This is why I hate electrical supply houses. I don't get it; I am trying to figure out what the problem is. I'm HVAC tech, but not limited to the equipment. I don’t make a habit of running all kinds of electrical work but I don’t just stop at the dissconnect box and tell the HO he's out of luck and call an electrician either. I do work for a guy that does everything he can get paid for so when its slow I will do electrical jobs, but I'm smart enough to know my limitations and I'm not single handedly putting all the electricians out of work. It's not like I'm some kind of HO, I've been working in the field since I was 19 and not just as some laborer, I've worked with guys in industrial maintenance, residential, high voltage electrician, HVAC- industrial and residential. Sooo my point is, WHY, why do they give me such a hard time at the counters? I swear they are being purposefully coy, obtuse, closed minded and just plain refusal to give service. The places that I have to go to are populated by, I think, ex-electricians so my theory is its some kind of union thing or your not licensed thing, right? Well, I never ask them to solve my problems or design my solutions at the counter, but I do expect them to hand me a fitting when I ask for it (or describe it).
One example and tell me I'm wrong for feeling this way.....
I call looking for 50' of 1" liquid tight, 2 straight box connectors, a nipple for connecting a dissconnect box to a RTU (OH, I didn’t know the technical term of chase nipple equaling a half hour of dialog)and I'm looking for a coupler to connect one piece of liquid tight to another. This guy proceeds to lecture me on how your only allowed to go a few feet with it and that he's been in the biz 20 years and never seen a piece of roof equipment hooked up with liquid tight and that their is no such thing as a coupler for liqidtight and why would you want such a thing.... Now I'm a reasonable guy and I try to explain to him that it's obvious that we are picturing two different things because I just came down from a roof with 57 RTU's all with 1" liquid tight connecting them and that I want to cut the one that’s broken and couple a new piece on with a new dissconnect and all that... ya know, describe what I'm doing so he can get a better picture. He refused to help what so ever, WTF? Are the people who are employed by the electrical supply houses in charge of handing the numerous fittings and supplies to the customer so closed minded that they can't possibly imagine what I'm talking about? Is it that they are afraid I'm going to electrocute a bunch of people and they will get sued for it? What could the reason POSSIBLY be? Is their some sort of rational explanation that I should be told that I'm not supposed to do these repairs or buy these fittings? Is their a top secret electricians language that I'm not using? Ya know when someone comes up to me and starts to speak Spanish I politely tell them that I don’t speak Spanish
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