ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Masters Exam

Ah, yes, the freedom to choose one's hours when they're self-employed...

And we usually choose to work "all of them"...

(It's only funny if it's true)

That's about the same as what I have heard from a couple of my friends that are EC's. They both agree that in the first year up to but not limited to the first four years an average work week includes about 65 - 80 hrs and these do not include time spent at home on the phone with GC's, EE's, looking up things on the internet, etc...
Oh well, I am still all for it with a twenty year goal of retiring or having someone take it over. Something that struck me in a previous post and hit home pretty well was something to the effect of...
"Electrical work is something that I would do for free or as a hobby, to actually make a decent living doing this and be able to pay for my children to go to college with the revenue from it is just an invaluable bonus to me" Again, thanks for the comments,
Andrew

N.O.Minded,
I'm glad that doing electrical work is something that you would do for free because when you are self employed sometimes you do!
I have been in business for 10 years now as an electrical contractor and can tell you that just because you may be a good electrician does not necessarily mean that you are a business person.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy what I do and could not imagine what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this. But, as I look around I started realizing. I don't know any retired electrical contractors - seems they usually work until they die. And, I don't know of any highly successful 1st generation electrical contractors. Most successful contracting businesses were started by fathers or grandfathers.
I always wonder if these second or third generation contractors know how lucky they are to have had the guidance and experience of their family... I am not so furtunate and am having second thaughts as to if I would be better off working for someone else.
think it through!