So now you made it in the apprenticeship. Congratulations! Now the real fun begins. First off There’s a tool list you must have when you show up on your first day of the job. Tools are expensive. It is a real hardship to get all of them. Some guys might cut you some slack the first few months. On my first job I showed up with a complete tool list from Harbor Freight that went over like a led ballon. For those of you not familiar Harbor Freight is fine for home use but definitely not proffesional level. However, it was all I could afford at the time and I was proud that I could get all the tools on the list. My pride was incredibly short lived. Electricians use their linesmen pliers for everything, and I pull out my 6 inch handled orange pliers. “Is that your wife’s pliers you have there, Jimmy?” Tim was just giving me a hard time, of course, but he did say I should replace those first. He explained to me when I cut through live wires, I’m going to want something that is double insulated. Tim flipped his pliers in the air, caught them, and put them in his back pocket. Tim also explained to me that for cutting bigger wire, it’s important that I had some heavy-duty pliers.

Early on in my career I cut a hot wire and blew a hole in my pliers. I didn’t get hurt but it wouldn’t have happened if the head of the pliers wasn’t touching the metal box the wire was in. This leads into my next piece of advice. Always check to see if the circuit is off. If you are working somewhere, like a hospital, where you can’t turn off the circuit cut the wires one at a time. There are two types of electricians, the old and the bold. The old electricians live a long life and enjoy their pensions. The bold ones, well, you get the idea.

There are so many obstacles to overcome your first year. Construction workers don’t like working in the heat, so we start early and that might be a challenge to all you newcomers. The internet will tell you that waking up at 4 A.M. will make you more successful. Don’t believe everything on the internet, but I did alright joining the union. We don’t have running water, and we get dirty. Drywall dust, cutting oil and dust from drilling into concrete are just a few things we deal with on the daily. Some contractors provide gloves, wear them, they will protect your hands and keep them cleaner. We climb ladders and we do a lot of heavy lifting. Electricians can work in great heights and sometimes in confined spaces; I have done both. These are a few things to consider before joining the trade.

Any skilled trade is not only physical, but you will need to be book smart as well. You will have to have a good understanding of math and science. You will learn how to read prints and symbols and what they stand for. Learning how to read a code book will get you far in this trade. Believe it or not, it will be good to have some people skills as well. Out in the field a good dirty joke works for Ray and Tom but not for Dick and Harry who are the customers.

You might think you are taking break when everyone else does, but occasionally and without warning, here comes a full stake bed truck full of material. Today it looks like 500 feet of 3/4 conduit, 200 feet of 1 inch conduit, boxes of hardware and large spools of wire. On every job I’ve ever been on, the material trucks show up at break, lunch or the end of the day. Bundles of pipe and spools of wire can be heavy but there will be other apprentices helping to unload the truck. If a fellow apprentice challenges you to carry more than one bundle of conduit at a time, do not except this challenge. You have a long career ahead of you and a broken-down Journeyman holds no value.

Four years of trade school will teach you so much, but you learn how to be a mechanic on the job. I tell my apprentices to take something you learned on this job to the next one. There’s such a broad spectrum of what an electrician can do that is possible to say we learn something new every day. There’s Lighting, power and distribution, motor controls and fire alarm to name just a few. Get through the apprenticeship and then find a niche. Construction is temporary but any certification you have makes you more employable. Stay healthy, stay sharp and don’t be afraid to ask questions, even after you become a journeyman. I hope this all helps.

I’ll see you on the next one.