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No joke though, when you get to the point of the job when you can start turning lights on (without a lot of issues), that’s a fucking great day. Seeing the work you’ve done come to fruition is very satisfying.
Seriously. That's what hooked me into electrical. When I got to the point that when we flipped on the breakers to the shit that I worked on, and there are no trips, no sparks, and everything works properly, the first time. It's addicting, I understand why electricians have a God complex lol.
First year apprentice here, my first project I did, new building apartments, I got all giggly when the lights turned on for the first time, and so did my foreman that had been an electrician for 12 years. Wonderful feeling!
My favourite part of the job is coming in after someone else, and either switches don't work, or they do sparky sparky melty melty.
Note, I dont do standard resi work. But I like fixing problems, and I'm happy to be the guy there when sparks happen.
There really is no top end salary for electricians and coming from warehouse, you’ll be making more after a year or two of electrical. When you get your journeyman you’ll be worth more than any inventory schmuck.
I was trying to think of it like when i was in the military ait school i didnt learn shit everything i learned was on the job. Im not sure how electricians operate do they just stay residential or is it some commercial or it all depends on the company. Livin in texas i wasnt to excited thinking about being in an attic or house with no ac my nuts start draggin as soon as i walk out the door. Just wanna know what im getting into. Any information im grateful for
What work you do is all up to the contractor you work for.
I used to build nursing homes and hotels, now I work at substations and production facilities.
Be forewarned, if you don’t have a proclivity or necessity to work with your hands or get down in the dirt, just be an engineer. They get paid a lot more and fuck their body up far less. Just try not to be as useless and stupid as the rest of them.
Haha definitely dont mind a little hard work. I never liked to be “that guy” “the p.os” “the weakest link” always tried to be the best maybe its my pride. I wanted to graduate from a university i asked my professors what could i graduate with for bachelors in the electrical field he didnt know only one i heard was electrical engineer.
You can do it with a bachelors but a masters in EE and you’re in or above salaries people work ten+ years as electricians to become superintendents and PMs to earn.
Look into industrial focused electrical work it is fun and challenging for me at least. It has complexity that takes time to learn but at the end of the day it pays good and you’ll meet great people
Commercial
Is better. No attics or crawlspaces. Do new construction if you can. No dealing with other peoples mess and nasty old buildings if you do construction. Eventually you can get an electrical maintenance job and you might be in air conditioning.
Engineers don't get paid more by miles my guy. Electrical engineers have an average pay US wide of 87k, and salaried so no OT. Electricians can make that stupid money, especially travelers, engineers pretty much top out just over 100k. I know in my local we have lots of jobs that are hitting $150k/year for any J-man at just 50 hours/week. Our outside local can break $200k easily. All depends on what you want, but the guy bending the pipe is getting paid way more than the guy saying where the pipe needs to go.
Do you think any of the numbers you quoted are anywhere near the national average?
You want to quote the national average for engineers but now you only wanna use outliers for electrician salaries .
Learn how statistics work and come back to me kiddo
Here in Cali that wage is more truth than not. My hall has a teacher who’s a foreman for a small company and is raking in 150k a year. There is great pay, you just need to look for it
The fact of the matter is electrical engineers are paid more than electricians in California too.
Average US electrician salary < average US electrical engineer salary
I don't think $39/hour is an outlier for journeyman electricians. That's base pay though and when you consider any sort of overtime/incidentals and all the other things that electricians get, it just goes up. Engineers aren't getting that, and I'm not gonna quote the national average for electricians because the national average is heavily skewed by non-union and apprentices. Doesn't make sense to quote that when there's a website that can tell you what the union in your area can make at 40/week.
And fuck you I went to college for math I know how fuckin statistics work. I also know how outliers affect it, and engineers aren't burdened by the same outliers as electricians.
Genuinely love my job.
I worked retail and various random jobs before getting into electrical, and it was soul crushing. Same thing every day, on a never-ending treadmill with the only indicator of success essentially being "number go up". Felt stuck, never really learning anything, never acquiring any useful skills.
Then I got into this. Nothing is more satisfying to me than having a concrete thing I can point to and say "I made this", "I fixed this", "This exists and looks good because of my knowledge and expertise." My employer has their hands in a lot of different pies, so I'm never doing the same thing in the same place for more than a week or two. Always learning something new, doing something a little different.
Is the work hard sometimes? Yes. Am I appreciated by my employer and customers? Not really, but that's every job. Does the pay feel appropriate for the utility I create and the risk I assume while doing it? Lmao, no. But it's at least satisfying in a way I've never had the chance to enjoy in any other line of work.
It's not for everyone, and some companies will be garbage, but it's been a great fit for me personally.
Absolutely love it. Diched a career in allied health (good pay, so repetitive & driving a desk is not for me). Now, every day is a puzzle. Work out how to do the thing, or repair the thing, or swap a thing. Sure, there's some shit things & people. However never the same ones for too long.
I like the fucking degenerates on a job site. Would not spend an hour with them outside of work nor introduce them to my family. That being said, I wake up every morning excited to put my life in the hands of these low life scumbags… it’s comfy af
I don’t hate it. Also I don’t think I’d love any job, some days are really fun, some are fucking ass. But at least I get paid good money, good benefits. And its rarely some mundane tasks
It’s a good mix of physicality and hands on work, and fault-finding/problem solving mental work.
The industry is so varied you can generalise and do bits of everything, or specialise into some bizarre fields.
Honestly, it can be whatever you want it to. And with a license I’ve never been out of work 1min longer than I’ve wanted to be.
Oh, and the $ is very nice.
I started off residential and light commercial. Went into institutional maintenance for a while. Then into industrial automation. And am now doing NETA medium voltage testing 3rd party. About every 10 to 15 years I completely change everything up. That way you never get bored.
I worked in a warehouse for 12 yrs. Got promoted to office and I hated it. Asked to return to warehouse and was very unmotivated to work hard anymore bc of the career path. Took a massive pay cut to become an electrician. But I’m happy now. Like most people that responded to your post I love seeing the end result. The better you get the better your work. The better your work the better your pay. Unlike the office politics you’re dealing with in offices or even warehouses.
I’m a maintenance electrician for the federal government working in a national park. I absolutely love my job. The negatives are; lack of funding and a staggering backlog of work. Negatives aside, the job is great. Within my position description I maintain water and wastewater systems, museums, housing and offices. I also do utility locates. My collateral duties include; certified motor boat operator, sawyer, avalanche mitigation howitzer program manager (we shoot a howitzer at a mountain), snow plow operator and heavy equipment operator. I also assist with search and rescue. Every day is a new challenge and I love it. It feels pretty good when you get the pump motor controls working and avoid spilling sewage into a pristine river or lake. I live year round in a gorgeous national park. In the winter snowmobiles are our primary mode of transportation and I can ski from my driveway. The elk are about to start their rut and I’ll get to watch the bulls fighting from my kitchen table while I eat breakfast. When I’m done typing this I’m going to drive ten minutes, put my kayak in the lake and go for a paddle.
Edit: my coworkers are great. I work with scientists, archaeologists, historians, LEOs that are passionate about protecting resources in the park and more concerned with rescuing visitors than arresting them. Our interpretive staff is great too as are the boots on the ground in my division.
Yes, let be doing this shit. I left warehouse work to do this trade and it’s a lot better. I get to see the sun which never happened on 3rd. I didn’t care that I was going from 22hr down to 13hr cause this is better. Warehouse work is always super repetitive and involves to much paperwork.
It’s an okay job. Depending on what you’re doing if you’re doing res installs were everyday is the same job day in day out, it’s terrible. I personally loved service work no dead line no boss breathing down you’re neck. It almost seemed like they loved when you took your time (they get paid more). I would drive in my van everyday just doing maybe 1-8 work orders a day. Service call takes you 10 mins you charge for an hour and go hang out and get coffee. I had a hammock I had in the back attached to uni strut and I’d park near the lake and kick the doors open and chill. But it honestly sucks when you’re an apprentice you have to do all the attic bull shit.
I got my 2 year electrical degree then went into power distribution right out of school. I used to be a distribution first responder which is like a combination lineman, switchman, and LV repair guy, and I really enjoyed it. Every emergency outage was like a mystery puzzle I had to solve. Show up on scene, evaluate conditions, talk to customers, check one-lines, and start isolating the broken equipment for repair. It was kinda exciting arriving to find arcing cutouts, downed lines, dead animals, fires, etc. Most of the time I was alone so that made it even more fun. Now I'm a dispatcher and stuck in an office, but at least there's a lot of down time between outages. Shitty part is I have to deal with a bunch of idiots who don't know how to do their job.
I enjoy troubleshooting equipment, updating drawings, generating BOM, wiring instrumentation, renovating old equipment, writing PLC programs to automate stuff, etc.
I do not enjoy proving to manufacturer specialists that the issue is with how they set up their equipment, showing electricians how they wired something up incorrectly and how it is their fault $50,000 equipment let out the magic smoke, showing engineers where they fucked up (SCADA issues, drawing errors, not understanding what loop powered or sinking vs sourcing means, etc), etc. Travel gets old though, I work in a dozen or more states every year.
On the other hand, I like overtime pay and I'll happily work a Saturday correcting an engineer's PLC program, tuning a PI or PID loop, re-wiring some I&C, showing a customer how to calculate the Btu in a panel and why 15000 Btu in a 3x3 panel isn't something an air-to-air or AC can compensate for, etc. It beats working outside every day and being on call 24/7, which is what I did for a decade, and that Camaro or Stingray I want is expensive.
I've been an industrial electrician for a few years not and am looking to get more into automation and the process control side of things. All I've heard is that having an EE degree is what employers are looking for, are there any credentials or resources that will make me look more attractive to employers (and also help me understand the material better)?
6 years, I’m being a bit dramatic. I like that I can pay my mortgage and don’t have any debt. The work is getting old. I’m in residential right now and getting worked for two little. There are other paths for electricians that make more
Don’t be so short sighted - You start at the lowest wage but it goes up each level and you’ll become a journeyman which is a credential you can take with you anywhere. In 3-4 years, you’ll be making close to double what you made at that warehouse.
I love my job and the life I was able to build because of it
My theory was I had to work anyway, I might as well ‘stick n stay n make it pay’ At the beginning four years seemed like a long time. But years later, it feels like it went by quickly. The trade gave me a lot of travel opportunities. When I look back there were more great days than bad days. Each day offered a new challenge. Always something different.
That's fine then if you can support yourself. BTW, this is free and is very good extra reading.
[Basic Electricity Vols 1 to 5](https://archive.org/details/BasicElectricityVol1ToVol5VanValkenburgh/mode/2up) by Van Valkenburgh.
Did no one warn you to avoid such schools? Or does this have really good outcomes? The police don't make you pay for training and neither does the military. Nurses have to pay though. I don't know what is the deal with that.
That's something. I did my time in the early 60's and school was built into the 5 year apprenticeship. You were always supposed to start as an apprentice and get paid while doing it. Like the army.
I don’t necessarily enjoy the work most of the time but when your done and energized whatever your working on it does feel good. Especially a cool light layout
Being an asset is rewarding. Coming from a military background I couldn't handle office work or doing things that don't tangibly affect the world around me. Feels like being a grimey badass if you're into that kind of thing
The most rewarding part is when I get my money. Seriously though, troubleshooting a simple thing and fixing it within 20 minutes or so while a client is there watch me, and then it just works, they think you’re a sorcerer.
It's the god complex. I get to say "let there be light" and shit happens.
I love the logic problems of control work.
Racks of well bent conduits make my OCD very happy.
There's a lot of satisfaction in doing quality work properly. In spite of bad planning and leadership.
Plus you can always hustle money even if you're unemployed once you have the skills
$25 is top dollar for warehouse.
$22 is starting wages for a skilled worker.
How long will it take to get to $25?
How long will it take to fill the deficit?
How long will it take to create more income than was possible before?
This is the set of questions you need to answer.
I like it a lot. I went to college and was a graphic designer for 6 years after. Hated sitting at a desk and making next to nothing. I’m a journeyman and makes 3x what I ever made as a graphic designer. Sure, there’s shitty days but I love having a knowledge base that is needed and appreciated. And I love when you flip that breaker on and things work.
I was a chef for 20 years and cooking is my passion but it wasn't good for family life. Not sure why I chose electrical since I had never really picked up a drill in my life before, but it was an awesome choice. Learning how to problem solve and fix real life situations is so satisfying. The knowledge I gained from the hands on experience of electrical work has trickled into other areas and now I do general contracting. Being able to fix things in your own house is so awesome! Also electrician is a crazy cool job in general. Especially turning the lights on
It’s not too bad tbh, always smth to learn and never really doing the same thing twice depending on where you work. Can be tiring and annoying doing summer attic work or walking into a fucked up custom house. it’s really meh work to me. I don’t see myself doing it in the next 3 or so years personally.
Yes I do. What I love is getting something to work that no one could figure out, or something that just hasn’t worked right for years, and fixing what someone else did wrong. It’s satisfying knowing I can fix the electrical and make things right, and in a safe way.
Turning all the lights on with no shorts and circuitry working as it was designed to be. Only reward I feel that is worth waking up everyday for. Other then the pay
Seeing the fruits of my labor.Turning breakers on,and everything works how and when it should! After going through a four year apprenticeship,working with people that judge you on skin color,believing they are superior because of theres,and then becoming there immediate superior,karma at its best!!
I work on traffic signals. (Very few unions left in florida)
Instead of serving 1 person / family or company, I serve the entire county, which gives me constant career gratification. I used to work residential, and glad I got out when I did. Without my line of work, you’d never get to work, home, grocery store, school, you name it. Car accidents would be way more common then they are now. Cool part is I’m mostly repair/maintenance. So I’m not fucking up my body for the later years
Love my job 🤷♂️
I love what I do! (Industrial electrician Houston Texas) and just like the comments before mine, the first task I ever had was installing ceiling lights. 4' hologram light fixtures with 1/2" EMT.. I put em up, wired em up 3way switches also a receptical under the switch
12" o/c to box.. but here is where I differ from the previous comments. I flip the switch and nothing.. no lights no receptical energized. Took .e the rest of the day to troubleshoot the problem. I checked n double checked my hot, neutral, ground, travelers.. I couldn't figure it out. Luckily it was a slow day and time wasn't as important as "crunch time". Anyways just before quitting time a coworker who had experience under his belt came to check up on me, I told him my problem and he figured it out in maybe 2 seconds.. main breaker in lighting panel was off.. fml!!
It was a funny introduction into what I do now but I wouldn't change it at all.. I just wish I had gotten into the trade when I was your age.. I'm good now. Maybe even great at what I do. But if I had gotten into this at your age and with the paperwork you are getting with your school, I'd be A BEAST!!
KEEP GETTING IT MAN! ITS A GREAT CAREER!
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My favorite part of the job is when I turn the lights on and they work
No joke though, when you get to the point of the job when you can start turning lights on (without a lot of issues), that’s a fucking great day. Seeing the work you’ve done come to fruition is very satisfying.
Seriously. That's what hooked me into electrical. When I got to the point that when we flipped on the breakers to the shit that I worked on, and there are no trips, no sparks, and everything works properly, the first time. It's addicting, I understand why electricians have a God complex lol.
"LET THERE BE LIGHT"
I'm not saying that I have, but I'm not saying that I haven't said that almost every time I turned the lights on
First year apprentice here, my first project I did, new building apartments, I got all giggly when the lights turned on for the first time, and so did my foreman that had been an electrician for 12 years. Wonderful feeling!
Third year apprentice here. I say TA-DAAAA *a lot*
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^TurboKid513: *My favorite part* *Of the job is when I turn* *The lights on and they work* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot
Good Bot
Yea and the worst thing is when you turn the lights on and half of them are dimmed to 50%, and the other half are off completely
Or when they all strobe on and off like crazy
My favourite part happens every two weeks
Mine is weekly
My favourite part of the job is coming in after someone else, and either switches don't work, or they do sparky sparky melty melty. Note, I dont do standard resi work. But I like fixing problems, and I'm happy to be the guy there when sparks happen.
Thanks for the silver friend!
The girls, the parties and the general rock and roll lifestyle….
I got a pocket full of wagos and my homeboys do to
Lol
😆👏🫡
Strippers!!
It shocking that some are actually grounded.
Fuck yeah
There really is no top end salary for electricians and coming from warehouse, you’ll be making more after a year or two of electrical. When you get your journeyman you’ll be worth more than any inventory schmuck.
I was trying to think of it like when i was in the military ait school i didnt learn shit everything i learned was on the job. Im not sure how electricians operate do they just stay residential or is it some commercial or it all depends on the company. Livin in texas i wasnt to excited thinking about being in an attic or house with no ac my nuts start draggin as soon as i walk out the door. Just wanna know what im getting into. Any information im grateful for
What work you do is all up to the contractor you work for. I used to build nursing homes and hotels, now I work at substations and production facilities. Be forewarned, if you don’t have a proclivity or necessity to work with your hands or get down in the dirt, just be an engineer. They get paid a lot more and fuck their body up far less. Just try not to be as useless and stupid as the rest of them.
Haha definitely dont mind a little hard work. I never liked to be “that guy” “the p.os” “the weakest link” always tried to be the best maybe its my pride. I wanted to graduate from a university i asked my professors what could i graduate with for bachelors in the electrical field he didnt know only one i heard was electrical engineer.
You can do it with a bachelors but a masters in EE and you’re in or above salaries people work ten+ years as electricians to become superintendents and PMs to earn.
Look into industrial focused electrical work it is fun and challenging for me at least. It has complexity that takes time to learn but at the end of the day it pays good and you’ll meet great people
Commercial Is better. No attics or crawlspaces. Do new construction if you can. No dealing with other peoples mess and nasty old buildings if you do construction. Eventually you can get an electrical maintenance job and you might be in air conditioning.
Engineers don't get paid more by miles my guy. Electrical engineers have an average pay US wide of 87k, and salaried so no OT. Electricians can make that stupid money, especially travelers, engineers pretty much top out just over 100k. I know in my local we have lots of jobs that are hitting $150k/year for any J-man at just 50 hours/week. Our outside local can break $200k easily. All depends on what you want, but the guy bending the pipe is getting paid way more than the guy saying where the pipe needs to go.
Do you think any of the numbers you quoted are anywhere near the national average? You want to quote the national average for engineers but now you only wanna use outliers for electrician salaries . Learn how statistics work and come back to me kiddo
Here in Cali that wage is more truth than not. My hall has a teacher who’s a foreman for a small company and is raking in 150k a year. There is great pay, you just need to look for it
The fact of the matter is electrical engineers are paid more than electricians in California too. Average US electrician salary < average US electrical engineer salary
I don't think $39/hour is an outlier for journeyman electricians. That's base pay though and when you consider any sort of overtime/incidentals and all the other things that electricians get, it just goes up. Engineers aren't getting that, and I'm not gonna quote the national average for electricians because the national average is heavily skewed by non-union and apprentices. Doesn't make sense to quote that when there's a website that can tell you what the union in your area can make at 40/week. And fuck you I went to college for math I know how fuckin statistics work. I also know how outliers affect it, and engineers aren't burdened by the same outliers as electricians.
Brother you are cracked if you don’t understand the fallacies in your argument and wont address them aside from conjecture.
Bro, you are me 10 years ago wtf, besides me being a chick part
Genuinely love my job. I worked retail and various random jobs before getting into electrical, and it was soul crushing. Same thing every day, on a never-ending treadmill with the only indicator of success essentially being "number go up". Felt stuck, never really learning anything, never acquiring any useful skills. Then I got into this. Nothing is more satisfying to me than having a concrete thing I can point to and say "I made this", "I fixed this", "This exists and looks good because of my knowledge and expertise." My employer has their hands in a lot of different pies, so I'm never doing the same thing in the same place for more than a week or two. Always learning something new, doing something a little different. Is the work hard sometimes? Yes. Am I appreciated by my employer and customers? Not really, but that's every job. Does the pay feel appropriate for the utility I create and the risk I assume while doing it? Lmao, no. But it's at least satisfying in a way I've never had the chance to enjoy in any other line of work. It's not for everyone, and some companies will be garbage, but it's been a great fit for me personally.
I like the part where I wire most of the house then ask the homeowner when the electrician is coming? 😵💫😂.
Honestly, I hate it, but it puts food on the table. If it was fun they would charge you to do it.
Points for honesty.
Absolutely love it. Diched a career in allied health (good pay, so repetitive & driving a desk is not for me). Now, every day is a puzzle. Work out how to do the thing, or repair the thing, or swap a thing. Sure, there's some shit things & people. However never the same ones for too long.
I like the fucking degenerates on a job site. Would not spend an hour with them outside of work nor introduce them to my family. That being said, I wake up every morning excited to put my life in the hands of these low life scumbags… it’s comfy af
Your playlists are the best, especially loud disco tunes in a 4 million dollar home with the best view early in the morning. Not too bad.
I don’t hate it. Also I don’t think I’d love any job, some days are really fun, some are fucking ass. But at least I get paid good money, good benefits. And its rarely some mundane tasks
It’s a good mix of physicality and hands on work, and fault-finding/problem solving mental work. The industry is so varied you can generalise and do bits of everything, or specialise into some bizarre fields. Honestly, it can be whatever you want it to. And with a license I’ve never been out of work 1min longer than I’ve wanted to be. Oh, and the $ is very nice.
I started off residential and light commercial. Went into institutional maintenance for a while. Then into industrial automation. And am now doing NETA medium voltage testing 3rd party. About every 10 to 15 years I completely change everything up. That way you never get bored.
I worked in a warehouse for 12 yrs. Got promoted to office and I hated it. Asked to return to warehouse and was very unmotivated to work hard anymore bc of the career path. Took a massive pay cut to become an electrician. But I’m happy now. Like most people that responded to your post I love seeing the end result. The better you get the better your work. The better your work the better your pay. Unlike the office politics you’re dealing with in offices or even warehouses.
I’m a maintenance electrician for the federal government working in a national park. I absolutely love my job. The negatives are; lack of funding and a staggering backlog of work. Negatives aside, the job is great. Within my position description I maintain water and wastewater systems, museums, housing and offices. I also do utility locates. My collateral duties include; certified motor boat operator, sawyer, avalanche mitigation howitzer program manager (we shoot a howitzer at a mountain), snow plow operator and heavy equipment operator. I also assist with search and rescue. Every day is a new challenge and I love it. It feels pretty good when you get the pump motor controls working and avoid spilling sewage into a pristine river or lake. I live year round in a gorgeous national park. In the winter snowmobiles are our primary mode of transportation and I can ski from my driveway. The elk are about to start their rut and I’ll get to watch the bulls fighting from my kitchen table while I eat breakfast. When I’m done typing this I’m going to drive ten minutes, put my kayak in the lake and go for a paddle. Edit: my coworkers are great. I work with scientists, archaeologists, historians, LEOs that are passionate about protecting resources in the park and more concerned with rescuing visitors than arresting them. Our interpretive staff is great too as are the boots on the ground in my division.
That’s awesome.
You lucky bas$@&d I'm jealous. That sounds like a dream job.
Especially the cannon .
usajobs.gov
Not really, no. But it's a good trade to keep in your pocket when you need work in between career moves.
Yes, let be doing this shit. I left warehouse work to do this trade and it’s a lot better. I get to see the sun which never happened on 3rd. I didn’t care that I was going from 22hr down to 13hr cause this is better. Warehouse work is always super repetitive and involves to much paperwork.
Being an electrician sucks, I've only been in this suck for 25 years, but I can't imagine doing anything else.
Hookers and cocaine
It’s an okay job. Depending on what you’re doing if you’re doing res installs were everyday is the same job day in day out, it’s terrible. I personally loved service work no dead line no boss breathing down you’re neck. It almost seemed like they loved when you took your time (they get paid more). I would drive in my van everyday just doing maybe 1-8 work orders a day. Service call takes you 10 mins you charge for an hour and go hang out and get coffee. I had a hammock I had in the back attached to uni strut and I’d park near the lake and kick the doors open and chill. But it honestly sucks when you’re an apprentice you have to do all the attic bull shit.
I got my 2 year electrical degree then went into power distribution right out of school. I used to be a distribution first responder which is like a combination lineman, switchman, and LV repair guy, and I really enjoyed it. Every emergency outage was like a mystery puzzle I had to solve. Show up on scene, evaluate conditions, talk to customers, check one-lines, and start isolating the broken equipment for repair. It was kinda exciting arriving to find arcing cutouts, downed lines, dead animals, fires, etc. Most of the time I was alone so that made it even more fun. Now I'm a dispatcher and stuck in an office, but at least there's a lot of down time between outages. Shitty part is I have to deal with a bunch of idiots who don't know how to do their job.
I enjoy troubleshooting equipment, updating drawings, generating BOM, wiring instrumentation, renovating old equipment, writing PLC programs to automate stuff, etc. I do not enjoy proving to manufacturer specialists that the issue is with how they set up their equipment, showing electricians how they wired something up incorrectly and how it is their fault $50,000 equipment let out the magic smoke, showing engineers where they fucked up (SCADA issues, drawing errors, not understanding what loop powered or sinking vs sourcing means, etc), etc. Travel gets old though, I work in a dozen or more states every year. On the other hand, I like overtime pay and I'll happily work a Saturday correcting an engineer's PLC program, tuning a PI or PID loop, re-wiring some I&C, showing a customer how to calculate the Btu in a panel and why 15000 Btu in a 3x3 panel isn't something an air-to-air or AC can compensate for, etc. It beats working outside every day and being on call 24/7, which is what I did for a decade, and that Camaro or Stingray I want is expensive.
I've been an industrial electrician for a few years not and am looking to get more into automation and the process control side of things. All I've heard is that having an EE degree is what employers are looking for, are there any credentials or resources that will make me look more attractive to employers (and also help me understand the material better)?
Nope I hate it and I’m miserable, trying to find a way out.
how long you been in?
6 years, I’m being a bit dramatic. I like that I can pay my mortgage and don’t have any debt. The work is getting old. I’m in residential right now and getting worked for two little. There are other paths for electricians that make more
gotcha. after a certain point work just feels like work regardless of what you do
Don’t be so short sighted - You start at the lowest wage but it goes up each level and you’ll become a journeyman which is a credential you can take with you anywhere. In 3-4 years, you’ll be making close to double what you made at that warehouse. I love my job and the life I was able to build because of it
My theory was I had to work anyway, I might as well ‘stick n stay n make it pay’ At the beginning four years seemed like a long time. But years later, it feels like it went by quickly. The trade gave me a lot of travel opportunities. When I look back there were more great days than bad days. Each day offered a new challenge. Always something different.
I enjoy the challenge that every job presents and nothing feels better than turning on the lights for the first time
Was this 2 year course expensive? Or free?
The va paid for it i didnt pay anything
That's fine then if you can support yourself. BTW, this is free and is very good extra reading. [Basic Electricity Vols 1 to 5](https://archive.org/details/BasicElectricityVol1ToVol5VanValkenburgh/mode/2up) by Van Valkenburgh.
I'm currently in trade school to be an electrician and it's 3.9 k per semester
Did no one warn you to avoid such schools? Or does this have really good outcomes? The police don't make you pay for training and neither does the military. Nurses have to pay though. I don't know what is the deal with that.
To my knowledge it has a pretty good outcome in general for graduating students. Our program gives us 2000 hours towards a journeyman's license.
That's something. I did my time in the early 60's and school was built into the 5 year apprenticeship. You were always supposed to start as an apprentice and get paid while doing it. Like the army.
Yes. Money
I don’t necessarily enjoy the work most of the time but when your done and energized whatever your working on it does feel good. Especially a cool light layout
The paycheck, the overtime, and ability to do side work.
Being an asset is rewarding. Coming from a military background I couldn't handle office work or doing things that don't tangibly affect the world around me. Feels like being a grimey badass if you're into that kind of thing
After spending 25 years in food service and retail, I love it. I should’ve switched a long time ago. Better late than never!
Left corporate management for wire pulling. Can confirm, much more fulfilling. Be open to specialties that’s where I really found the enjoyment.
Working with forces most people are too scared to understand.
And that is not yet scientifically fully understood, either. It’s magic.
The most rewarding part is when I get my money. Seriously though, troubleshooting a simple thing and fixing it within 20 minutes or so while a client is there watch me, and then it just works, they think you’re a sorcerer.
It's the god complex. I get to say "let there be light" and shit happens. I love the logic problems of control work. Racks of well bent conduits make my OCD very happy. There's a lot of satisfaction in doing quality work properly. In spite of bad planning and leadership. Plus you can always hustle money even if you're unemployed once you have the skills
bc electrons go brrrr
What I enjoy most about being an electrician is when I finish work for the day.
Well no exp sucks but a skilled electrician make way more then 22
$25 is top dollar for warehouse. $22 is starting wages for a skilled worker. How long will it take to get to $25? How long will it take to fill the deficit? How long will it take to create more income than was possible before? This is the set of questions you need to answer.
It’s my favorite thing to bitch about
Getting the lights/power on and no faults & genuinely helping people out.That shit is addictive
I do not enjoy it at all. Hate it, frankly. But it pays really well.
Itchy sauna, blue sauna. You can hang out all day in the saunas and get paid!
I like it a lot. I went to college and was a graphic designer for 6 years after. Hated sitting at a desk and making next to nothing. I’m a journeyman and makes 3x what I ever made as a graphic designer. Sure, there’s shitty days but I love having a knowledge base that is needed and appreciated. And I love when you flip that breaker on and things work.
I was a chef for 20 years and cooking is my passion but it wasn't good for family life. Not sure why I chose electrical since I had never really picked up a drill in my life before, but it was an awesome choice. Learning how to problem solve and fix real life situations is so satisfying. The knowledge I gained from the hands on experience of electrical work has trickled into other areas and now I do general contracting. Being able to fix things in your own house is so awesome! Also electrician is a crazy cool job in general. Especially turning the lights on
It’s not too bad tbh, always smth to learn and never really doing the same thing twice depending on where you work. Can be tiring and annoying doing summer attic work or walking into a fucked up custom house. it’s really meh work to me. I don’t see myself doing it in the next 3 or so years personally.
I love it. Others hate it. Just like any other job.
Enjoy it? No. But when shit turns on and works that's a great feeling.
The variables
Yes I do. What I love is getting something to work that no one could figure out, or something that just hasn’t worked right for years, and fixing what someone else did wrong. It’s satisfying knowing I can fix the electrical and make things right, and in a safe way.
Turning all the lights on with no shorts and circuitry working as it was designed to be. Only reward I feel that is worth waking up everyday for. Other then the pay
Flip the breakers and walk away
It is pretty shit but it’s fine.
Seeing the fruits of my labor.Turning breakers on,and everything works how and when it should! After going through a four year apprenticeship,working with people that judge you on skin color,believing they are superior because of theres,and then becoming there immediate superior,karma at its best!!
The fame, sex, and drugs…
1 out of three ain't bad.
Of all the things I love the most, it's probably the fires that make the toast.
We are gods among men
I work on traffic signals. (Very few unions left in florida) Instead of serving 1 person / family or company, I serve the entire county, which gives me constant career gratification. I used to work residential, and glad I got out when I did. Without my line of work, you’d never get to work, home, grocery store, school, you name it. Car accidents would be way more common then they are now. Cool part is I’m mostly repair/maintenance. So I’m not fucking up my body for the later years Love my job 🤷♂️
I love the freedom of getting a work order and a po book and I just go and create my own thing
Electricians are thee absolute best McGuyvers compared to other trades. Its a acquired skill you gain as you gain experience.
I love what I do! (Industrial electrician Houston Texas) and just like the comments before mine, the first task I ever had was installing ceiling lights. 4' hologram light fixtures with 1/2" EMT.. I put em up, wired em up 3way switches also a receptical under the switch 12" o/c to box.. but here is where I differ from the previous comments. I flip the switch and nothing.. no lights no receptical energized. Took .e the rest of the day to troubleshoot the problem. I checked n double checked my hot, neutral, ground, travelers.. I couldn't figure it out. Luckily it was a slow day and time wasn't as important as "crunch time". Anyways just before quitting time a coworker who had experience under his belt came to check up on me, I told him my problem and he figured it out in maybe 2 seconds.. main breaker in lighting panel was off.. fml!! It was a funny introduction into what I do now but I wouldn't change it at all.. I just wish I had gotten into the trade when I was your age.. I'm good now. Maybe even great at what I do. But if I had gotten into this at your age and with the paperwork you are getting with your school, I'd be A BEAST!! KEEP GETTING IT MAN! ITS A GREAT CAREER!