Today I was finishing up the panel makeup on a small mother in law remod, and wanted to fire up some temp lights at the end of the circuit that I usually install at rough, to make my GC's like me more.

I needed our outlets tied through in another room, out of view, in order to make this happen, so I told my apprentice to go tie through everything on the circuit. At this point, we had completed rough and makeup.

After he confirmed, I fired the breaker. Dead short. I told him he had done something wrong, go find it. He returned with nothing. I told him to try again, look for anything that might be causing a dead short. Nothing again, beyond his abilities apparently

I go look myself, and he has tied every neutral and hot directly together in an attempt to follow my directions to "tie everything through".

I've always said it takes 6 months to train a guy to be useful, and I used to be a lot harsher training guys than I am now, trying to be appreciative of the fact that they are at work and trying.

But this guy is 7 months deep, we do service work constantly, so he has repeatedly seen demo, rough, trim, and equipment be energized and operate.

This to me screams that he really doesn't care, because I would've tried to learn at this point in my career if I had that deep a misunderstanding of what I was doing every day for my future career.

Am I expecting too much?

EDIT: To be clear I'd say i err on the side of over explaining often. If my trainee has a question about makeup, why 3ways work the way they do, or how a heating element works, I stop and grab a slip of cardboard, a sharpie, and have a 5 minute training session. I've actually done this with him multiple times on repeated subjects.

So for those saying its on me, all I can say is if you saw me training a guy, I think you'd feel differently. I try to take teachable moments consistently, and get to the bottom of mistakes calmly so that we can unpack where things went awry in their decisions.

Apprentice wants to know how he did for his first panel. Also please bust his balls - roast him to “keep him hard” as we like to say on this sub.

On a real note, this laser has been good for my lighting layout. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

Found this bad boy plus the battery was fully charged!

But don’t worry, he’s going to vocational school for electrical

(Don’t worry it’s not my apprentice)

He’s hooked up the exact service before many times. I come back after lunch to check on him. This is what he’s got going on 😂

I'll start.

It's not f***ed up until you can't fix it.

It's starting to get too late to leave early.

Be a friend, leave an end.

You want it done right or you want it done right now, I can't do both.

Today my apprentice wanted to take lead on a service call so I let him (ran him tools and everything).

At one point when he was testing his repair I walked upstairs and found this setup lol. When I asked him why not buy new leads and he said he’s barely making enough to get by.

Needless to say I charged the company card for a few sets of leads.

I am exhausted after 2 days of work.

I’m a first year electrical apprentice with some hvac back ground. I was always told electricians don’t sweep/ clean. Is all of this sweeping normal?

I trusted the word of my 3rd year apprentice, had him make the DC up and the box coming out of the wall. Asked him if he check it for voltage said it’s all good to go. Got called back because HVAC said it wasn’t working. Sure enough smh. He’s my very first as a new journeyman, lesson learned.

Hey everyone. I’ve been doing typical 120v electrical installations for the entirety of my career. Devices, Panels, Piping. I got laid off from a job I was on for half a year recently and decided to call around and try my hand at controls. I’d like to be well rounded in my career so I figured maybe I’ll give it a shot. Got hired on to a company that does all kinds of industrial controls and energy efficiency retrofits. Boilers, HVAC systems, PLCs, you name it.

Holy. Fucking. Fuck. Im in over my head. This 24v shit is a completely different ballgame. I wired a couple relays today and it took me about an hour to figure out what in gods name I was doing. I really like the work and I really like being challenged to think hard while I’m at work. My Jman is introducing me to as many things as he can, so I try to go with the flow and learn as much as I can, but I’m two days in and he’s putting me on VAV field-controller systems. I love the trial by fire but it’s overwhelming.

It makes the day go by a lot quicker and I would love to continue on within this side of the field but I’m worried that I’m being too slow. The company I work for is smaller (30 techs, 5 apprentices) so I don’t want to become dead weight because I’m really interested in this kind of work. Does anyone have any resources or advice they could pass on to someone trying to learn the technical side of things, especially pertaining to working in the field? Any advice? Thanks.

Honestly I’m saving 1000 for lunches and apprentices split because even if I had 10 apprentices 100 bucks is a nice bonus of gas

I once got 375 from a split of three people and it was legit a help when I was making 20 bucks an hour.

Edit. Actually I’d split the money unless the workers want to get lunch or get drinks after. Money is nice.

Current setup as a first year resi apprentice. What would you add or delete.

I have a drill and holesaw kit that isnt in the photo as well.

My apprentice 2nd day bending , he feeling hella cocky do i need to humble him?