I am reading some of the responses here and see that there is a wealth of information and expierence here. So here's my next question.
Those of you who have employees both large and small and smaller companies...
From what I am seeing, from working in my particular neck of the woods, the companies make a cattle call for whomever can been pipe and keep them just long enough to get all the pipe bent and wire pulled and then leave the rest to their hand full of regular employees to tie everything in, trouble shoot and do all the thinking.
Now on one hand I can understand that, it keeps overhead and benefits cost down, and it beats havin to find work to keep 20 or 30 people busy, when you can comfortably keep 5 busy and pick the rest up from the local un-employment.
But looking at from my own point of view, this practice stinks. First I am 5 courses short of a BS in Electrical Engineering. I dont talk about it on the job most of the time, but I know more theory than a lot of the folks that I work with. I also realize that 80% of what you learn in engineering school has no practical application in the field 80% of the time, there is the 20% of the time when the 20% of the knowledge becomes invaluable. On the other side,when i started, after my mandatory torture test, digging a 110' trench in july in washington to bury feeder between a house and a garage, I spent a lot of my work time, being left on a job with a box of supplies. When you come up like that, you learn to figure your own runs, your own circuits, and solve your own problems.
Working for a contractor feels like vacation for me because you just do what you're told and it seems like they arent trying to get through. They are trying to fill up a certain number of hours. It seems that larger contractors dont have the omph to get through so that they can move on to the next job, where the little guys are always trying to move on to the next thing.
And that left me with the notion of working on my own. I enjoy doing lectrical work. There is nothin better in life than a warm spring day, a freshly framed house and a blue print. No better satisfaction than having wired the whole thing, you go around and flip switches and every thing works, right, the first time.
And I dont think you can get that with more than a handful of employees,and then all of them have to enjoy doing good work.
But what do you all think? And i still dont have a clue on how to use my engineering back ground with my electricians training, except to be a consultant. And I like doing the work.
Any thoughts?
Those of you who have employees both large and small and smaller companies...
From what I am seeing, from working in my particular neck of the woods, the companies make a cattle call for whomever can been pipe and keep them just long enough to get all the pipe bent and wire pulled and then leave the rest to their hand full of regular employees to tie everything in, trouble shoot and do all the thinking.
Now on one hand I can understand that, it keeps overhead and benefits cost down, and it beats havin to find work to keep 20 or 30 people busy, when you can comfortably keep 5 busy and pick the rest up from the local un-employment.
But looking at from my own point of view, this practice stinks. First I am 5 courses short of a BS in Electrical Engineering. I dont talk about it on the job most of the time, but I know more theory than a lot of the folks that I work with. I also realize that 80% of what you learn in engineering school has no practical application in the field 80% of the time, there is the 20% of the time when the 20% of the knowledge becomes invaluable. On the other side,when i started, after my mandatory torture test, digging a 110' trench in july in washington to bury feeder between a house and a garage, I spent a lot of my work time, being left on a job with a box of supplies. When you come up like that, you learn to figure your own runs, your own circuits, and solve your own problems.
Working for a contractor feels like vacation for me because you just do what you're told and it seems like they arent trying to get through. They are trying to fill up a certain number of hours. It seems that larger contractors dont have the omph to get through so that they can move on to the next job, where the little guys are always trying to move on to the next thing.
And that left me with the notion of working on my own. I enjoy doing lectrical work. There is nothin better in life than a warm spring day, a freshly framed house and a blue print. No better satisfaction than having wired the whole thing, you go around and flip switches and every thing works, right, the first time.
And I dont think you can get that with more than a handful of employees,and then all of them have to enjoy doing good work.
But what do you all think? And i still dont have a clue on how to use my engineering back ground with my electricians training, except to be a consultant. And I like doing the work.
Any thoughts?