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So you think you could be an electrician?

456 points · 414 comments · zdw

  1. airbreather · · focus · HN ↗
    One point that most people miss is there are many different kinds of electricians who, often can't even do each other's jobs.

    There is the house wirer, the panel builder, automotive electrician, HV, marine, drilling, industrial, maintenance etc etc.

    Some kinds pay better, others yield work almost wherever you go, others lend themselves to starting your own business better.

    It is nowhere near as homogenous as often described.

    1. walrus01 · · focus · HN ↗
      In my experience, datacenter industrial electricians seem to take a dim view of the skills of residential specialists as guys who just spend all their time pulling romex, but it's sometimes a lot more complicated than that... Residential has to deal with individual home owners, house flippers, renovation GCs and weird change orders in a way that people working in more technically structure and high-budget environments don't.
      1. quickthrowman · · focus · HN ↗
        > Residential has to deal with individual home owners, house flippers, renovation GCs and weird change orders

        In other words, the customers are awful. I sell and run commercial and industrial electrical work, I’d rather go do something completely different as a career than deal with homeowners, flippers, and residential GCs. The work itself has zero challenge and requires almost no thinking, it’s not hard to pull and fish romex through finished walls.

        1. kube-system · · focus · HN ↗
          B2C always sucks, even in white collar jobs. People have more emotional investment and less money for their personal projects.
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