Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Let's Ask Paul,
the podcast where you get to ask me Paul Abernethy
anything you want about the National Electrical Code and of
course all things electrically related. I'm willing to opine about
any of that information. And it kind of goes with
today's show because today's show, I have a question that
I found extremely unique and I have kind of answered
this question before. It's not a code, it's a personal question.
Let's ask me about all my activities and social media.
And you know, here we are after the holidays, you know,
right in the middle between Christmas and New Year's and
you know, people ask me these questions. But this is
a kind of a neat question that I have elaborated
on before, but I figured maybe i'd like to hear
my response to it. It won't be along one today.
I promise you cut your break here right here at
the break of the holidays. But but before I do
that again, shout out to our Fast Tracks program and
all the students and everybody that's in the program. Here
we are at the end of the holidays, we're getting
close to the New year, and I just want to
say that I am extremely thankful to all the students
that are in our program, everybody that's invested in us,
and we're investing back in you to help teach you
the National Electrical Code. You know, one of the biggest
things that we did was when we launched Mastering the NEC,
which was different than the exam prep. It's just a
good anc core for anybody, even if you already have
a license. And again, if you've been listening to our
stuff for a while and you followed me, a good
way to show the love is to go on and
get into our Mastering the NEC course.
Speaker 2: It doesn't expire, that's great.
Speaker 1: It has the ability for you ask questions, post images
in the material, so that's really good. It's almost like
you get a consultant always there to help you out.
But that program that changed things for us when we
launched that program as well, not just the exam prep,
because we do very well with the exam prep, but
you know, this was taking the game to the next
level and being able to, you know, just have something
for people that weren't studying for an electrical exam but
wanted to get the benefit of understanding the code and
ask questions and Interact, so but they weren't exam prep,
so that's where that program came from, and so all
of them available of our website. But everything really started
turning around really well in twenty twenty four with the
release of that program, and then of course we proceeded
to release the two courses for the Home Inspector for
to learn electrical and then we released the residential and
commercial wiring programs, so then it was all from there.
It just skyrocketed. And again we are so thankful to
all of our students, everybody that's in fasttracks Tube as well.
I mean, that's been amazing since we launched FasTracks Tube
or electriciantube dot com or fasttrackstv dot com. All these
different URLs lead to the same place. It's our exclusive
video platform and that is poised to do some amazing things.
And we promised you that we're going to have a
lot of exclusive content in twenty twenty five, and we are,
and you're going to see less and less, if anything,
over on our YouTube channels other than marketing obviously trying
to you know, let people know what we have available
because it's a good avenue to reach people. Because we
don't pay for ads. We don't run advertisements. We don't
do those per click things. We don't do those little
sponsored stuff when you go into search engines and stuff
like that. We're word of mouth, and you know, we've
been very successful due to that word of mouth and
people sharing it and wanting to get real results.
Speaker 2: So we're thankful.
Speaker 1: We're definitely.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we're very thankful is.
Speaker 1: The loyalty from the people that follow us and buying
our shirts and buying our merchandise. And you know that
Master Electrician gear and Journeyman gear. You know, everybody's proud
of achievements, and you know, you ought to be electricians,
ought to be walking tall and proud letting people know.
I do it all the time. You've seen my hats.
It's say master Electrician, my shirts, and I'm proud of it.
And it's a profession that we can be proud of.
And I'm letting people know it when I wear it.
I'm looking at one damn right. You may think you're
a doctor, you may think you're a lawyer. I'm a
damn electrician, and you know I'm proud of it. You
cannot do what I do no different than I cannot
do what you do, okay. So at the end of
the day, we're it proudly. And so that was one
of the things that I wanted to launch and give
people the ability to buy merch that's geared more towards
showing their pride and removing all of our r ls
from stuff because you know, most of the time you
don't want to buy something with our U r L
on it. You just want something that says you're this
or that master or whatnot. And so that's kind of
what we geared to. So again, check those out and
again for everybody that's purchased them, we appreciate it, okay.
So the question that it comes up frequently and I
usually dodge the question, and I have answered it before,
but with us doing TikTok and and everybody knows, not
a huge fan of TikTok, although I do believe it
should stay around. I joke about it and say I'd
be glad when it's gone, but I that's not going
to happen. Too popular. It's the way people you know,
that little three minute, two minute, fifteen second thing that
it's just the way people do it today, and that's
just the way it's going to stay. People's tension spans
are just not like they used to. And you know,
at the end of the day, it's a decent platform.
It's very easy. I don't like it because no matter
what I say, I seem to get banned or censored.
So it means to me it's it's not conducive for
me to be myself. This is why we created fasttracks Tube.
This is why we created the programs that we have
in the ability to stream directly on our website if
we want. In case we lose those social media avenues,
we still have a way to get our message out.
That's why we have the mobile app where you can
chat in the mobile app. You can listen to podcasts
on the mobile app. It's free, by the way over
on our website fastrackssystem dot com and you can download
it for free. Doesn't put anything on your phone, it's
just a link. But it allows us to communicate with
the people out there who really want the content. So
with that said, the question really is dedicated more towards
the trolls and the people that the haters out there
that I have that I've rubbed the wrong way or whatnot,
and it feels like that their personal vendetta to try
to cancel me or whatnot, and it can't happen, by
the way, it can't.
Speaker 2: But oh, Paul, you're conceited. No it can't.
Speaker 1: You can't cancel me. I own too much of my
own content. I don't rely on anything else in order
to get my message. I own my servers, I own
my websites. I have multiple websites. So at the end
of the day, I'm here to teach. I'm here to
teach the code and so and then give people insight
into the NEC because it's not the easiest document in
the world to navigate. So it's a easy venture for me.
And so people ask me the tiktoks and the Instagram,
you'll I don't accept chats on those platforms. In other words,
if you need to reach out to me, you'll use
the email on our sites, or you'll use Paul Abernathy
dot com, which is my filter for questions. And it's
been like that for years. And so at the end
of the day, people say, well, Paul, how do you
deal with the negative comments or the stuff that people say.
First of all, I do not allow open communication on
my social media accounts. And you know, some people don't
like that because they don't like the fact that it's
that I control you in a sense that if you
want to make a comment, it's got to be filtered.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: People say, oh, that's not transparent, you're hiding. No, I'm
just I'm just not letting you post stupid shit.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let you take a what might be
a good conversation down a rabbit hole where it just
totally will screw up everything. For anybody that might come
in who doesn't want to do their due diligence of
reading all the previous comments, they just jump right in
there and then they see your stupid comment and that
ends it. I'm not going to allow that, so we
control it. And I've been like that for years, and
you know I tell people all the time, is if
if you're going to put a platform out there and
you're going to restrict people, then make it very clear.
I have made it very clear that in my use
of the social media platforms, it isn't free speech. You
can disagree with me, but you can do it respectfully.
If you want to be an asshole or you want
to post something and just knife at me for whatever
reason you think it's going to bother me. First of all,
realize nobody's ever going to see it, so that's just
you getting it off your chest, and it's going to
be deleted. It's not going to be seen anyway, So
why effort. Your best thing for you to do is
just to block me, or don't even don't even watch
my content.
Speaker 2: That's okay with me. It won't hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1: But if you want to watch and you want to
get something out of it, hey, I'm here to teach
you too. But they ask people the question I just
got Yesterda Day evening Christmas Christmas Day was Paul, how
do you deal with the fact that all the negativeness
and stupid comments that people post. First of all, it's
not nearly as many as you would think. Okay, I
make it seem like it's a lot. There's not. I
get far more good questions and a lot of the
stuff I will allow to go through it. In some stuff,
you know, it's like it's it's it's still not it's
it's so far off base that I'm not again, I'm
not gonna let it taint something. But we do answer
all of our questions. I just don't answer chat on
those platforms. I just I just don't. And then I
had one guy say to me. He says, well, Paul,
that's stupid, because you answer people on lives, you answer
people an email.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, and I still do. I just don't
do it on the chats.
Speaker 1: Because it consumes too much time back and forth with
an individual. Uh. And it's much easier for me to
just force you to capture it in a a email
or do it through our Paul Abernathy dot com portal
and send it in that way. I just don't want
to get into the chatting back and forth on TikTok
or a messenger or all those kind of things. Now,
every now and then somebody I do answer a question
for somebody because I say I don't. But every now
and then I'll answer something. But it's a it's a
rarity for me to do that. I just I'm just
not into that. So as much as I am on
social media, I'm not the biggest fan of it. So
but I still know that we have to use it
and we have to interact on it, and and so
that's why I'm there. But if I got uh, if
I got banned, for example, from TikTok, right, it would
not be uh.
Speaker 2: It would not break my heart, right, it would not.
Speaker 1: You know, I would not have a situation where I'm
just totally torn up about it. Right, It's not gonna
break my art that type of thing. So that's important
to realize that I do answer questions, but just don't
do through the TikTok. So when people ask me, again,
how do you deal with people that are just negative? Well,
I sometimes will comment back the videos to their stuff,
and it might seem that I'm irritated. I'm not really irritated,
but it makes for good banter. But I just I'm
not gonna I'm not going to get into it with somebody.
They just are not going to get it. They're just
not going to get it, and so I'm not here
to force you. It's like, you know, we're having Christmas
dinner and at their dinner and with my brothers. One
of my brothers, to me, we're strong Trump supporters. The
other brother is not. Although he did vote for Trump,
he still thinks Trump should keep his mouth shut. We
all agree that to a point he should. But you
know what, he's like any lion. You back him in
a corner, he's going to do his thing. He's going
to pound his chest, he's going to say it. I
respect that, and he do what he wants. I don't
really care about the person. I care about what's good
for the country. And if I think that his policies
are going to be good for the country, get rid
of the illegals, stop the crime, make things more affordable
for other people. Those things like that stop us from
spending our money frivolously on things that we don't even
know about. They get slid into these bills in the
middle of the night. If he does away with all
that stuff, I don't care. If he sends out random
mean tweets, get over it. I don't care about that
part of it. I don't even read them. I mean,
I don't care about him. I only want what's good
for the country, and I think he's got the what's
good for the country in mind. So, but it's interesting
having that discussion with my brother and him, you know,
be very you know, he's very.
Speaker 2: Negative on Trump.
Speaker 1: But by the time we're done, we explained to him
these things and he's you know, he seemed to be
a little bit better. But I'm not going to sit
there and try It's just a family conversation, yes, politics
and you know, and family. I'm not going to sit
there and try to convince him that he needs to
support somebody, no different than I'm going to try to
convince somebody that if they don't believe that this is
the code. Or again, there's an example in there where
somebody says, you know, EMT has to be secured within
three feet, and if you had two boxes that are
thirty inches apart, and the EMT is in a fitting,
the fitting has got a set screw and then it
is is connected to the box. If you don't believe that,
no matter which way you go from which end of
the EMT, if you don't believe that it is not
fastened in place or fastened securely fastened within three feet
and there's a box on each end and a connector
on each end, and they're securely fastened to each other,
to the box. That's if you don't think that that
meets within three feet, then there's nothing else I can
say that's going to make you see Otherwise, when I
look at it, I'm like that damn EMT is not
going anywhere. That fitting is not going anywhere in that
box is not going to I don't see nothing in
that rule that says that it has to have a strap.
It just says securely fastened the place. And to me,
it is securely fastened the place. It ain't going nowhere,
But I am not going to. So I had a
guy that's trying to convince his boss, and I'm like, look,
some people are just going to get it, and some
people aren't. And I give up trying to convince people
that just don't get it. If you want to say that.
It's like with the commenters. If somebody believes I'm wrong,
that's fine. You keep doing you. I'll keep doing me.
If you don't like to follow me because you disagree
with me, that's on you.
Speaker 2: It ain't on me.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I don't lose sleep over it. I've
never been about to. You know, people ask me because
I remember when Dustin got Electrician you started. Now he's
got over almost a million followers, and everybody's like, how
come you don't have a million fives? I said, first
of all, I don't do those little videos that people
can warm up to the entertaining videos of shit that
I've done for thirty year, thirty nine years or whatnot.
I don't care to watch that stuff. I'm not interested
in watching somebody screw a box in. I'm not interested
in watching somebody do electrical work. That's just not me.
And I fully understand that you may not be into
watching somebody that just talks about code all the damn time.
I get it. So I'm already preconditioned to realize that
I'm not gonna have but a certain number of followers anyway.
And even though I have thirty some thousand followers on
let's see one platform, but when I look at the videos,
I know that I'm not getting thirty thousand views for those,
so I know they're not watching it. So my message
to do out there is, I don't care if you're
on platforms like TikTok and YouTube and all that, and
you subscribe to me, but you don't ever watch my content.
Do me a favor, unsubscribe. It doesn't bother me. I'm okay.
I don't get income from these social media platforms. The
only platform that I have for videos, the only one
that I have is YouTube and for commercials, and that
helps originally help fund some of the marketing that we did.
But have y'all not noticed that I've moved most of
my stuff trying to move it off of YouTube onto
my own platform, fast tracks Tube, which we automatically take
all the ads off of.
Speaker 2: So you don't get any money revenue for the videos.
Speaker 1: Even if I host them on YouTube and I share
them on fast tracks Tube, I'm not getting any revenue
for those. We've stripped that off because it's not about
the numbers. I don't care whether I have thirty one
hundred and fifty five hundred thousand million followers. It's not
going to change me because I turn around and take
that money and blow it on something anyway. It doesn't
matter to me. So I am about content. I am
about what you can get out of the content if
it's going to teach you something, okay. And so when
people say, you know what, why do you do your
why do you do all these social media platforms if
you don't like them, it's not that I don't like
the platform. I like the concept of spreading information and
being able to teach what I don't like about the platforms,
And you've seen what happened with Facebook during the election.
You see what's happened with others. You saw what happened
to Twitter before Elon Musk bought it and opened the
doors to see what they were doing. I don't like
the corruption involved in it. I just don't like any
part of that. How that can be. It's no different
than the regular media. By the way, y'all know, Elon
didn't buy Twitter because he likes Twitter. He bought it
because it's a marketing conglomerate. You can advertise on it,
sell advertising, all these type of things that make money, right,
and you know it's not. Is it going to make
the same kind of money that his starlink is making
rolling in? No, but he didn't buy Twitter for that.
He bought a multimedia company. He can sell ad space.
He ain't gonna twist your arm to bite. You've heard
him say, don't buy it, you don't care. I'm the
same way. You don't want to subscribe, don't You got
that prerogative. But when I but if I'm loyal to
something and I like it, just because somebody says something
I don't like doesn't mean I'm not going to stop
following it or watching it, Right, So it's kind of funny.
So when it comes to social media, to be honest
with you, it doesn't bother me. But I do block people.
I do block because I just don't have the time
nor the patience to deal with some of the stupid comments.
Speaker 2: So I tell people all the time it quick.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to see me in your thread,
and I keep popping up in your thread, the easiest
thing to do is comment something totally stupid, and I'll
just block you and you don't have to worry.
Speaker 2: You'll never see my thread again. So there you go.
There's an appeal to all you out there.
Speaker 1: If you want to be a dick and you want
to say something in my comments it's to get you blocked,
then go for it.
Speaker 2: I don't mind blocking you, darling.
Speaker 1: I'll block you. JEF will block you. They look at
they work my accounts as well, they'll block you. It's
all good. We don't care. But if you do learn something,
that's what we're here for. So yeah, so I don't
worry about those type of things. They don't.
Speaker 2: It literally doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1: So the question really was how do I deal with
the negative comments and people that maybe question me. I
don't mind being questioned. I learned something new every day, okay,
But if you don't bring the goods and you just
post something and just to post it, but you don't
actually validate what you say, then your your position means nothing.
It's it's just your opinion. And I don't care about
your opinion. And somebody's gonna say I'm arrogant, the same
way that my brother said Trump was arrogant, and I'm like, dude,
I like his arrogance. I don't care about that shitty tweets.
I just know what the outcome of what I want.
Then he said, well, Trump's not a successful businessman because
you know, he had his univer his academy go under.
And I'm like, dude, many people have businesses have failed, okay,
many people has businesses at gone bankrupt or going out
of business. You learn from every one of them, every
one of them.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know, he said, well, name the
any casino of his that have been successful, Like, I
don't have to. If they closed the taj Mahall, they
close the different ones down, I'm like, he just does
something else. The man is a multi billionaire. It's got
to be doing something right, so you know, there's so
many and again, it really is the narrative of which
network you watch right where you get that narrative. It
was very clear that he does not watch Newsmax or
even you know, Fox News. Okay, But at the end
of the day, it's okay. It's okay to have your
feelings and people that don't like something, it's perfectly okay.
We can agree to disagree, go our separate ways. But
I always say that I've got Democratic friends that I
don't agree with their political position, but they're friends. We
go out and we agree. We're not going to talk politics.
We're just going to go out as friends. And I
have some great friends that we go out and do that.
I don't unfriend somebody just because they're politically that's not no,
it's not.
Speaker 2: How it works. But I have a low threshold for bullshit.
Speaker 1: So when you send me stuff or whatever, I eat
my brother when he says stuff that I disagree with,
I'm like, that's that's not true. Where did you see that?
Where'd you hear that? And then you know, we'll have
it all. We'll discuss it, okay. And I got one
brother who's just like me. We you know, a strong
Trump supporter listens to both sides but really really really
dig in to try to know the facts and really
try to learn the facts. Uh, and so we're always
ready to debate somebody on that type of thing. But
it's in fun. I mean, we don't guess and get
loud and evil. It's just in fun. So anyway, I
kind of went off on a tangent. But the gentleman
that's sent in that question, great question. I try to say,
I don't care, and I don't care if it hurts
somebody's feelings. I don't care. If they don't agree with
my code interpretation, that's fine. You're not gonna change me,
So don't waste your breath. It's your opinion. You're entitled
to it. You're free to give your opinion on any of.
Speaker 2: My social media platforms.
Speaker 1: Where I draw the line is if you won try
to dazzle me with bullshit, and that ain't gonna happen.
And you know, because you're gonna have to come with it.
You're gonna have to bring the code references because I'll
always bring the code references, So you're gonna have to
do that. But it's kind of like the backstab and recepting.
My God, I get you know, that's one of those
things where you look at these electric and I've been
doing this for thirty five years and I've only ever
seen problems with the backstabs, and then the other guy go,
I've been doing it for the same amount of time,
and I see I've seen mainly the screw. Everybody is
entitled to their experience, but don't try to say that
your experience is the only experience. I have been doing
this for many years. The backstabbing isn't new. As a manufacturer,
I would be involved in this. As an expert witness,
I've involved in these type of things, been involved in
large case with afcis up in Oklahoma, Okay, large case
in New York where we were dealing with inspectors who
were not doing inspections properly. I've been around. So if
there was a major issue with backstabs, then don't you
think the manufacturers you don't have to like them. I
get it, you don't have to like them, and I
respect that you just don't do it, but don't post
it as if it's gospel right that.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's got to be something wrong with those backstabs,
because I've seen ten of up in the last fifteen
years and like shut up, yeah, yeah, okay, So in
your area, you got some pretty shitty electricians and they
all keep doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: Right. They're probably pushing it in and pulling it back
out on devices that don't allow you to restab, or
they or it doesn't have a release built into it,
and you're just wiggling the hell out of it, you know,
loosening up the clamp inside of it, or you're doing something,
or you're trying to jam a twelve gauge into a
fifteen amp device and trying to jam it in that
little hole when it's only rated for fifteen amps and
can only use fourteen gauge. I don't know, but at
the end of the day, I've seen enough burn ups
where people don't wrap the screw properly, they don't torque
it properly, or they overtighten it and cause it to
strip out. Oh, it's tight until the conductor expands and
contracts due to thermal conditions and loading, and then it
gets loose, and then what do you have? You have
an arc that comes back and burns it down, and like, well,
I don't understand why that happened.
Speaker 2: Shit just happens.
Speaker 1: Every house that burns down, people go, oh god, it
was fine before it burnt down. Damn right it was
then all of a sudden it burnt down.
Speaker 2: Shit happens.
Speaker 1: It does. Everybody's looking for the the one thing to
say that this is the reason why.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you backstabbed.
Speaker 1: Oh we're gonna have the increased number of house fires,
goes of backstabbing.
Speaker 2: God, that's so full of shit. That is so full
of shit.
Speaker 1: If they were actually going to read for switches UL twenty,
for receptacles UL four ninety eight, if you actually were
to read it and see what testing's involved, do you
really think these manufacturers would want the liability.
Speaker 2: No, they don't want the liability.
Speaker 1: Trusts me. I worked for an EMA. I was the
expert to all of the manufacturers in the South. They
do not want this liability. So there's a testing that
goes on. Now that doesn't mean that you have to
like it. You don't like it, don't do it, but
don't try to taint other people's opinion of it, because
they haven't experienced like you, and you do taint them
when you say shit that you don't quantify, you do
taint them. And I'm not here. I had somebody post
one day in the comments they were like, what was it?
They were like, well, of course Paul's going to say
it because he's in the bed with the manufacturers. And
you obviously that dude has not listened to my podcast before.
You know, he's obviously never listened to anything that I
put out there. That I have been blessed from day
one that working with the wiring cable manufacturer, that I
had a CEO that never once put in my head
to go to a meeting and try to push the
wiring cable agenda right and position our company over somebody else.
He always said to me, Paul, go to the meetings,
do the right thing, support our industry, support the other industries,
but always do the right thing. And that's what And
I've had I had that for eleven years, so, you know,
and I've served on committees that whole time. And so
when I hear people talk all that crap about well,
this guy's on a committee of this, most of the
people out there don't even know how the shit works.
Speaker 2: They really don't.
Speaker 1: They really think that the code making panel it just
sits there. A bunch of guys and gals sit in
a room and we decide that we're going to just
change the code. We're just going to Hey, I don't
like this, Hey, but I do. Hey, let's get this
into the code. They have no idea how it works. Now.
Do manufacturers have influence, Absolutely, of course they do. But
sitting around the table, I'm going to rely on the experts.
And if I have somebody that's an expert in wiring
cable and they're very passionate about something and I have
no expertise in thathing, I'm gonna listen to what they say,
and if it makes sense and it supports the submitter
of the code propose the public input that comes in,
it supports it and the wire and they support it,
I'm going to look at it and go all the
wire guys support it, and they know their material, they
know it better than anybody, then I'm probably gonna go
with them.
Speaker 2: And that's what happens in those meetings.
Speaker 1: So the miscons there's so much misconception out there about
what happens, and everybody wants to throw the codebook under
the bus and say that, oh, it's just manufacturers. It's
just manufacturers. You don't realize how much of an idiot
you look like without look without saying you're an idiot,
because you really don't know how it works. And that's
obviously going to offend some people. Now, again, does a
manufacturer have influence. Absolutely. You got fifteen to twenty people
at a table, and the vast majority of them aren't
experts in some specific area that's being discussed. But the
experts are and they happen to represent a manufacturer, and
and they're talking about this is what happened with gfcies
in AFCIS. By the way, so you have all this expansion,
Sure GFCIs can save lives. Sure AFCI technology can save lives.
At the end of the day, when you're in a
room and you're listening to experts constantly pushing you know,
all we other range needs to be GFCI, or the
microwave needs to be GFCI, or this, or the stove
needs to be do that, Nobody's going to question them.
That's a problem, right, But that's influence. That's not co
panel people just sitting around. That's influence. And you're never
going to get rid of influence because we need the
experts sitting at the table. Now, the moral compass of
that expert is where I question. Sometimes I'm like, dude,
I could never sit there and argue about something. Let
me give you an example. Two cycles ago, I was
arguing the use of PVC jacketed MC for use to
the swimming pool applications, and I was getting such massive
pushback from people, one namely because they didn't understand that
PVC is very resistant to corrosive conditions, and that on
the on the scale of corrosion resistance it's very high,
and that they argued, argued, argued against it to where
the wording is basically as long as the you know,
when you go look at MC cable, it says and
the use is permitted, use is not permitted if it's
impervious jacket. And it's again, we put themost impervious jacket
on it, that it is okay for corrosive condition. So
you had the Committee Code Panel seventeen. You had to
I had to argue it, and they still wouldn't listen.
And you're saying, oh, Paul, you have influence. I do,
but they still didn't listen to me. Because it ended
up being other people that were in like the pool
and swimming industry, swimming pool industry and whatnot. We're arguing
against it, and they were arguing stuff they know nothing about,
but they were arguing it because it was me trying
to do it, and they felt it was me trying
to push it because I manufacture PVC jacketed MC no.
I never pushed it to push my product over somebody else's.
I didn't care everybody's product. Everybody that makes PVC jacketed
mc cable could do it because the standard stated, okay,
fifteen sixty nine that you had the option to print
on it that it's you for its use for swimming
pool pump motors for example, had it had that option,
but it didn't require you to do that, didn't require
you to put that language on there. So we were
arguing that, you know, for eons, PVC has been installed
in those environments and it's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2: Not a problem.
Speaker 1: You mean, you're allowing liquid type to be in there,
not a problem. So it was a battle. It was
a fight, and again people will argue with that's just
Paul trying to fight it to support his you know,
the company he works for. But you had to understand
that I wasn't pushing it is a product that already
has been used. All we were doing is trying to
sure make people aware. How about that make people aware
that PVC is very resistant to corrosive conditions and the impervious
jacket for use in a wet location. And then when
you go look at the rules in three point thirty
dot twelve, for example, it had an allowance it said,
you know what if it has an impervious jacket on
it that can go in these locations, then it could
go in those you know outside in the ground. People
argued was a corrosive environment. And so our argument on
seventeen was that, you know, we're talking about pool chemicals
around the pool, and how would that affect the PVC material. Well,
it won't affect the PVC material. That was just it.
Think about it, most of the same chemicals are used
in the pools with a vinyl liner that is much
thinner than the required sheathing or protective jacketing on an
MC cable. It's usually much thicker than that stuff. Or
think about it, all of the pool equipment's plastic, majority
of the pumps, the filters, things like that, housings are
all that are in contact with the word are all plastic? Well,
then it was well what about the fumes? Well, shit,
people in the pool room, half your panels have plastic
breakers in them. They're not sealed, so it You know,
it took all that to point out the obvious to people.
But if you don't have the experts in the room,
you're never gonna get to the end. And they still
fought like tooth and nail to try to keep PVC
jacketed MC out of the application. We had to fight it,
and it wasn't for one manufacturer. It was for everybody
to have options. Electricians to have many options to do this.
That's the reason we pushed for it, not because of
when we were already selling shitloads of PVC jacketed MC.
Speaker 2: It didn't matter.
Speaker 1: I can always always have an argument to say why
PVC jacketed MC can be used. I can fight that
with any HG in the country. Because of how it's listed,
what it's in the listing fifteen sixty nine, what it
says in three point thirty dot twelve way it's written
in six point eighty so I never had a problem
with it, and I was one hundred percent effective in
explaining this to jurisdictions. So as you can see, I
had influence and I still could not, for you know,
make it a slam dunk. I still had opposition to it.
So don't think that that's what it works. A manufacturer
just walk in and get things done. If that's how
you believe it, then you are sorely ignorant to how
code development is. But can they have influence? Absolutely so anyway,
I don't know how I got on that topic, but
I hopefully answer the question for the gentleman. I just
let it go. And again, I just don't let people
say things in the comments. I just I just block
them or I'll never make it through. I don't let
them bother me. I realize that there's a world of ignorance.
I get that question every now and then. It says
why you try to be like Mike cold. You know,
that's the one that I laugh at the most because
I served with Mike Cole as an expert on one
of his committees, and I know Mike, and I look
at this and I go, why is there only can
you be only one educator?
Speaker 2: Is there only one allowed to have one educator?
Speaker 1: In the world is that it. I am vastly different
than Mike. I am way I like Mike. I'm way
more proachable than Mike. I do podcasts, I do videos,
I respond on social media. I answer my own questions
on our forums. Differently, I am very interactive with people.
I don't people to a forum and let other people
answer their questions. I answer it, I put my name
on it, I sign it. Okay, that type of thing
I serve on code panels, those type of things so
vastly different. But everybody says you want to be like
somebody else. I said, dude, I've been doing this for
almost thirty nine years. I don't need to be like
anybody but myself. That's me. But I'm flattered. If you
think that I'm trying to be somebody else, then I
must have struck a nerve with you, because I must
be very similar to somebody else. But at the end
of the day, dude, we have all kinds of great educators.
Ryan Jackson's a great educator, Mike's a great educator, and
we have so many people. Charles Miller's a great educator,
Keith Laughlin's a great educator. Okay, Marty Schumacher is a
great educator. Okay, we have so many good educators out
there that at the end of the day, everybody's just
doing their own thing. But I don't get offended. Don't
bother me, I know, different than I think somebody were
to say to Ryan, were you trying to be a
Paul Abernathy. I don't think Ryan would care. He would say, no,
I'm trying to be Ryan. I'm trying to do my
own thing. So anyway, at the end of the day,
it's hilarious what people will say and do and think
that things bother you, and people say, well, why do
you let it bother you? It doesn't, But I like
keeping them riled up. I like the I'm like Trump,
I like the tit for tat, and so I try
to not let it taint my social media streams. But
other than that, I'm usually sitting back laughing. I really
usually am. And if it comes off that I'm upset,
trust me, I'm not just the way I you know, uh,
maybe I'm a good actor that type of thing. I
don't know. Anyway, I find it hilarious. Anyway, folks, I'm
gonna let you go. I hope everybody had a wonderful
Christmas and get set up for a wonderful new year.
Make some money. If you're getting into business first time,
get at it. Do things right. Get all your licenses,
get all your insurances, get everything you need, do it right.
Start slow, don't try to do things that you're not
familiar with yet. Get you know, tip your dip your
toe in a little bit before you just go balls
to the wall and build it up. Build something to
be proud of. And if you're working for somebody, try
to be the best employee you can. Help your boss succeed,
help that company succeed. You'll get noticed, and my hope
is he'll return the love. All right, all right, folks,
that's all I got. Hopefully you got something out of
this episode. Again. Hope everybody had a merry Christmas and
a happy new yearn Til next time, Stay safe and
remember join me every morning from eight am till nine
am Eastern Time for our coffee Hour with Paul. It's
available on our YouTube channel which is at Master the
NEC and it's also available on fast tracks tube dot
com for free. You'll see the link. You just click
on it and you can watch it from there as well.
But occasionally I also stream on our Facebook page as
well as our LinkedIn channel, so you might catch it
there as well. But the best place to watch it
is on our YouTube channel or over on our fast
tracks tube that's fast tracks tube dot com or if
you like it, fasttrackstv dot com or electriciantube dot com,
whatever your flavor. Anyway, until next time, folks, stay safe,
God bless we'll catch you on an upcoming episode. Oh