The Electrical Show with Thomas Naji sponsored by Boss Professional Powerful power tools for measuring
tools and experts accessories. Welcome to the Electrical Show here on Fixed Radio with
Bosh Professional. I'm your host Thomas Naji, and with me once again is
Paul Meaning at the side on this with hello. On this week's show,
we're going to track the journey from apprentice to master in the trade and discuss
what each step was like for us. Now music over the coin fact.
Before music, I like to have my short little what should we call it?
We should give this a name, Paul, this little where I give
little anecdotes of life knowledge. Let's give it a name. Well, my
first thought was nighttime nagy, but it's not nine o'cloud. Depending on whether
you're listening this at ten o'clock, it is nighttime nargy. But text in
some ideas. Yes. Eighty one four hundred started message with the word fix
now last week in actually in the first link I was talking about the delay
of gratification and just going on from that, there was another. I love
reading these studies and stuff and just learning. All the people call me boring.
I don't care life experience like life experience is really like we can talk
about electrical stuff, but some of the most for me, like some of
the most important stuff you can talk about is actually just like life lessons,
like human stories, and everyone is so you know, we're talking about business
and stuff, and everyone is so fixated on earning money more. To be
fair, I am also like that, you know. But there was a
study that was done and what they found. I'm still trying to get this
person, I said about two years ago. I'm trying to get this the
woman who did this study, she's a doctor at Birmingham University or something,
and she did a study and anyway, what she found was that happiness,
it loosely equates to money. So what she found was that as as your
wages increase, your level of happiness increases, which would make sense. So
money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys you the things which make your life
a bit easier, which give happiness. Okay, but that only goes up
to about seventy five grand. So what she found is fascinating. Up to
seventy five grand, happiness kept on increasing, but it plateaued us after seventy
five grand. It made no difference to people's levels of happiness. So basically
what I'm saying is you could have an income of two million a year.
People were no happier up there than they were at seventy five. Seventy five
was the cutoff point. Wow, yeah, that's all it is. Seventy
five that was all she found in this study. And it was a big
study. It was a lot of people she are and well that was what
she came back with as a results. So we think about if we have,
you know, half a million a year or something will be much happier,
studies suggest otherwise. So you have a deep and meaningful moment. Well,
if you've got two people, if you if you're a husband and wife
with two point four kids and you both earning seventy five k, that's a
really you know, if you've both got good jobs, if you're earning seventy
five k, that's as happy as you're going to be. So chasing millions
and millions and millions isn't necessarily going to make you happier, as what I'm
saying. So it's food for thought. Hmm, Yeah, that's what I
thought. Music over the next hour from look, no one knew that everyone's
on side, thinking it's really interesting. That's why they tune in Fix radio
time to crack on. You're listening to the electrical show and we're plotting the
journey from being an apprentice to being a seasoned professional and discussing what that was
like for us. Now, Paul, what was your apprenticeship? Like,
Ah, you go, then I'll go traumatizing. That's that's pretty across the
board now. At the time, it was really hard because mine was split
because the company I worked for initially they kind of like closed after a year.
That was domestic commercials off. Then I jumped on rail and let's put
mental health was not a consideration during my apprenticeship. There were many times I
went home crying or I got hit with bits of conduit or unistrut. I
hate to say it out loud, but it did actually happen. Eventually I
did retaliate and it was almost a writer passage. But did I learn loads?
Yes? Did it help me on my journey to becoming a young man,
Yes? Did it teach me stuff that my father never taught me?
Yes? Did it show me what good people were and bad people were?
It started to give me an idea that there were some good and bad people.
Would I change any of it? No little bit. Apprentices have changed
definitely because mine was a million miles removed from that. We would I think
I was like a year one apprentice and we were drilling into a concrete ceiling
to put anchors, dropping anchors, hammer them in, put some stud But
you've got to drill the whole perfectly square both ways. Now, obviously I
wasn't paying a lot of attention, and mine weren't perfectly square, and I
think absolutely hate I wanted his head on a spike. I hated the guy.
And he just came behind me and just stuck the drill bit in and
it was literally like a forty five degree angle, and I remember he just
took it out of the hand and just literally we were building a hospital at
rd and E down next to her, and he just launched this drill bit
that is ten mil bit across the site. It's so embarrassing because that was
just ingrained in my head now. But there's a lot of stuff you just
can't do now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because like it was
horrible, but it is really weird because I have apprentices now and I find
myself being really nice to them. Yeah. Yeah, I also don't have
to go no no, no, no, go old school. Don't bully
them, don't intimidate them. Yeah, but put them under a little bit
of pressure and just watch them creak. And that I know it sounds a
bit some people are probably going, oh no, that's terrible. That there
is a certain level of pressure which is a healthy pressure, because becoming a
tradesman, in your apprenticeship, it's about being having pressure applied to you in
a way where you will come You will come up, you will you will
develop the right thinking, you will develop the right way of doing things,
whether it be physical works or mental thinking. And that pressure is the eat,
sleep, repeat of it is what gives you the experience to be a
very good tradesman. We don't go to the extents now of hitting people.
And I got a certain depot I had. I remember I had an Abb
Steward's a boiler suit on and it was loose for me, and I remember
a bit of shallow unistrup being going through my arms and being mounted to a
frame for a few hours. I remember my camera. I had one of
those old thirty five mil film cameras, throw away ones that I know.
Spent a lot of my salary on trying to take photos to show my tutor
that I was doing big boys stuff, you know, big armors. And
I remember being sent out for dinner and all the lads lining up outside Wembley
train care depot dropping their pants, taking photos on my camera, putting there,
putting my camera down their pants. This is a true story. And
then I would go home and go, oh the cameras, you know,
give it to my missusgo could you get out of helop because I'm busy working
long hours. And then about two weeks later when the film got developed,
it was just a roll of bums. And so yeah, I got lots
of pranks. I think. One other thing which really annoyed me when I
finished my apprenticeship, I was at Waterloo and my missus as a present,
bought me some brand new Nicare trainers, my first ever pair, and the
lads came fixed them to the ceiling of Waterloo station and I went into the
foreman, God bless him, and I was fuming because they let me go
early. It was a night shift, and I said them, bleep,
bleep, bleep bleeps have done this? You need to sack them. And
when I told him what happened, he just sat back. In his Irish
accent, he went, there are some lads and I was like, oh
man, she's gonna kill me. But do you know what all them I
love and respect all them lads, and it builds some great memories. So
take the rough with this move, and it is definitely part of building your
character and your caliber as a tradesman. So I wouldn't change anything, but
it's changed a bit. I mean, you wouldn't change anything. But looking
at modern apprenticeships now, there does seem to be a different expectation for what
apprentices expect because I don't know. Yes, I seem to find that there's
a very much you need to give me that I'm entitled to this I once
have this. There is an ever ever growing gap and a problem with apprentices
And again it's owner my opinion. As an employer, I have a set
of expectations that are generational. The modern apprentices now spend their first year in
college just doing health and safety. Now they're doing that for a reason.
Is it because our generation failed so badly at health and safety that they're trying
to improve it? And going right, You can't actually be near anything because
years ago, when you're an apprentice, you weren't allowed to do jack anywhere
on all live stuff until they knew you had half a brain on you and
you were supervised. But evidently, I think over the years the apprenticeship standard
or the application of what apprentice is. I know from experience there are some
companies that will employ lots of apprentices, but they're not the cheap labor.
They call them apprentices so they can pay them little and they don't teach them,
and that does you know that can be detrimental to some people come into
the industry sadly because they'll end up leaving. But yeah, it's a lot
different now. We need to our expectations is not others reality, and we
need to adapt our expectations for what are a modern apprentices. However, it
is within our realm of influence to make sure that the practical skills of that
trade are taught and measured to what we expect. To be honest with you,
our apprentices should be better versions of us. Let's be perfect, frank,
because there will come a time when you let them go out by themselves.
And we've got an apprentice where I work young lad Joe. When I
first met him five years ago he was wet behind the ears. Now he's
a very confident, calm, you know, very positive thinking, good electrician.
It's great to a shiva. So it does work. You don't have
to beat it into them, is what I'm saying. Well, let's talk
about how we can become competent and which don electricians. Next The Electrical Show
Thursday from three and catch up anytime at Fix Radio dot co dot uk the
builder station Fix Radio. This is the Electrical Show with Bosch Professional and Thomas
Naji with Paul Mean, and we're talking about the route we take from being
a novice apprentice to being a master of your craft. Now, Paul,
key steps, what do we think key steps that can't be missed when you're
turning yourself into let's say, a thoughtful independent member of our trade. For
me, the most important step it was realizing that I can. I know
it sounds very corny, but I remember when I was a first year,
second year and I want to be able to do that. I want to
be able to do that. And then as I went through my time,
realizing that actually I was exceeding what I thought i'd want to do. You
know, by the time I was in my four fear of my apprenticeship,
I was building unistrup frames, putting panels up, glanding big armoreds, and
I was doing it by myself. Because the former like, yeah, he's
a machine, he's young, he's keen, he's hungry, runs around like
a lunatic. You know, he does put a shift in, especially because
I was the apprentices and the foreman's got permission from me old man to you
know, treat me quite aggressively. So I worked, I put a shift
in, and the minute I finished my apprenticeship, I was being put in
charge of jobs. So it was that. But I wouldn't have accepted that
if I didn't have that realization moment of I can do that. I can
actually build a backbone of free compartment trunk in and unistructure piece brackets, and
I can do this, and I know what a single point of failure is,
and I know what this is. You definitely come into a realization.
I think for a lot of people it doesn't happen sometimes until later on,
sometimes past the four or five years. But I think, why we I
mean for me, especially, an apprenticeship is four or five years minimum before
you'd come out and go right, I can actually now do this by myself,
lead other people train, other people share that knowledge. I know some
apprenticeships are well on. Training courses are very short, but very very short,
ridiculously, But we won't get into that. What kind of learning do
we think we're going to be needing after the apprenticeship, because it's kind of
like saying, you know, you learn to drive after you pass your test.
Yeah, that's a really good saying. Actually, yeah, you've got
you like, but that's not you know, the journey only starts when you
get a cart and one assessing you anymore, the journey starts. I mean
that's how that's where your journey begins. It's like, that's your that's your
your start point. You've never had that before, No, never, You're
full of philosophy to drive. Honestly, you learn to drive after you pass
your test. I my test anyway. But moving on, there's a whole
there's a whole episode in that at allowed it to night time Najia I.
It depends on the direction that you want to go. So if you just
want to be a good grafter and just earn your money. If if you
know what you know and your your workmanship is good, you will be selected
out to be doing all the work, doing all the overtimes. During the
weekend, the work will be there for you on a plate. If you
want to go into supervision, you know there's there's a journey you've got to
go on to. You've got to get some maybe some formal safety qualifications,
even like the SSSTS if you want to just do some site supervision. If
you're an electrical contractor, if you want to, you know, take a
step up. You do your SMSTS so you can be a qualified site manager
that used to be recognized by CDM rigs. If you want to go into
project management, you could do some maybe contractual training, learn what the NEC
contracts are, the JCT because the end of the day, you're going to
go from one day putting Unich strap on the wall job Bo's going right,
You're not only doing the day sheets, but you're going to represent them some
site. So you need to know when somebody's telling you do this, do
this one, it's a change, how do you administer that? So there's
a huge we never stop learning in this trade regardless of what you do.
And this is the trouble you can never master, in my opinion, everything
in this trade, because not only have you got THEMS, the domestic,
the commercial of the industrial, you've got the different levels, the different approaches
where you're an apprentice electrician, a text way, a lead formant, a
project manager, project engineer, a site engineer, contracts engineer. There's so
many variants. It's like looking at the sun from different angles. Everybody sees
the sun, but the journey will be slightly different, and the temperature and
pressure there under will be slightly different. So it all depends on where you
want to go. But the one thing people need to realize is the weld
youh oister in this trade because there's not enough of us. Yeah, there's
just not enough. I think it's going to get it's going to get even
worse. I think give it ten years. I said that ten years ago,
and I'm seeing how really desperately bad it is. More. I think
some of it has probably focused on my LinkedIn posts in the negative, but
I generally ten years ago read a report that said we are going to be
in a dire state with the trades and the number of people in trades and
then to see that thing from the Construction Leadership Council that was talking about hundreds
of thousands of people have left and not many people have joined. All it
did was ratify that. And as someone who orders the work, because that's
what I do do I order the work, I sometimes have to order the
work into an abyss and with contractors going sorry, I ain't got any staff,
I can't get good people, and he's just like, ah, there's
a bigger problem here. But when you're the person ordering the work, you've
then got to have a conversation with people who don't know anything about the construction
trades, and that's the client organizations, which is why I wish there would
be more done to educate the client entities because they don't know that. They
don't know in a lot of unless they have someone like me, they don't
know that. They don't know. They're unconsciously incompetent. That's a I like
that unconsciously. We've spoken about this before. Actually, yeah, they are
unconsciously incompetent. And that's why a lot of tradesmen, regardless of where they're
working, will meet a client and that client won't know, they won't know
that, they don't know any of this stuff. You're doing your best.
They'll just think you're trying to rip them off. They're not. And that's
kind of why I enjoy being a client, because I try and be fair
as a client and not a horrible person. I mean, you're pretty well,
I mean, very well accomplished. But have you ever been guilty of
sort of standing still and missing opportunities? Oh? God, yeah, yeah,
I've turned down some absolute Yeah, I've had loads of people of the
years. So you set mere an electrical company. I said that, I
think a couple of months back. I was always too scared to do it.
And I've had people approach me and say to me, please, could
you come and do this work? We actually like the conduct of what you
do, we like the level of detail and analytics that you have, and
I've always been too scared to do it. And now I kicked myself.
I'd like to go back in time and beat myself up over a few decisions
we made. But OK, those as long as you reflect upon them and
you try and not make them again, then you know less and learn.
I suppose fixed Radio I'm Thomas and argue with Paul mean and here on the
Electrical Show, and we are talking about the journey from being an apprentice to
an electrician. And Paul, let's say you've come into the trade in your
late teens, which is quite common now more and more people are training later
on in their life. What in your head does success look like sort of
ten years on, like late ties as an electrician? How does that?
That's a really good question. Again, what does success look like? I'm
going to go back to when I was in my twenties. Success looks like
your wallet being full. Yeah, I mean yeah, Well when you exp
you're not going to sit there and go, well, I did this swan
neck on some conjurit the other day and it was lovely. And I go
back and visit here every few years. Because I'm talking out of it.
No, it's actually I was on that job and I owned a fortune,
and more importantly, I got to wine and die in the Missus. I
had some good fun times with the lad's life was good. That to me
is the measure when you're in your young and you're in your twenties, That's
that is the measure, isn't It's living? All right? Well, look
Some people might decide that this sort of journey culminates with being a you know,
you then become a bars and you and then you employ other sparks.
But that's also just the beginning of another journey, isn't it, Because I
mean that's a whole world in itself. I mean, that's the world you
said. That's the journey you said you wanted to take. You're looking back
at it now, but you haven't. Yeah, well, I kind of
It's weird. My twenties was I started my journey into being a manager for
I hate these terms in various large contracting organizations and stuff into the role I
mean now, which is a client. But yeah, I mean when you're
in your late twenties, ken, it all depends on what you want.
I know, lads are quite happy to be sparks, you know, forever.
It's only when you hit your late thirties and if you're not fit and
healthy, then your back twinges, in your arm twinges, and you'd start
going the iron need to get off the tools. But there's no wrong in
the direction you take because if you're in your mid thirties or late twenties,
or you're fought in you want to change or become a manager for electrical contractors
or a site manager, whatever, brilliant. How much experience you've got,
Look how much experience of install you will be incredibly useful. There are people
screaming out for experienced people to help. And the thing is as well,
if you're on a site and you've got trades, you can mold the quality
expectations to what you want so that it ain't just chuck it in and run
away. You can actually do saying go, look, lads, we're not
going to roun on this job. But I want us all to look back
and when somebody says, watch your favorite job, it was that one.
Because we've all got jobs that standout a mile and it was always the lads.
It was always the behaviors of the site management and the work that you
were able to do. That was what you were most proud of. I
wired all the pyro on excel Are in ninety eight. I think it was
ninety nine or something like that, and I still look back all these years
ago and go, that was the best Piro I've ever done. I was
up in the freezing cold at night by myself. It was awesome. It
was a great job, and the blokes were great, the supervisors were great,
and you had time to do the job well. So yeah, it's
different, different things for different people. But how many hours have you put
in to where you've got? I mean, because you've done so much in
terms of like just constant cp doing CPD. I mean, I was trying
to think of a better word, but I mean that's the only one I
could think. Earning just learning too many, To be honest with you,
I think one year, I actually about three four years ago I started to
properly, properly record and document it. Like if somebody was listening and they
wanted to try to get to where you are with that level of knowledge,
how what have you done to get that? Read? Re read that's it?
Read, get a highlight a pen. Three years ago, my CPD
return, which is the stuff I did record, was at eight hundred and
sixty nine hours. The year after that was about six hundred. This year
I'm up to about four hundred and then this is a slow year. People
don't realize, especially in trades, when you open up a I don't know,
an extract fan you fit in on a site somewhere and you have to
read that manual. That's learning because you're gonna sit there and go. I
didn't know that that manufacturer's got specific requirements. I didn't know that. Now
what we don't do as trades is we don't sit there and go. I
must fill in my CPD learning log. And the trouble is is post Grenfell,
we've now become and it is slowly creeping its way in having to declare
your your continuous learning so that you can at least say, look, I'm
a tradesman. I'm good at what I'm doing, but I also keep up
with all the different changes. I do my training, I do my on
site learning. I keep in touch with what's going on the industry so I
don't do something wrong. That's a journey that five years ago, if you'd
have said CPD, I remember doing podcasts five years ago talking about CPD and
it was just like, well's that then. Now everyone in the industry knows
what CBD is, So imagine what I'll be in five years, ten years,
fifteen years. But if you want the knowledge, just go away and
read. Just literally just go away and read. Pick up a book,
pick up a standard and read it. There's no secret formula your brain will
work differently. And I found using a highlight a pen to highlight the words
that a trademan would want to use is the way of learning standard. So
you can learn a three hundred paid standard just by highlighting the words that you
might find useful on site. And that's how I learned most of the standards
that I know. I mean, just going fractionally off pissed here. We
were just talking in earlier in the last link about the shortage of apprentices and
how that's going to be a real issue. I think in years, I
think it will be such a mad issue. It had an ending issue as
well, wasn't it. With it? There is a funding issue, and
I had to get a crown completely after there is a point of this.
I had to get a crown fitted. I know, my producers like,
what's he doing. He's going off pissed. There's a point I had to
get a crown fitted. You know people now go to Turkey to get they
get this perfect white smile. Well they do it basically by grinding down every
tooth and giving you a crown. That's that's basically how they do it.
So all of your teeth they literally just grind all of them down to stumps.
You basically get a mouthful of crowns. That is how they give you
this perfect white smile. You just get a mouthful of crowns. And I
was in the dentist I had one crown fitted and this guy was like,
because I asked him, I said, how does that make any sense?
People are just literally they're just grinding all of their teeth away to get them.
Yeah, and he said it literally in ten years, he said,
this would be an absolutely cataclysmic scale of people all with basically knackered crowns or
wanting them taken out. And then of course they can't. They've got them
for life. Now that's it. So yeah, just when you said apprentice
isn't about ten years, I was saying about ten years. That's just a
little story just came down. Yeah. I think in every generation, the
next one, they see more things. But I think there is a very
serious industry discussion needs to be had about how do we deliver the infrastructure works
and maintain the existing infrastructure. And yes, I know there's this whole let's
introduce new technology to make us greener and more sustainable, get it. But
you need to have the people skilled installing it, yeah, and maintaining it
and replacing it. And at the moment I find that there's so much old
knowledge. A lot of the apprentices I speak to, they'll send me a
picture of a DNO intake and I'll be able to tell them exactly what it
is, what year it was made in, and they're not being taught this
in college. So I have very serious concerns over what the City and Guild
Syllabuses is choosing to teach youngsters, because it's a perfect example. When I
went to college first year of college, it was two and a half days
a week. Now it's one day a week for your first year. So
we are we have effectively reduced the learning time over those three years of college
by two thirds. So they're not getting the same education that we got.
And if there's not enough experienced people on site, they're not getting the apprenticeships
that we got. But they're still there mitigating it by teaching them health and
safety. That that doesn't give you people, Yeah, it doesn't give but
it gives you short terms. Am. It doesn't give you people who can
put but it's solving the problem when you have an electrician on site, you
expect them or hope that they will be able to. I know there are
clients whill go. I've got a sparky so he can do everything for me.
If I get a new electrician, I want to go and meet him
and talk to him and say, how can we solve this together? Are
you okay and doing the work? That sort of thing. Try and show
them you care that they'll get all the materials and time they need. It's
not happening in the rest of the world. It's just your sparks. Can't
you do it? I'll I'll just mug you off and get someone else in.
And then you get these clients that just rotate electrical contractors like mad and
that does happen out there. You've seen it, I most certainly have.
All Right, well, look, let's come back to wrap this up before
trevn Rich takeover from four pm here on fixed radio, the Bilser's station,
The Electrical Show on Fixed Radio, and that Good People is about it.
For today's Electrical Show, we've talked about the journey from being an apprentice to
a master of the craft. Now, Paul, just quickly before we end,
what kind of skills, traits and experience. Would you expect an accomplished
electrician to have What are we looking at? Oh, this is a controversial
one. I think the necessary skills relevant to the task is probably the generic
answer. But for me, I need to see what's the word a glint
in ira. I need to see confidence And it sounds mental, but you
can have confidence in knowing what to do and also have confidence in knowing what
to do. But for me, an electrician should be able to effectively electing
installation, erected installation, inspect it, test it, certify it, hand
it over and explain it to the next bloke. That's how I was taught.
And if you can do that, fine, And it's okay to genuinely
say not everybody knows everything. We're always learning. Every time I have to
install saving in my house or somewhere else, I'm having to go. I
didn't know that. That's aing new And look at the trade shows now,
you know, Alex, You go down to one limb trade shows and there's
tons of new products on the market. I cannot keep up. I just
can't. It's impossible. But there's lots more products trying to make it easier
for us and quicker. But for me, the fundamental bread and butter skills
is, you know, can you bend, can you select and size a
cable? Can you protect it? Can you explain it to someone, what's
basic and additional protection? That sort of stuff. We actually we're bending pieber
mean, it's a cheap way of doing it, but it's really good.
We were bending conduit on a former the other day and normally, I mean
I've always done it. Is if you're trying to pull a ninety or something,
you'll you'll pull it upwards and then you sort of get it roughly what
you think it is. Have a look at you. Yeah, take it
out the former and he's a smidge more, put it back in, click
it a bit more, and he had the digital Yeah. Jack, he's
almost literally's an apprentice, be virtually out of his time now as a spark
and he literally he had its magnetic angle finder and he just put it on
the consu it, pulled it up, got it to ninety bang, took
it straight out and it was perfect. And I was like, I looked
at it. I was like, that's a really clever, time saving way
of doing it. And to be fair to him, it was a better
method. All right, I was doing it bye, but it actually took
me longer. He got it right first time. See, that's a great
tool. But in my day it was a set square, so you just
held up a fixed ninety degree piece and that was it. But yeah,
I've seen that tool. They're phenomenal. I think Amazon stuff really so it's
like literally seventeen twenty quid. They're brilliant. Yeah I cannot buy one.
Nope, well worth it. Areas of outstanding beauty is what I've got on
my crib sheet or AOB anything else we'd like to discuss standing beauty. I
saw on the crib sheet and the first time I saw it because that's area
of outs down in beauty. But yeah, AOB any other business. Not
really for me to want to say, well, I actually know the I
think because there's so many different people who listen to this in different journeys.
The only thing I can say to the apprentices is enjoy it as mad as
that sounds, because there will be some of them going through hell. Ye,
don't be afraid to ask for help. Social media's got some great people
helping apprentices on it. Yeah, just don't be afraid to ask questions and
to be honest with you know you're bloody worth, but know when you're being
bullied and treated really badly. And and I know it's really hard because some
of the colleges offersited this year have absolutely broke my heart speaking to some of
the guys because I'm finding I'm going to colleges now and there are more and
more people who aren't being given a chance. So my final thought is to
the electrical contractors, give apprentices a chance. There are industry's future. You
ain't winning work, you ain't growing about them. Perfectly well said. I
couldn't agree more. You can hear the show again from ten o'clock right here
on fixed rates. If you missed any of it, You can also download
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