains why we are having incredible trouble attracting talented people...unless we as contractors up the ante, we are in trouble...
Click to expand...

Don't fool yourself, we are in trouble and there is little that can be done to stop it.
 
iwire said:
Don't fool yourself, we are in trouble and there is little that can be done to stop it.
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yeah, well...i'm a contrarian optimist at heart...:D

maybe if all you old timers who are stuck in your ways would hurry up and die, we could save the industry.....;)

(that's a joke brian john, a joke...big :D)
 
emahler said:
one of the bigger issues is that we do all these nasty, dirty things for nothing because we weren't taught any other way...and then we hire guys and pay them even less to the do all the nasty, dirty things...and we don't teach them even as much as we were taught...so they get fed up and go out on their own...they then do those nasty, dirty jobs for a little more than we were paying them, but less than we were charging for them...so the work stays the same, but the pay rate drops...

and yes, we wonder why a guy would rather go through 6 months of computer training and get a job for $30k+ working in an office, then spend 4+ years at <$20k busting his tail in all types of weather and literally risking his life every day...

I wonder...

it also explains why we are having incredible trouble attracting talented people...unless we as contractors up the ante, we are in trouble...
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?!?!?! Who is doing this for less than 20K ?!?!?!
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
?!?!?! Who is doing this for less than 20K ?!?!?!
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every apprentice who get hired, and works for $8/hr with no benefits...

oh, and more than a few self-employed contractors on this very board...
 
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many years ago mike holt sent a letter to his entire list of his electrical contractors. it explained how poorly we pay ourselves. he also listed many of the related trades to our business and what they charge per hour. and had a comparison of hourly rates vs required years of experience to reach the journeyman level. an example: (and this was 15 years ago) simplex fire service rate ----- $195 per hour --- training average two years. johnson controls servcie rate --- $225 per hour --- training average three years. electrical service rate --- $65. per hour --- training average four years.

his letter suggested the electrical industry should raise their rates by a hundred dollars or $165 per hour and still would not be a justifiable amount!!! had an eighty five year old retired electrical contractor once tell me "son, when we started a job, we knew we were gonna make money on it --- just didn't know exactly, how much ". wouldn't that be a nice way to do business!!!

emailer: blaming it on a contractor who worked out of his 30 year old house has nothing to do with todays labor rates. thats his way of keeping his overhead down. thats business!

we are our own worst enemy -- because we allow the laws of licensing to be diminished and/or not enforced. there was a time in the area that i grew up in that every service truck was marked, and inspectors spent a good amount of time chasing down moonlighters and fly by night outfits--and less time busting our licensed electricians ba$$s on a jobsite over some rinkidink issue! why the change -- can't blame the inspectors because our judges stopped penalizing these fly by nighters and moonlighters saying "whats the problem they are just trying to make a living" --- inspectors were told to keep their noses out of it!!! thats the first thing to get everyone one on a level playing field ! go to any home depot and you can see many hundreds of side jobs being supplied. and watch what these idiots are buying knowing they are violating the code. and with the present influx of illegal people entering the construction industry the situation is worsening each day!!!

another rant while i'm at it is our supply houses -- they don't provide contractors proper pricing --- much of this stuff we are paying for is retail. this week i needed twenty two light -electronic ballast--strip fixtures. i called hughes supply and they gave me a price of $46. each. knew that was high. called graybar-- $42. each. still sounded high to me?? called home depot -- $29. each?? home depot owns hughes and the wholesale price is $15. more than the retail price?? then i called loews and their price was $25.95 each.

we are getting squeezed in both directions! our trade used to be and was always the leader in organized control of wages and materials. if a supplier got caught playing with prices -- his name would be mud in a town -- all the contractors would stop buying from him!

the real solution is some organization to bring all electrical contractors together to organize a pac to work together to enforce the laws, re-institute proper licensing across the country and bring wholesale pricing back to our business.................
 
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