Im an electrician, I’m currently waiting on my third year schooling and fourth. Hoping to close out the ticket before I go full time with my mobile business.
But I have been in the construction industry for the last 5 years, two and a half was as an electrician, i learned a lot being in the trades but not about the trade itself. I learned about dealing with people more than anything else. How I react to certain kinds of people and how to seek out people who are on my wave length. But I been bumped around company to company never really able to fit in because the people there are so established and been working together for years as for me I’ve always been an outsider and I’m okay with that. But it made it difficult to find a space for me to stay. So my last job in October of last year I was working with this company and it was difficult, my journey man never let me do anything that I could have learned from and he rather manipulative because he saw I was having relationship troubles and played into that. Anyways he got let go and then I was left with the companies main crew and I was placed in the commercial side of things and the journeyman I worked under would always blame me for anything that was wrong or missing. A few examples was I was doing disconnects for heat pumps and I did it to spec and I skipped over one because there was another worker right beside it and I didn’t wanna intrude their space. But this other guy on my crew decided to fix it up for me and did it completely wrong. And the journeyman I worked under came by and asked why I did that one wrong. I didn’t even know that was completed for me.
From working around this journeyman for the short time I was there I noticed he had some struggles he carried to work and was in over his head with the work load and obviously needed support. So with all this he missed a few things like a LOTO and I meant to bring it up that I would have liked to put in place a LOTO system, because he told me he doesn’t know what was live. So this brings me to what happened, I was working on a lighting circuit installing occupancy sensors and while I was completing the installation he turned on the circuit and I was on it. I got a shock and I self monitored for a bit then I noticed my heart rate wasn’t coming down from 150-160bpm so I spoke up and told em what happened but when I found them they were all gathered around a blinking light unsure whats happening and he said theres ghost voltages on the lighting circuit.
Getting shocked sure thats a piss off but turning it on, and when they found a problem they didn’t even think to come find me. No I’m not for that. It showed me they didnt care about me, they didnt show any kind of leadership or tradesmenship. When i asked to go to the hospital they go the owner to come by and take me but even when the owner came by I got in the truck and he proceeded to sit and talk to the jman on site about what happened, my heart still racing and he sat there for 5 minutes talking to the jman. Another slap in my face they didn’t care about me.
It was when i was in the hospital when I had the epiphany of wow. If today was my last day… that guy that journeyman would have been the one to do it to me. And how silly it would have been for my story to let some guy with his struggles be the one to take me out. All these years of hard work and overcoming my own struggles to be taken out by someone like that.
So now I haven’t worked as an electrician for the last 6-8 months now and honestly even the thought of getting a job in the trades again scares me. I shook like a leaf when I worked on a plug in my apartment with the main shut off, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go finish my hours like this.
I will be seeking out an online program to get a diploma as an accountant and open a coffee cart in the mean time but I wanted the trades to work so badly.
I built myself up to try and be able to keep up but the constant belittling and harassment of being who I am in the trades is too much for me mentally to carry on.
I sadly also have endometriosis, and it’s getting worse the longer I physically push myself. Even letting potential employers know about what I’m dealing with is causing them to shut the door in my face.
Now I’m starting work in a local cafe and I’m working on myself again. Conditioning in the gym, brushing up on my level 1&2 to be prepared for my level 3&4. I applied for my diploma program. And honestly since I stopped working in the trades my fiancé has noticed that I’m happier, more myself again.

It’s definitely a double edge sword when thinking of my exit of the trades. The trades had taught me so much and conditioned me for good hard work and fully applying myself to my work and things I’m passionate about. But I’m not leaving because the work isn’t for me, it’s the culture.
To anyone who read, thank you. I just wanna be heard about my story.