Friday, November 26, 2010

Speed Control

One problem I'm having as a journeyman is speed. I'm having trouble getting tasks done fast enough, or at least at a rate which I feel is expected of me. I realize that I'm being paid 20% more per hour than I was as a fifth-year apprentice, and so I really feel like I need to be 20% more "valuable" to my company, which to me oftentimes means being 20% faster.

I suppose part of the problem I'm having comes from the "learning curve" which you encounter on every new project you take on, but a large majority of it comes from the heightened sense of responsibility that I feel as a mechanic. Since there's no longer anybody coming behind me to make sure I'm doing the job correctly, I tend to over-think each task to make sure that it's being done correctly and efficiently. When I described this feeling to one of my teachers at the hall, he introduced me to a term which perfectly conveys the feeling: "analysis paralysis." I couldn't believe how apt that description is. I was very relieved to learn that this is a common feeling that new mechanics get!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

First Few Months

Over the course of the 5 years that you spend in apprenticeship before becoming a journeyman electrician, you become a really good apprentice. When I started out in the trade, I didn't know a thing about electricity and I didn't know a thing about construction sites. But as graduation grew closer and closer, I felt more and more comfortable in my role as an apprentice. You learn what's expected of you in many areas of performance: attitude, manual skill, knowledge of the trade, forethought and planning, etc. As a first year student, I looked up to 4th and 5th years in much the same way as I looked up to mechanics. I could see that these men and women knew what they were doing.

Coming into this summer I felt like I knew what I was doing, finally, too. And it was that comfort which I relied on to keep me rolling as a new mechanic. But I noticed that some things were different.

As I met new people on the job I was now introduced as a journeyman--not an apprentice. These people never knew me as an apprentice, and I suddenly started feeling a new sense of responsibility settling on me. What kind of jobs would I be asked to do? Could I ask questions if I had them? Apprentices are full of questions and are always learning. I still had a lot of questions!

I'm still learning what's expected of a journeyman. I've got the tools, I've got the training, and I'm ready to work. What I've found to be most helpful to me as a journeyman are mental techniques. I try to approach every new task or new jobsite with optimism and a "can-do" attitude, even if I'm not feeling too confident or sure of what I'm doing. I'm trying to ask fewer questions of my foremen. I think we know more than we think we do at this point, and we just have to trust ourselves (this is the part that's particularly difficult for me!).

Also, I'm trying to quickly engage the task at hand and be the one who is "leading" the work to it's completion. As an apprentice, you sometimes have to sit back and let the mechanic drive the tempo of the work being done. Sure, there are many apprentices who are faster than mechanics, but I'm realizing that it's our job to pace the work. It's successful completion rests on our shoulders.

It's been an interesting few months so far. I'm looking forward to the work ahead and finally getting comfortable in my new role!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

We did it!

I can't believe the time has finally come for me to say this, but I'm officially a journeyman electrician now! Our class graduated this past Saturday, June 5th, bringing 5 years of hard work and study to an exciting finish. The JATC did an amazing job of celebrating our successful completion of the program. We had a wonderful ceremony at Martin's Crosswinds in Greenbelt consisting of a formal graduation as well as dinner with family, friends, members of the JATC and several members of the electrical industry. Although the spotlight was on us apprentices and our graduation, I think everyone involved could see that the event was just another indication of how well organized and talented the people who run this apprenticeship really are: it was unforgettable.

So after five years of being an apprentice, I really look forward to working as a full-fledged journeyman. This past week at work has been very interesting for me. Nothing has changed to an outsider's perspective, but I feel compelled to work as fast and as diligently as possible and to make as many independent decisions as I can. I'm working under a terrific foreman who isn't putting any extra pressure on me because of my new electrical status, but I still feel like it's my job now to emulate the work I've watched countless mechanics around me perform for the past few years. The best journeymen I've worked with have all had one quality in common: regardless of their differing strengths as electricians, they've all brought a can-do attitude to the tasks they've been asked to perform. Although I still feel like there are plenty of things I don't fully understand in the electrical field, it is this quality with which I hope to approach my job every day.

Monday, April 5, 2010

A Different Feel

I'm really getting a new feel for what it's like being an electrician while I'm working on the job I'm currently on. We have had a very small crew--just a foreman, myself, a second-year apprentice and a helper--for the majority of the three months that I've been out there. Only recently have we added another fifth-year apprentice and occasionally a mechanic who helps us out when he's not busy doing service calls for the company.

With this set-up as it is, a lot of "important" work has fallen on my shoulders. What I mean by "important" work is work that ordinarily is automatically given to an experienced mechanic on the job--exposed pipe-runs that have to look just right, large runs with difficult routes, building electric closets, setting switchgear, etc. I have repeatedly been very surprised to realize that, most of the time, I am the most experienced electrician on the job outside of the foreman...and with graduation only two months away (!), I'm almost a mechanic.

It's really been a lot of fun. I feel great knowing that I'm being trusted to perform tasks which aren't 100% straight-forward and simple. To me, part of the experience of being an apprentice has been realizing that there's a lot I don't know and--as a result--holding a great deal of respect for the vast amount of knowledge that a mechanic has about electric work. I never really knew what sort of change to expect once the time came to become a mechanic myself. I guess I just imagined that I'd suddenly know a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't know before. As it turns out, as graduation draws closer, I'm understanding that a lot of the feeling of transition will come from the respect and trust that others put in me. This is a cool feeling; one which, by itself, is worth five years of hard work.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Once in a Lifetime!

Yesterday, my time as an apprentice at Local 26 reached a height I never dreamed it would when I began training:

I had the tremendous privilege of meeting President Barack Obama!! You could have knocked me over with a feather.


The President visited our training facility yesterday morning before giving a speech discussing job creation and our nation's energy sources. He was given a tour of the hall by our directors and teachers, getting lessons on topics ranging from AutoCAD to PLC's. He was delighted to pull one of the fire alarm system display's pull stations: "I got a chance to pull the first fire alarm since I was in junior high and I didn't get in trouble for it!"



It is difficult to attempt to describe the honor that we feel as an organization at having been recognized and commended by President Obama and his administration. What an enormous testament to the hard work of the directors and staff of the JATC---it's their constant dedication to developing the apprenticeship program that led to this exciting day!



We were additionally thrilled to have had several other important members of the business and industrial communities with us. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, and IBEW President Ed Hill also came to share in the activities of the day.
I am immeasurably grateful to the JATC for having been given the chance to participate in this amazing event. It serves as a huge inspiration to me and I'll never forget it.











I can't say it enough: the opportunities provided by this apprenticeship program are endless. One minute, you're sweeping the floor at the jobsite. The next minute, you're shaking hands with the President of the United States!!












Sunday, February 14, 2010

Back to it!

I just returned to work this past week after being gone for a few weeks. I traveled to Port-au-Prince after news of the earthquake to help out at a school I used to work at in the city. It was an interesting trip and I felt very useful--amid all the chaos, it felt great to be able to provide solid, professional support in the form of electric work. I mention this just to illustrate the utility that I find in being trained in this field. The work we do is helpful to people all over the world, and I was happy to explore new environments with my tools in hand.

Getting back to work on the job I'm currently working on has also been an experience. This week really drove home for me how much of a career being an electrician truly is. I believe it is a life-long experience, not something you learn how to do one time and then you've got it. After missing only three weeks of work at my job, I found myself fumbling to re-center my mind and focus on speedy and satisfactory completion of the tasks I was presented with. Let's just say that there are a couple pieces of pipe that I hope nobody notices sitting alongside of the dumpster!

I'm looking forward to a focused week ahead and getting fully back into the groove. Weather permitting!

Monday, January 11, 2010

New Year

So the new year finds me at a new contractor and in a very different situation than I was in with my old company! Such is the nature of the apprenticeship and honestly, it's one of my favorite parts about it.

At the beginning of December, I transferred to a new company for my final transfer. I decided to return to the first electrical company I ever worked for. The past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work: they've been fun for the simple reason that I've been lucky to work with a lot of people that I remember from my first year in the trade, and they've been hard because I have a lot more responsibility than I did during that first year!

For the last two and a half years, I've been on really large, new construction jobs, working alongside several other electricians--dozens at a time--apprentices and mechanics alike. Now, suddenly, I'm on a job with a foreman and two other apprentices. It's quite a change and probably a major cause of the increase in responsibility that I'm feeling. Nevertheless, I'm having a blast.

You wouldn't believe how fast a work-day goes by when you are personally responsible for getting projects done. Without having a mechanic by my side for the majority of my day, I have to make a lot of choices and decisions that were ordinarily not mine to make (how should this pipe be run, where should we mount a pull-box, etc.). I also have to set my own tempo, which is perhaps the strangest feeling of all--without realizing it, over the years I've grown very used to tailoring my work pace to that of my mechanic so that we work well together. I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of what life as a journeyman is going to be like: and that's a good thing, because it's only six months down the road!