My name is Manny I have been in the electrical trade for 7 years, I previously worked in HVAC and many years before that I was a Service Manager for Fry’s Electronics. As retail started to dwindle and dwindle and brick in mortar because to close down I started to wonder what I would do with my life. I needed to re-tool myself but I did not want to go back to school and do college again. One day the trash compactor broke at the store I managed and I needed to call a service company to get it repaired. I called in a technician to repair the machine and while I led him around the building I made small chat with him about what he did for a job. It seemed like maintenance like he did was not such a bad thing to drive around and do. He told me he was a service electrician and he pretty much just drove around and repaired broken machines on commercial buildings. My job at the time was to make sure all the computers in the building were working and that the point of sale machines always functioned.
Similar but I wasn’t very handy with with hand tools. I took apart laptops and cell phones. I would type in commands in dos to format hard drives and installed software on workstations. I thought to myself more when I looked up the wages an electrician typically made and how schooling was trained on the job for the most part. I began to think well if I can work on these small things why cant I just upsize it to larger things? SO I began my quest to become an electrician. I took me awhile to figure out how to get in but I applied for the JATC and the IBEW in Oregon where I lived at the time. I got placed pretty far down the list so I figured I would be patient and work my current job as a service manager until they called me. Not long after my best friend from highschool had texted me that he was talking with his uncle and he was going to get into an electrical apprenticeship in WA state. That was ironic because I hadn’t mentioned my interest in my own quest to him. He also said that his uncle was a operations manager at a trade company and he was looking for young guys that wanted to work in HVAC. He said his Uncle wanted to meet me and see if I would be a good fit at his company. I figured why not, its not an electrician but its at least getting my foot in the door in the trades. I went up to his house and we had a pretty interesting conversation and he offered me a job way up north in Lynnwood near where I was born in Everett Wa. He also said I would just have to work in HVAC until an apprentice spot opened up and he could offer me the next spot if HVAC wasn’t my gig.
I wasn’t really ready to pack up all my shit and leave my house in Newberg OR, I was managing 16 employees and lived in my own home. If I took his offer I would need to move to one of the most expensive areas to live as the lowest person on the totem pole. A helper in the HVAC industry. Taking a pretty substantial pay cut, but there was my parents who I could move in with in Lake Stevens. I spent a few weeks thinking about it, and decided to put in my two weeks. I was going to move back into my parents house at 32 which made me feel like a loser but the rent in the area was totally insane so I bit the bullet and moved into their basement.
I pretty much sold everything I had in a garage sale until all the stuff in my house fit into a 1994 Toyota 4runner. I YOLOed my ass into my parents’ basement and began work as a hammer swinging HVAC helper. It was a pretty stark contrast going from working with people who stare at screens all day at work then go home and stare at screens and play video games all night. To white monster drinking, cigarettes smoking , cussing, death metal listening, modern day cave men. And when I mean stark contrast I mean people who cant change a tire to save their lives practically Steven Hawking embodiments. To bravado walking, chest bumping, knuckle draggers. Not going to lie I really started to enjoy it. There was a lot of complexity to HVAC, especially the NATE certified guys that did all the customer remodels in downtown Seattle.
I’ll never forget the first thing a very passionate lead on a very expensive and custom HVAC system installation told me. He said “The way to can tell a good tradesmen from a bad one is in the work.” ”The quality is in the work.” I know it seems like a simple concept but that really became the life blood of how I began to learn and work in the trades. I have come across handfuls of tradesmen over the years. Some speak to highly about their work, how good they are at things. How fast they can build or install a job. But that phrased changed me. I stopped looking at how long they had been working in the trade, how many years under their belt, how many words in their mouth. But the quality at which their hands left on that house. I could see clear as day the people who cared about their work and the guy who were just collection a paycheck. I could tell who was more concerned about status and who was concerned about the quality. I enjoyed my time in HVAC and the people I met. I’m fortunate to be trained in both, maybe one day I will bring that trade into my own business.
But after a short while a position opened in Tacoma for a electrical apprenticeship. It was finally time to continue on my quest to become an Electrician. I had a great detour but I was ready to move on. A few days after my interview down at the south shop. I was scheduled to the do the HVAC install that the Journeymen that was going to be my “new boss” was coming to run the electrical for. Everyone had warned me about this man about being a hard ass, and apparently he apprentice spot was open because he had ran off the last few guys until they either quit went back into HVAC. He seem nice and even showed me what a paddle bit was. I was use to using whole saws because copper linesets for unitary never needed a whole smaller that 3 inches.
I was in for a new world.