Out of the trade to long

paulymc

Alright lads. Completed my apprenticeship around 2010 when the economy wasn’t great and people were getting let go to beat the band. Service was broken by my employer once qualified as I expected. Since then I’ve worked in a telecommunications company for over 8 years similar money van etc so I haven’t needed to go back on site. Permanent job no 6 month contract etc.

A regret I have though is I feel I’ve wasted my trade, I’ve hardly any experience and I genuinely do enjoy learning the trade and doing small elect jobs around the house. I’ve searched the internet and as far as I see there’s no sort of refresher courses etc for someone who being “inactive”

Is it just a case of taking small jobs for friends and family getting back into it and learning from there? As I said I’ve never actually been employed as a qualified electrician.

I’m still in the same job 8+ years don’t plan on leaving at the minute.

Outkast_IRE

paulymc wrote: »

Alright lads. Completed my apprenticeship around 2010 when the economy wasn’t great and people were getting let go to beat the band. Service was broken by my employer once qualified as I expected. Since then I’ve worked in a telecommunications company for over 8 years similar money van etc so I haven’t needed to go back on site. Permanent job no 6 month contract etc.

A regret I have though is I feel I’ve wasted my trade, I’ve hardly any experience and I genuinely do enjoy learning the trade and doing small elect jobs around the house. I’ve searched the internet and as far as I see there’s no sort of refresher courses etc for someone who being “inactive”

Is it just a case of taking small jobs for friends and family getting back into it and learning from there? As I said I’ve never actually been employed as a qualified electrician.

I’m still in the same job 8+ years don’t plan on leaving at the minute.

If you were in telecommunications would you have gained any skills that would be useful to the guys specialising in data installations ? In the crowd I encounter alot these guys are electricians that specialised , and always have plenty of work . An example of such a company would be keddingtons in cork, it would be a good foot back in the door.

Trust me when I say you aren't missing out on anything in the general trade , in the big companies they suffer with the problem of too many apprentices and too little supervision, poor training, poor workmanship meaning the guys who are actually good and not just donkeys end up fixing and snagging huge volumes of poor work from others . The small companies just want to be in and out the quality is massively variable .

Whereas the data specialists seem to keep relatively high standards.

I am kind of in the same place as you although I did keep somewhat "in the loop" by having family in the trade.
I was half thinking of going back on the tools last year (out for 8 years) and put the word out in my area that I was willing to work evenings and weekend with anyone that needed a dig out.
Ended up getting back into it fairly quickly with regards regs etc and made a bit of cash too.

2011

@paulymc:

The truth is that electricians only really learn after they complete thier apprenticeship. Electricians only become knowledgeable in the areas that they have actually worked in.

There are so many different tasks that various electricians spread across the industry perform each day it is simply impossible for any one electrician to be proficient at all of them. This is the simple truth.

A highly experienced electrician that is an expert in maintaining complex electrical installations may be practicaly usless at domestic electrical installation work and vice versa. This should not reflect poorly on that electrician’s ability.

So my advice to you is:
1) Don’t panic, ease yourself back in gently.
2) Someone will show you the ropes and you will work it out.
3) Every electrician has suffered from “imposter syndrome”, they just might not admit it.
4) You know a lot more than you think you know.
5) There is a massive shortage of electricians so this is the best possible time to get back into it.
6) You can always get answers here.

paulymc

Great posts lads I guess it’s just a case of getting stuck in and learning on the job again. My Company have received a good bit of electrical work staring in the autumn so hopefully that will get me back into the trade.

In Regards Keddingtons a few of my mates have gone there about 4 months ago in Dublin on the data side and it sounds like a piece of pi*s but very boring. Making server racks or Velcro-strapping cables for days on end. I think I’d go mad. 😀

2011 wrote: »

@paulymc:

The truth is that electricians only really learn after they complete thier apprenticeship. Electricians only become knowledgeable in the areas that they have actually worked in.

There are so many different tasks that various electricians spread across the industry perform each day it is simply impossible for any one electrician to be proficient at all of them. This is the simple truth.

A highly experienced electrician that is an expert in maintaining complex electrical installations may be practicaly usless at domestic electrical installation work and vice versa. This should not reflect poorly on that electrician’s ability.

So my advice to you is:
1) Don’t panic, ease yourself back in gently.
2) Someone will show you the ropes and you will work it out.
3) Every electrician has suffered from “imposter syndrome”, they just might not admit it.
4) You know a lot more than you think you know.
5) There is a massive shortage of electricians so this is the best possible time to get back into it.
6) You can always get answers here.

Outkast_IRE

paulymc wrote: »

In Regards Keddingtons a few of my mates have gone there about 4 months ago in Dublin on the data side and it sounds like a piece of pi*s but very boring. Making server racks or Velcro-strapping cables for days on end. I think I’d go mad. ��

Yeah it can be, i would imagine the dublin-centric work has alot of datacentres etc. But down south in Cork etc. its mostly standard jobs so you would see plenty of different sites each year etc.



Dont knock it data work is clean, skilled work. The requirements for these guys is only going up.

Annd9

Was in the exact same situation , 8 years doing data and fibre having been let go just as I qualified in 2010 . Jumped back into the deep end last September and I have not looked back .