Where do you feel the trade is going

[stretch12]

Where do you feel the trade is going?
Me, I’ve been a journeyman in Massachusetts since 03.
Do you see young pups in the trade or is it 55+ been there forever. And do not do things right ?venting partially had a situation where I know the ec that put a brand new service on a 4 story building. 480/277 with step down xformer s. For 120/208 . Hit building steel. Ground bushings etc, my company I work for, doing tenant fit out ,
It’s the 11th hr and start livening circuits up, and no ground check 3 of 5 floors , no ground .!!!!???
Come to find out all5 45-60 kva xformer s no bond to x o on secondary , is this just lazy or no one caring or paying attention?
Thanks for any input.

 

[jim dungar]

Where do you feel the trade is going? Do you see young pups in the trade or is it 55+ been there forever.

.... Is this just lazy or no one caring or paying attention?

It seems I have heard this type of discussion every 15 or 20 years. Maybe that is the cycle our industry works on?

 

[James L]

It's not new.
There have always been, and always will be, those who have no interest in doing any better.

I had a friend who had a "get what you pay for" attitude. For $xx.xx bare minimum wages you get minimal attentiveness, effort, desire, etc. - double it and you'll get 25% more from him. Triple it and you'll get another 25%

Problem was, he never could say at what point he'd give his all. We're not friends anymore. That mentality was just indicative of him as a person.

There's really nothing new under the sun

 

[stretch12]

It’s tough I learned kinda under him and stuff like this kinda makes me worried

 

[Tulsa Electrician]

I feel your pain.
My apprentice is the best of the bunch and it is like grade school.
Slim Pickens these days. The other five not worth my time.

 

[TwoBlocked]

I'm in a factory (right now...) The other day heard a younger guy say "I don't do what I don't get paid for." My reply "I do what I can, not what I have to." About the same time another older supervisor guy mentioned to me and a pup that "you can be the guy that people call or the guy they don't." That pup is on the right track to be the guy that gets called.

Then there is my 17yo son. I blame the US school system for a lot of this. He wants to be an electrician, or at least in the trades. In his welding course, they have them doing gas welding with a cutting torch. <face palm> Two-thirds of kids would be better off going to a true trade school or an apprenticeship starting in 9th grade. Instead they are forced to take college prep or stupid electives neither of which interests them or has much value for those two-thirds. This results in becoming pretty jaded if you are not academically inclined. I am trying to get my son interested in a 2-year tech school, but he's pretty sick of school and I don't blame him. Exact same thing with me 50 years ago. (Yes 50 years...)

Let's not blame the victims.

 

[infinity]

I see the missing SBJ on transformers quite often which is sometimes due to electricians thinking that the X0 is factory bonded. Just a matter of poorly trained journeyman electricians. I have never seen a factory bonded neutral in nearly 40 years of electrical work.

 

[ActionDave]

I work with four appenti eighteen to twenty-four. They are great. I enjoy working with them. The feedback I get from them is how frustrated they are when other journeymen don't want to answer questions or let them try to do things on their own like get information off of the plans.

 

[Tulsa Electrician]

I work with four appenti eighteen to twenty-four. They are great. I enjoy working with them. The feedback I get from them is how frustrated they are when other journeymen don't want to answer questions or let them try to do things on their own like get information off of the plans.

Lucky man.
Sounds like a good group.
See there hope yet. There lucky to have a great teacher.

 

[Ken_S]

There's definitely a lack of people entering the trades, not a new problem and with the older generation retiring demand will continue to stay solid.

Regarding the quality of work, its always been hit or miss for a variety of reasons. Some don't know and some don't care, worse is when they don't know and don't care.

My son is entering the trade, 18, however out of his class he's likely one of only a handful that aren't planning to go to college.

 

[James L]

Some don't know and some don't care, worse is when they don't know and don't care.

Yes. Don't know enough to care, and don't care enough to know

 

[James L]

I work with four appenti eighteen to twenty-four. They are great. I enjoy working with them. The feedback I get from them is how frustrated they are when other journeymen don't want to answer questions or let them try to do things on their own like get information off of the plans.

There might be a couple dozen guys here willing to fight to the death to get 4 great newbies. I'm jealous

 

[augie47]

Not to detract from the problem as it does seem worse today than in my youth but I may just be showing my age.
On your specific, I agree with infinity as to how common this is. Having inspected scores of transformer installs I was amazed at how many experienced electricians failed to make the XO to grounding connection.
I was lucky during my contracting days as most of my apprentices came from menial, low pay jobs and were eager to learn. Two of my best are now successful contractors.

 

[tthh]

There is just a lot of incompetence in any field -- "sometimes it's amazing the planet continues to rotate".

 

[kwired]

You do have a choice in NEC to bond at the transformer or bond at first disconnecting means, which is a reason why neither is typically not bonded from the factory. If bonding at first disconnect you still need to have a SSBJ back to the transformer case though.

 

[stretch12]

Kwired , true you can bond at either location but you still need one of them done.

 

[ActionDave]

Lucky man.
Sounds like a good group.
See there hope yet. There lucky to have a great teacher.

I was lucky to have a great teacher. I could have been a run of the mill hack and not known any better had I not been desperate for work and stumbled on the doorstep of one of the best electricians I'll ever know. I wasn't even an electrical apprentice when I broke into the trades, I was a concrete worker.

 

[__dan]

Come to find out all5 45-60 kva xformer s no bond to x o on secondary , is this just lazy or no one caring or paying attention?

This by far the most common violation I usually find and fix, no system bonding jumper.

Probably this more than all the others combined. Last one I found pretty recently the building had a known history of "bad power". Found it at the finish checking neutral to grounds Voltages. For some reason I was sure it would not trace all the way back to the transformer but that's where it was.

That's all pro wired stuff they do that. Possibly some guys are afraid to, what they may feel is shorting the transformer to ground. idk. I know it's a more common violation than any other or all others combined.

For the rest of the thread I will have to come back and read.

One note, I am getting a pretty good look at the next generation and the type of quality sometimes mentioned here, about not knowing what it means to work or, not so much not wanting to work or avoiding it but, they just do not have any mental conception of what it means to work. That's the crowd in general, not the exceptions who do go out and work.

idk but I am sure if I were trying to hire for something I might try spending all the money on Powerball tickets instead (the quicker way to go down). Don't know what covid has to do with it but I see quite a lot of brain fog. Never seen that before. Maybe 1 out of 100 kids (HS graduates) run around like chipmunks instead of 90 out of 100 I might expect to.

I would normally expect them to compete for my job and be better at it than I am, but I don't see that happening. They compete at knocking the other guy off all day long but not at the work itself is very typical for the experienced players. Any easy job will be staffed by guys with sharp elbows and worse.

 

[hillbilly1]

The most common bond mistake is on transformers for computer panels. People think “Isolated ground” means XO is isolated too!

 

[TwoBlocked]

Once again I blame the schools. OK, that might be blaming another victim. But the focus on passing exams, rather than true learning, results in the teaching focusing on facts instead of concepts.

And so speaking about transformers, small 480/120 control transformers for motor starters are set up to be 480/240 or 240/120, too. Find out that some house wiring guy got it into many electricians heads at this plant to wire them like a house. 480/240 with the center tap going to ground as a neutral. The other leg just sits there.

When I do work with a new guy I try to get him to learn from the inside out by asking questions much more than by telling him facts. Like: "If you put more resistance in a 120v circuit, will the current go up or down?" Better than saying I = E/R.