3 Things You NEED To Know BEFORE Becoming An Electrician Apprentice

today we're going to be talking about the three things that I wish I knew as an apprentice electrician now the first two things are going to be things that I learned along the way and the last thing is going to be something that I see now as someone who has apprentices under me now there are about a thousand things you really need to know about being an electrician but these three I think are going to be things that can really help you especially if you haven't started yet number one is that you need to meet the expectations of whoever you are working for for instance being on time right to me all my life being on time meant that you were just like at the building at seven o'clock however the first contractor that I worked for their expectation was for you to be all the way through these checkpoints right so you had to go check in at the front desk from there you had to drive around back you had to go all the way get all your tools set up get everything on your cart and get your cart into the facility and be at the place that you're working at at 7 so that really meant getting there at about 6 40. now to me didn't make any sense it wasn't fair however the people that I was working for realized that the customer was paying and so that that customer expected to see people there at seven o'clock working not checking in at seven o'clock and getting in um to the back all the way you know not starting and not being on your tools until 7 30 or 7 40. so that's an expectation and it didn't seem reasonable to me at the time and I didn't understand however they were paying me that was a paycheck that I was receiving and so I needed to meet those expectations so if you're expected to be at the Gang Box at seven be it the Gang Box by seven and if not you know be be at the Gang Box or be on your tools at seven wherever that expectation is set you have to go and meet it there the second thing that I want to really point out is that it's okay to make mistakes you're going to make mistakes you were expected to you are going to have times where you cannot keep up Pace with the rest of the crew unless you're not the only Apprentice then you should be trying to catch up however don't expect to it's really one of those things where you want to try you want to give it your effort however when you get stuck don't be so frustrated that you just like shut down you have to just keep moving forward there's gonna be days where you are like man I'm embarrassed because I know I should do this it seems so easy why am I having trouble with this but put in the time put in the effort and grow and then the next time like after you attain obtain that skill you're able to just move forward and continue on with it and you don't have to worry about it however at the beginning there are going to be so many things that you want to do that you can't really do because you're not that skilled in that area yet so just be prepared you know be ready and and kind of take whatever comes at you and be able to make mistakes when you finally are on your own in an area of a building and you mess something up or you don't know how to do something go ask for help your Journeymen are going to love that they want you to ask because at the end of the day it's about money and so when you do that you really need to be able to like ask for help and not mess something up and leave something undone that is much much worse the characteristic that will allow you to be out on your own looking and doing stuff sooner is being able to go get help when you need it calling somebody when you need it going to find somebody when you need it asking how to do things because there is a certain point where certain things you just can't figure out on your own you need to ask especially because the person running the job has a specific Vision they they see it in a certain way and if you do it a way that maybe differs from theirs a little bit sometimes that leads to frustration however when you keep the vision of the person who's doing it they'll be much happier they'll be much more pleased with you and they'll teach you what they were looking at when they saw that in the first place the third thing number two yes it is okay to ask questions but number three jobs are about making money yes you're an apprentice yes you want to learn and you want to be able to ask questions however there is a difference between trying to learn and trying to stall so you don't have to do as much work now there are times where you are able to take in information and there are times where you are not when you're on a weekend shutdown it's not the time for you to be asking questions one of the jobs that I was on somebody cut through a concrete bank and we had to go they cut through some wires so we had to go re-pull them it was crazy we worked like 17 hours that day it was so miserable that was not the time for me to be sitting around asking questions okay I did learn a lot I watched but I was a doer that day I was not just picking up information because of the amount of workload and also the in just the intensity of the work it was a Saturday everybody wanted to go home and it was incredibly long now that being said it's not super common for that to happen however when those things happen it's a day for you to just shut up ask whatever you need to ask in order to do what you're doing you know you're traditionally not the one who's doing the important work there and it's not a time for teaching just sit back do it and make sure that you your Journeymen are able to you know they don't have to worry about you the less they have to worry about you the more likely you are to be able to go out on your own sooner to get a raise to do all those things and the more that you're doing those things and the more you're helping out your journeyman the more likely that the good Journeymen are because traditionally they have the ability to kind of pick what Apprentice they want to go with them sometimes if you're available and the good journeyman because those are the ones who do well so they're the ones who have more say on getting to pick their Apprentice they'll pick you and then you'll get to go learn with the good journeyman that's how I ended up learning with the best journeyman at our company I did everything I could for him I worked super hard in order for the jobs to make money as much as you need to learn you have to remember that jobs are to make money and the people that are taking care of you all of your project managers your managers your employers uh the journeyman they have to look at the numbers and see how much money they're making and so if you do well in the jobs that you work on end up making money they'll see that and they'll be like okay this is somebody we want to promote this is somebody we want to look at they're being productive they're learning yes but they're being productive and they're adding value to our company and it's like those things where if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours and making money is the name of the game being profitable is so big those are the three things that I wish I knew starting out as an apprentice electrician that would have helped me tremendously if I had known that from day one now if you are wondering just how I got into the trades I will link a video up here in the corner because I just talked about it in my last video so go ahead and check that out I'll see you guys on the next one

Channel: American Electrician

Views: 9,797

Keywords: Electrical apprentice, Electrician, How to start, Becoming an electrician, Becoming an apprentice, Trade school, Union, How to be come an electrician, Electricians vlog, Electrical vlog, Knipex, Veto pro pac, Wiha, Tool, Electricians tool bag, Carhartt, New job, Electricians tool belt, apprentice electrician, electricians tools, klein tools, mad electrician, tool bag tour, electrician apprentice, Electrical apprenticeship, electrician u

Id: qo2Bb8bNBao

Length: 7min 11sec (431 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023