Many electrical contractors will have a shop where they do repair work and assembly.  Most electricians do not like shop work.  For one thing it can get monotonous, and secondly, it usually pays less.

Sometimes the shop itself is an afterthought.  They are not very comfortable to work in.  One place where I worked had a shop that wasn’t very nice.  It was very small in size and located in the back corner was a rudimentary restroom.  It had no windows or air movement fan.  It had one stool, one basin, one light and a door.  It was a source of offensive odors that drifted slowly throughout the main shop area.  Sometimes it took hours before it cleared out.

This business had only two men working in the shop.  I was talking to one of the men when the other came walking from the back of the shop, wiping his hands with a paper towel.   The guy I was talking to, interrupted our conversation and said; “Man!  What did you do back there?”

They fellow with the towel answered; “Man!  Can’t you tell?”

One of the greatest blessings is to work out side; hot or cold or in between.

Another place I worked, one of the shop boys always wanted to get out and work in the field with us.  One day we came in to the shop after working in the field.  The shop boy cam up to us and said; “I must have gotten a raise!”

We knew he was probably getting about half as much as we were.  At the time we were getting about $5.00 an hour in the field.

We asked him why he said that.  What did the boss say?

He told us a farmer’s wife had brought in a motor to be repaired.  It was a very simple repair job so he had written on the ticket for the motor job; “1/2 hour.”

The boss came back to look at the motor.  He scratched out the “1/2 hour” and wrote $45.00.

The boy said he must have been given a raise.

It seemed like pretty high overhead.

In the electrical trade, I think perhaps there are more parts and pieces for material needed than in any other trade.  There are different types of wiring that each requires their own list of materials, as well as some parts that are common among several processes.  For instance, the different types of wiring installation include; house wiring, commercial and industrial wiring, fiber optics, electronics, explosion proof, repair and service work, harmonics, etc.  Some of these types of wiring require very specialized materials.

Manufacturers continually bring out new equipment, new support materials, and updated methodology.  The NEC code is, if not re-written, continually updated every three years to keep up with emerging technology and material capability.

I have worked in all of the types of wiring noted above except fiber optics.  Electronics is one of the more recent types of wiring – which coincidently I am having difficulty learning.

The result of all of these types of electrical work is that your work vehicle must be able to carry a wide range and variety of material with you when you go to a job.  One of the reasons we need shelves and drawers is because the material needs to be kept dry, dust free and undamaged.  Sometimes it means knowing how and what you can substitute to do a job properly and completely.  That in turn impacts the vehicle you use for a work vehicle.

I have seen many different designs that electricians have come up with in order to provide material transportation.  One of the better vehicles was a telephone truck, but they were designed chiefly with low voltage work in mind.  The best one I have seen is a high topped van which can contain many shelves and drawers.  These days I think the best one is the Dodge Sprinter Hi-Top in three different sizes.  One of the electricians that worked for me referred to it as an “electrician’s Cadillac.”

Most of the time when I worked for other companies, I was given a pick-up to use as a work vehicle.  As a result I usually had material on the dash, on the passenger seat, under the seat, you name it.  Due to circumstances, one time I had to provide a ride for my wife in my work vehicle.  I had a very difficult time finding room for her….inside.

I told my boss that I had given my wife a ride in his pick-up on the way to work.  He eyed the front passenger seat and said; “What did you do?  Pick her up and set her on top of all the stuff?”

The electrical industry does a lot of experimenting on the result of short circuiting; especially in high voltage and high amperage conditions.  The man on the job often experiences … er … experiments with these situations by accident.

One time I was working on a large electrical panel located in the office of a business.  The business owner told me that I could not turn the power off as he was in the middle of making payroll using a computer.

In the course of my work I discovered a loose connection in the deep interior of the panel.  Very carefully wending my way through the maze of wiring and connections, I was trying, with great diligence and care, to tighten the connection with a screw driver.

Of course this would be the time that the screw driver would slip.  It did.  There was an explosion.  For a few seconds I couldn’t see.  Slowly my eyesight returned and I recovered from the electrical flash.

Fortunately, I was wearing glasses.  There were bits of copper that had splattered on, and welded themselves to, my eye-glass lenses.  The arc ruined about 3 breakers and disintegrated a number of buss jumpers.

The owner came running out of his office saying (loudly); “I told you I couldn’t have the power shut off!”  What could I say?  It took me a couple of hours running around town to find the parts I needed and to install them to get the power back on before the day ended.

For some strange reason I was never sent back to that job.

The above account reminds me of another instance where an electrical disconnect, rated for inside (weather protected) installation, had been used in an outside installation.  There were two guys working on the job.  One was standing behind the installation and the other at the front of it.  This particular installation had electrical gear on both sides of a board.  The whole unit was standing out in the middle of nowhere particular, unprotected from the weather.  The guy at the front tried to turn off the power by activating the improperly installed “inside” disconnect.  The electrical disconnect would not operate because water on copper had effectively “welded” it in place so that it was stuck.

The guy in the front jerked real hard on the handle and the whole thing blew up in his face.

At the hospital he was told the one thing that saved his face from being fried was his heavy beard.

Such instances are what have prompted many OSHA safety rules and NEC requirements for properly using equipment rated for the environment in which it is installed.