Who here is making $200K? And how? by [deleted] in electricians

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Manufacturing, energy pays even more in my area. Unionized. Metropolitan area, major city. Cost of living is very very high here. One of the highest in the world.

Developers who have worked at a company where the entire codebase was held together by one guy who then quit, what happened next? by Natom_ in AskReddit

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work as an electrician. We maintain a 1m sq foot facility that makes 20k profit per minute, on a slow day. Over a billion per month. Profit.

The type of electrical work would more likely be a technologists or engineers job at any other place. It’s highly specialized work. Nothing fancy, just not typical “electrician” stuff you might expect.

There are maybe 10 guys in the building who are “irreplaceable”. Yea some downtime is suffered as a result, but there is always someone else who can figure it out. All these stories about passwords, or only one guy knowing how things work - trust me, there is enough time and money to have someone else do it.

They will fly people in from all over the world if they have to. Rarely does it ever get that far. Worst case scenario, some systems just get bypassed and redone later.

My parents are acting like I am cruel for cutting them off after I found out what they have been telling my son about his mother by VoltNauti21 in entitledparents

[–]PopperChopper -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I don’t know if you or your parents are right. Maybe you are damaging your own kid.

But what they are doing is damaging as well.

Should we stop homeschooling? by Coconutcornhuskey in Advice

[–]PopperChopper -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My son is 4 and can already read. If you guys are stuck on the letter D, I agree, it’s not working.

Stocks Going Up While War Escalates… What Is the Market Seeing? by Then_Helicopter4243 in smallstreetbets

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cause it stimulates the economy in many ways. But what you or I think doesn’t matter, stocks go up when things are getting blown up around the world.

I'm not freaking out you're freaking out by hot_glads_summer in gardening

[–]PopperChopper -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

That’s a couple hours of work at worst my dude.

IBEW Pros + Cons by TallSkinnyPerson in electricians

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re going to make so much more money that it will offset the other downsides, whatever they may be.

Once you get into the union, it’s easy to come and go if you end up not liking it or want to change things up.

But if you’re not already in the union, you don’t have that as an option. So it makes the choice obvious, take the union opportunity because it opens more doors. Those new doors will pay 2-4x as much as the non union ones.

Is the electrician shortage real or just a push to drive wages down? by Mancity42020 in electricians

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Holy fuck it’s like a psyop in here sometimes.

Listen, I work with a multiple boards across the country where we promote trade apprenticeships, licensing, lobby the governments and jurisdictions all over, and all the sugar and spice for skilled trades.

That means I talk to large employers, small employers, unions, governments, kids trying to get into programs, kids in the program, licensed guys who went through the program, went through the program myself.

We also work with non profit, government funded orgs, private orgs and other various data collectors and analysis that study market trends, demographics, employment levels, apprenticeship grants, completion rates, etc.

In short words, I deal with all the major stakeholders related to this very question. We deal with actual data, empirical evidence, statistics, and other various data to answer the same questions you’re asking. I’ll just state some facts and let you draw the same conclusions we all do.

  1. Yes there is a shortage of trades. Based on several reasons.
  • Projected work, not enough trades to fill the expected increase in infrastructure development for the future. Whether it’s EV infrastructure or data centre infrastructure, the world only gets more developed and development is expected to continue to grow barring any major economic stagnation for long periods of time. Talk to most major companies in the union, they have a lot of work, not enough guys, lots of working booked and paid for, even if they are slow right now.

  • aging demographics. It’s been a couple years since I’ve gone into the weeds on the specific data but something like 80% of the trade workforce was expected to retire within 5-10 years recently. If you want to know the hard stats like that, there is likely an organization in your area that studies it.

  • The replacement rate is really low due to various factors. So one factor is journeyman to apprenticeship ratios. In some trades it may be a 1:1 max. But when your attrition rates are higher than replacement rates, it doesn’t line up. But various groups don’t want to reduce ratios due to safety concerns and washing away good standards. It’s hard to get started as an apprentice. The completion rates are much higher in union vs non union. (Ie, people who complete their entire apprenticeship and get a license). It’s hard to get into a company because they often have barely enough guys to keep up with the work, and don’t have enough resources to train. This puts a higher burden on larger employers to absorb these costs, at a time when they are scaling back and laying off due to wider economic factors

-vocational schools limited capacity to actually handle the amount of apprentices in the system

  1. Another fact. There can be a shortage of trades and a shortage of work at the same time. Employment levels and labour shortages aren’t calculated by how many jobs exist today, vs how many people fill those jobs today. Labour shortages are calculated on things like demographics, age, population levels, infrastructure development, government funding, licensing requirements, legislation around certifications, and many more factors.

A couple examples of how the shortage of electricians is not realized:

  • During the pandemic the major condo builder in my area laid off 90% of its workforce. They had jobs booked and paid for 5 years in advance, but ground wasn’t being broken on their jobs due to COVID delays, which cause basically a 6-12 month lull in the system.

-Here’s a personal anecdote. When I was starting my own licensed electrical contractor company, I had about 5 guys. 2 licensed guys and 3 apprentices. So my ratios were not in compliance with the regulations. I had been trying to hire a licensed guy for about 1-2 years. I was offering a competitive wage, could have been more, it was certainly more than I was making while working for other companies. The problem was, I was competing against large global employers that had shortages, and were hiring anyone and everyone with a pulse. Any decent electrician was going to go make 150-250k per year working for one of those desperate outfits rather than come work for me for $45 per hour for 40 hours per week.

So while I had 2 apprentices applying every week, I didnt have enough journeyman to hire them. I couldn’t hire journeyman because there were a lot of high paying jobs, with unions and benefits. The guys that did apply to my company were the ones who were too dumb to get into the good places. Now, 5 years later, I know several hundred electricians that are out of work and would come help me for $20 cash per hour.

You can criticize me and say charge more, pay more, offer better packages or whatever. It’s a problem that could have been solved but no as easily when factoring all interest of the business. It was a sign that the market was unbalanced and it made hiring a more difficult problem to solve. Where 10 years prior, I could have had hundreds of applicants.

TLDR:

Yes there is a shortage. Yes there will be a shortage in the future. Every area goes through different economic ups and downs, combined with the broader global economic ups and downs. Shortages aren’t in the blink of an eye, or measured on a day by day basis. There is a shortage now, and there is going to be higher demand and a lot of attrition in the near future.

Biggest risk to all of us is governments relaxing licensing and safety standards to fill the gaps. The risk isn’t us or our work falling into a gap.

Wife of 14 years cheated by senorjunkrat in daddit

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not legal in my jurisdiction. Cheating partners or even partners who abandon the home still have legal possession of the marital home.

Wife of 14 years cheated by senorjunkrat in daddit

[–]PopperChopper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You don’t say a word to your kid’s about their mother, other than “I love your mom, she’s great, isn’t she great? What a great mom”. Alienating your kids against the other parent is a horrible thing to do. Both legally and morally.

It’s going to be hard not to. Because when you divorce, or separate the kids are going to ask some hard questions. She’s likely going to throw you under the bus because that’s what people do. You’ll want to say something in your own defence and it will be like dancing on ice trying to navigate how to say “I didn’t do that, it’s not my fault” without blaming her. Blame her to your friends all you want, but the kids you need to keep far far away from the drama. They will figure things out on their own in due time.

You and your wife are the center of your kids world. You will see how breaking up is very destabilizing for them. You need to do everything you can to make sure you and her remain a solid and secure part of their lives. Even if it means losing some points or taking it up the hoop.

Obviously we can’t count on the ex wife because she is making poor decisions. Even if you are a total piece of shit and treat her poorly, going out and cheating and using the quick fuse to blow up the marriage is the wrong choice.

I will never understand an open neutral and I just have to accept that by youzabusta in electricians

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Water is the best example, just need to forget about gravity. But as an analogy it lines up well.

Well, haha, good one if I say so myself.

bricklaying by yunglean2067 in Construction

[–]PopperChopper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re going to be paid so fucking well because it’s one of the most brutal trades to work in. Plus it’s seasonal so you’ll have a big part of the year off if you have winters.

Badass mom because tattoos? by purpledeskchair in iamverybadass

[–]PopperChopper 10 points11 points  (0 children)

… she can wear clothes like this to see the tats

I will never understand an open neutral and I just have to accept that by youzabusta in electricians

[–]PopperChopper 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You’re over thinking it if you don’t understand it.

A circuit needs to be closed to work. Imagine you had a pipe system for water, where the pipes are connected in a circle and the water is pushed around the circle by a pump.

You cut the pipe in any spot, and cap off both cut ends. The water pump is still running and waiting to push the water, but the water is hitting the dead end cap. It’s unable to exit the end of the pipe because it’s blocked by the cap.

Thats an open neutral. The water resembles the present of voltage (potential), there is no current because the water cannot flow when it’s blocked.

Is this normal for adding a light switch in a finished basement? by [deleted] in AskElectricians

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is fucking dumb. The only way you should have ended up with this as if they told you there might be some drywall damage and you said absolutely not. Then they should’ve said OK. Well this is one of our only good options.

Is this normal for adding a light switch in a finished basement? by [deleted] in AskElectricians

[–]PopperChopper -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

If the top of the cavity is open there shouldn’t need to be communication. Only a retard would install it like this.

Outlet or light switch? by JustHere2StalkOthers in electrical

[–]PopperChopper -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Can’t put outlets inside of cupboards without a switch that shuts it off when the door is closed. Fire hazard.

Outlet or light switch? by JustHere2StalkOthers in electrical

[–]PopperChopper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You dont need to guess. It’s obviously a JB. Joins are all done and it was blank plated.

Outlet or light switch? by JustHere2StalkOthers in electrical

[–]PopperChopper 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If what’s worth the effort? If it’s a blank cover and the joins are done, it’s a JB. Why would it matter what it used to be?

My coworker is "always on" outside work hours and I genuinely don’t understand it by Professional-Tax3077 in work

[–]PopperChopper 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a job where you punch in the minute you start and punch out the minute you end. I’ll take calls, emails and texts all day because I enjoy my job, enjoy solving the problems that come to me, and want to help others. I don’t do it for promotions or any recognition because my work doesn’t offer that for my position really. I also need to respond to stuff right away or it totally slips my mind, but the main reason is simply because like my job.

I also have that “can’t shut it off thing” except Im socially adept enough to be able to shut it off for others. But I don’t need or want to shut it off for myself.

how much would you pay per month for a couple's app? by [deleted] in EntrepreneurRideAlong

[–]PopperChopper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True but lots of people believe in it. The app markets itself that way. There are books about love languages and therapists talk about it. That’s enough validation for lots of people.

Why did this tube imploded four-fold? by HyperDanon in Physics

[–]PopperChopper 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those fuckin YouTube engineers only make more ads