why an electrician

[foqnc]

After numerous applications for an Arcitect/Designer apprenticeship, before leaving school, the only apprenticeship I was offered was Electrical. My Dad said I had too choices, take the apprenticeship and learn a trade, then persue my Designer trade or go back to school. Tough choice :roll:
I found I had a gift for logical thinking and was programming PLC's and designing my own circuits before I was out of my apprenticeship.

 

[360Youth]

Quite simple for me. 9th grade ended, not a clue where I was headed, had some friends in electrical shop at trade school, went to hang out with them, never left.

Very similar for me, also. My older brother went through the high school tech center and so did my my best friend's older brother. At the end of 10th grade, we just kind of decided, "Why not?" I got out of when I went to college for ministry, but after graduation and getting married I was looking for work and here I still am.

 

[360Youth]

My dad was a plumber and always talked about how easy the electricians had it on the job and when it came time for high school it was vocational and he suggested this trade!

I have been places a plumber would cringe at.

 

[cadpoint]

When I was a boy, a friend and I charged "D" batteries, well we attached them together to bring them back to life, so we could play on.

He's an electrical engineer, I had to go a longer route to get here! :roll:

 

[cschmid]

Very similar for me, also. My older brother went through the high school tech center and so did my my best friend's older brother. At the end of 10th grade, we just kind of decided, "Why not?" I got out of when I went to college for ministry, but after graduation and getting married I was looking for work and here I still am.

SO I am curious I attended a Christian College in Northern Mn..I am also still a wire jockey..

 

[electricalperson]

I have been places a plumber would cringe at.

worst place an electrician ever goes is inside a freshly pumped out septic tank with about a inch of water in the bottom to remove the burned out pump then replace it

 

[cschmid]

who crawls in the tank we lift them out by a cable..

 

[knaack134]

I got a job right out of highschool at a restoration shop specializing in 65-68 Mustangs. I loved it, did not make alot of money. However, after 5 years I realized that I needed to start thinking about health insurance and retirement.

 

[MF Dagger]

My dad owned an ec shop growing up, My first true scar was from screwing around in his truck and bashing a cut end of emt into my chin. I brought my first tool belt to show and tell somewhere around third grade complete with a sheepsfoot knife (try doing that now). He would pick me up from school and I would play around in basements of old houses making stuff from old lathe and occasionally holding a fishtape tight so he could pull it back. Moved out when I was 17 and worked in a truck stop in western wisconsin and lived in an apartment with a bunch of kids until one of em bailed out of state with all the rent money. Called my dad and started working with him again. He started buying up some rental houses so I worked on those with him and then took a job with a national company doing apartment maintenance. I absolutely hated it and two years later I saw an ad on craigslist for an apprentice. I jumped back into the field and now am working towards finally pulling a journeyman's license with the ultimate goal being buying out the remnants of my dad's shop and expanding it in the directions I feel like going. I'm a third generation electrician and I wouldn't change it for anything. I hope to pass it down to my son when he's old enough.

 

[rkess]

When I was around two years old my parents were finishing the rec room in our basement. They had the receptacles pulled out to put paneling on. I came over and grabbed ahold of it,I flew across the room. That was the start of my fasination with electricity. after graduating from a vo-tech school (1983)I've been in the trade ever since.

 

[RHJohnson]

My dad was self employed carpenter, worked with him from a very young age - didn't ever know there was a child labor law" anyway I still remember one day when some linemen drove up to give us power. They were loud, brash, and joking. Teased the young guy who they made climb the pole about being a girl if he wanted the power off.
Those guy's impressed me - I might have been 13.
My favorite uncle was a real old time electrician. He was doing electrical work in 1910. He put in much of the electrical systems at the mines in Idaho at a time when the longest transmission line in the world was from Spokane, Washington to north Idaho.
After my discharge from the good old corps I tried to get an apprenticeship - couldn't get on as an electrical apprentice, so took job as Lead Burner apprentice, then went back into the corps for a couple years, back out got job as mechanic/millwright, still no electrican job.. Quit and went in the mines and became a miner, took correspondence in electricity.
One day I got the chance - by now had 3 son's, but I took a 50% cut in pay and was on my way! Studied constantly, Had more electrical books and catalogs than anyone I've ever met.
I think it became my life, and I had to learn to control it. But I've never been sorry - Now my 3 son's are electricians, as is my oldest grandson.

 

[jrannis]

Dad was in the trade. Really wanted me and my brother to go to college or do something professional. We lived better than anybody I knew at the time. Still cant understand why. Guess the trade had its time and place. The pipe fitters make more than we do now.
We are both in the trade now, pushing 50 and encouraging our kids to finish college and enjoy life.

 

[StevieG1223]

First off let me introduce myself as this is my first post on this website. My names Stephen and I'm an Apprentice out of a small shop in Ma. Some of you may know the electrical I work with "Electricalperson". Anyway I never really wanted to be an electrician. My stepfather was an electrician forever and I used to enjoy being on the job sites with him when I was young but I never gave it much thought. Unfortunately he passed away 2 years ago and since then I have given this trade much thought. After High School I took a course in Residential Wireing and really enjoyed it. Luckily after two months of looking for a job someone took a chance with a 17 year old greenie and hired me. Now I've been in the trade for almost a year and enjoy it.

 

[electricalperson]

im pretty glad i got into the field. i wanted to get my master electrician license even before i left middle school. 7th grade was the time we got to pick the high school and i picked the trade school and wanted electrical. i tried so hard to get it and when i opened up the letter that said i gotten electrical i was so excited it was crazy. every day i was in shop it was so much fun. only time in school i actually applied myself. i didnt get that good of grades in the regular classes but shop and related i excelled in

 

[cschmid]

First off let me introduce myself as this is my first post on this website. My names Stephen and I'm an Apprentice out of a small shop in Ma. Some of you may know the electrical I work with "Electricalperson". Anyway I never really wanted to be an electrician. My stepfather was an electrician forever and I used to enjoy being on the job sites with him when I was young but I never gave it much thought. Unfortunately he passed away 2 years ago and since then I have given this trade much thought. After High School I took a course in Residential Wireing and really enjoyed it. Luckily after two months of looking for a job someone took a chance with a 17 year old greenie and hired me. Now I've been in the trade for almost a year and enjoy it.

Let me welcome you to the board..do not be afraid to feed the animals oops I mean the members their bits are worse then their barks...

 

[electricalperson]

im pretty glad i got into the field. i wanted to get my master electrician license even before i left middle school. 7th grade was the time we got to pick the high school and i picked the trade school and wanted electrical. i tried so hard to get it and when i opened up the letter that said i gotten electrical i was so excited it was crazy. every day i was in shop it was so much fun. only time in school i actually applied myself. i didnt get that good of grades in the regular classes but shop and related i excelled in

welcome to the site steve

 

[Mule]

I was hired by a union contractor at the age of 15 for the summer Yep, you heard me right. Wiring a mormon church with off-spec junk conduit. It split open if you placed the bender anywhere but 2:00 4:00 8:00 or 10:00 in relationship to the seam...haha used alot of couplings !!! From there I've been in the trade for 36 years....Ive worked construction, maintenance, inspector,foreman, I&E supervisor, and now work for myself ...wished Id had done that years ago, because I love it....

 

[StevieG1223]

Let me welcome you to the board..do not be afraid to feed the animals oops I mean the members their bits are worse then their barks...

Thanks!!!!

 

[Ebow]

I started off working as a Water Plant Operator for the town I live in right out of H.S. As a trainee I had to work maint. four days a week and cover party shift on Friday eve. Seven years later I was full time maint. a year later I was Maint. Supervisor. Most of the equipment was as old, if not older, than I was including the electrical. Since I had to supervise the Electricians I had to know what the were doing and understand it also. So I started to study and learn from books and my men. After about a decade of that I left that job and "bummed" around as a Maintenance man in a Mobile Home rental community for a few years and helped a friend do Air Cond. work occasionally. One day I was at the company I presently work for picking up some material and off handedly asked if they were hiring. Almost eleven years later and I am still there.
I have stuck with it because I like the challenges that come with it.

Gene
__________________________________

Remember - Speed Kills and its not alway you.

 

[LarryFine]

Welcome to the zoo, Steve! :smile: Okay, my turn.

When we moved into the house I grew up in, I was about four. My mom told me she found me in the utility room one day, looking at the wires in the unfinished ceiling. They were home runs for the most part, of course, but "I just wondered where they went."

Some time later, I helped my dad connect a UHF tuner to the color TV, and install an antenna rotator. I really don't remember not being interested in electronics, but did a lot of reading in the school library. I started building crystal radios when I was six.

One of my favorite toys was an electricity learning kit my parents bought for me. I actually had to assemble the little bulb sockets and switches, using nuts and bolts and fiber washers and sleeves. Then, I could connect various circuits and make them work.

I even had kits that taught you how to build electric motors, where you stacked the rotor laminations onto the shaft, wound the three rotor poles, assembled and wired the commutator, place the magnets and pole pieces in the frame, and put it all together.

I also read older books about electrical wiring, showing in great detail, for example, how to wire an existing house, from running K&T to fishing BX, etc. They showed various fusing and switching methods, generating, and even neighborhood distribution.

I wired telephones in every room in the house, wired a couple of rooms for sound, added headphone jacks and input and output jacks in stereo phonos and stuff, wired our toolshed for power when I was about 12, did a service change for my uncle when I was 16.

I've built plenty of audio and other gear over the years, from kits that included all the parts and components, and soldered them onto the printed-circuit board, to making stuff from scratch, including etching my own PC boards. I also do home-theater and other LV wiring.

I guess the distinction between electricity and electronics isn't that great for me. Power has a signal, and signals transfer power. I've known more theory than just about every electrician I've ever worked under or with, but I had to learn the mechanics of the work; the hardware.

Why an electrician? I guess because I understand it, I love the challenges, and it's just fun to be a tool-slinger.