Where did I start? My mom told me that, when I was a kid (phyically, that is), I used to sit in the utility room and look at our fuse box and wonder where the wires went.
By the first grade, I was making crystal radios and playing with electrical learning kits.
I remember assembling low-voltage bulb sockets with shouldered insulating washers and nuts'n'bolts, and stacking copper leaves and rectangular insulation for switches.
I was soon running telephone and remote-control wiring all over the house. My mom said she always checked the toilets twice before sitting down.
I wired our tool-shed for power before I learned about UF and burial depth. I think it was NM at about 6". We moved before I was old enough to change it.
I did my first service change at 16, for an uncle, as well as exterior floods and stuff like that. I also learned (the hard way) that EMT sleeves aren't always grounded.
In high school, I went to the Technical Center (votech) half a day, where I taught as much as I learned (as I explained theory better than the teacher).
Iwent into the USAF, learned some electronics, got out, took a "hiatus" and worked for my father for a few years. After that wore thin (very thin!), I up'n'quit one day.
Then it became time to get a 'real' job. I started at the Z's, and got a job at a small company in the O's. I stayed there, and went to night school, for three years.
(The night school eliminated the fourth year of apprenticeship)
I tested for Journeyman, passed easily, and did mostly side-work here and there. My dad needed me again, which is why I didn't work steadily as a Journeyman.
I did, however, do enough documentable work that I qualified to take the Master's test, and took the (class B) Contractor's test, both of which I passed with mid-90's.
Five years later, I'm still here, grinding away, running a company of 5 (including myself). I still love the work, but I sometimes wish I was an employee again.
"It's good to be the king!" - Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part 1
