When I first started wiring, it was on farm houses.  Nobody even knew what a hard hat was.  It was not until I got into government jobs that hard hats were required.  The same goes for steel toed boots.

It seemed the hard hats were very heavy to wear, and in the summer time they were excruciatingly hot.  Eventually I found liners you could wear inside of the hard hat in cold weather.

Most of the early hard hats were made of metal, but eventually they were manufactured from hard plastic.  Some featured smooth tops and some of them had ridges.  I was once told the reason for the ridges were so that electricians could hold wire up with their hard hats.  That was one story I didn’t believe.  In all the years that I worked while using a hard hat, I never once had occasion to hold wire up with my head.  Today you can get hard hats and hard caps, and I have even seen hard protected cowboy hats.  I preferred hard hats with a brim that would also somewhat protect your shoulders from falling material.

It was quite popular to write something on your hat – your name or trade, or a slogan – something humorous.  Some of the guys I worked with were quite artistic, if not completely articulate.

On many jobs, when issued a hat, it was a specific color for a specific trade.  It was not uncommon to have a number designation on your hat, which made it possible to identify the wearer from a distance.

One time the big boss of a large construction company was in the hospital next to a construction job his company was doing.  He demanded a room overlooking the job so he could look down on the job from his office … no … his bed.  He had field glasses to observe his men and report what was going on back to his superintendant.

I remember one job where my hat was just plain gray (or grey – either way it’s the same color).  Someone took a strip of wire markers that said; “Power Power Power and applied it to my hard hat to be humorous.  I was allowed to keep the hat after the job was done.  I still have it; along with a collection of other hats I was given.

I do know of one hard hat that didn’t make it.  One of my friends, who was also my next door neighbor, oversaw the installation of high voltage lines.  He liked his hard hat.  He wore it all the time.  One day my friend was out hunting, wearing his hard hat of course.  When they camped at night the group wanted to make coffee but they had no tin can to boil water.

My friend took the interior webbing and support out of his hard hat (it was one of the metal ones) and used it to boil water over a campfire.  The next week he was on a pole and a gust of wind blew his hard hat off of his head.  Upon landing on the ground the hat broke into a hundred pieces.

I have no idea what that coffee tasted like.  And I don’t know if drinking it had any negative impact on their health.

On the other hand, plastic is not the answer to everything.

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?”