Monday, September 21, 2009

Go get me some quarter inch drop ins. That was my first task on my first day in the apprenticeship. Now let me remind you that this was also my first day in construction as well. The only anchor I ever set was attached to a boat! "Yes sir, I'll be right back, but- What's a drop in? Where are they? What's a sea can?" And that was how my workday started, with my new boss.


It's hard to believe that was only two years ago. This program is one of the smartest things I've ever done. I would love to tell you that every day was fantastic and I loved everyone I worked with, but I can't. Let me tell you some of the more memorable things I hated doing as a first year apprentice. Carrying wire in 100 degree heat. Carrying wire in the freezing cold. Carrying ......... Cleaning up other peoples' tools and materials. Learning how to feed/push wire with one hand and soap with the other. Now that I think of it, that stuff wasn't so bad, and it gave me a lot of good opportunities to show my new employers that if nothing else I'll work hard at whatever my task is. In any job I've always found that people would rather teach a hard worker than push a skilled lazy one.


My first contractor was Heller Electric. My first job site was Parkdale H.S. in Riverdale, Md. Any job with free parking is a sweet job! The foreman assigned me to work with the sub-foreman, Dwayne. That guy intimidated me from jump. I would have never let him know that, but he did. We must have worked together for a week straight before he had anything not job related to say to me. I remember it well, he said"Mornin' ". It took Dwayne a while to warm up to me, but once he did I finally felt like part of the crew. Dwayne started to teach me things and explain stuff. Being new to the trade made any and all tips, advice, and instruction INVALUABLE. A lot of the things he taught me have made me look good again and again. Take my advice, listen to any anyone who tries to teach you. You don't have to agree, just take it in and store it away.

I only worked at that school for about two months when our crew finished. All that I really remember is that it was hot that summer, and that I had everything to learn.


After Parkdale, we went as a crew to Walther Johnson H.S in Bethesda, Md. Any job with free parking is a good job. I was really lucky to be on that job. I got to see a renovation and addition from the ground up. We had a great foreman there, Rick Jackson. Nice guy and a hard worker. I would definitely say that he set my standards for a foreman very high. For the most part, I worked with Dwayne until I was transferred for the apprenticeship. We did a lot of temporary wiring and demo work for about a month, and then the sea cans showed up. Sea containers, for those of you who don't know, are the big metal boxes you see on cargo ships and trains. They are used in construction for secure,cheap, on site material storage. Anyway, the cans coming wasn't a big deal, but filling them up was. For two months, people would drop pallets of material outside one of the cans, and then I got to fill those containers up one by one. It was hard to stack that amount of material neatly. I did alright, but some material piles I've seen since would have put mine to shame. After we finally had a fully stocked job, I was assigned to pre-fab. My job was to make boxes with short pieces of conduit to install in block walls. It might sound funny, but I almost enjoyed that. No one really ever bothered me, and I never had any worries. Most days I made it a game to keep running counts in my head of how many assemblies I made, trying to do better the next day.

One day, around December or January, the masons showed up, and it seems like I've been running ever since! Public schools are generally constructed of concrete blocks, brick, and steel. As the masons(block layers) build the walls one course (row or layer of blocks) at a time, an electrician will install boxes in the wall at varying heights, and run their conduits up and out of the walls. It's easy work until you have three or four walls being built at one time. After a few months I was let loose on my own. For each wall being built, I had to look at five sets of drawings! Power,lighting, low voltage, mechanical, and architectural drawings. It felt nice to be trusted with sort of thing, but it was hard dirty work.

I could talk about my first year forever, but I won't. It was hard, dirty work, I learned a lot, and had a lot of fun. I think that I will remember the people from that job for a long long time.

No comments:

Post a Comment