Much like many of you, I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time. I just start things and decide “this is something I could do for a while”, and then proceed to tire of the new thing quickly and become disinterested. This has been the cycle of my work career so far. From teaching English in a foreign country, to soulless call centres and sales for the sake of sales, all the way to disability support and employment services. I’ve held leadership positions and been an employee, had my signature on delicately handled sales contracts as well as deciding if someone will receive their next job support payment (they always did); but still had not found a job or career path that truly spoke to me. That is until I turned 30 and decided to shine a spotlight on myself, asking what it is I want from the world and myself, and what I want to learn and contribute back. This in turn led me to start thinking back to a more sparkly eyed version of myself, a 15 year old with eyes unclouded by hate (shoutout to my Ghibli’s) to what he wanted.
I had always respected my fathers ability to be able to do anything he set his mind towards, (talking mechanics, construction and handyman shit here, he wasn’t the Messiah that I know of) and not need to reach out to others for help. Plumbing, electrical, I remember him taking out walls of our house to renovate. An absolutely terrifying thing to undertake in my opinion. But all his years in the Navy had left him a plethora of skills and worldly knowledge, wisened with calloused hands. Now enter me, a sarcastic and energetic child who couldn’t focus and just wanted to have fun all the time and sleep in. I very much wasn’t like my Father at all. Consistently late, ‘cack-handed’, and blissfully ignorant of most things that weren’t about friends or hanging out. I coasted through school and did well until my grades slipped as I hadn’t learned the value of revision just yet. Other friends did trades and specific speciality subjects, I just did more English and Science, doing abysmally in both and leaving as a relatively bright child with poor A-Levels, which were the qualifications that you needed to get into University; which was the much the same, I was incredibly interested but lost steam quickly due to having little to no discipline to study autonomously, and co-incidentally discovering drugs, alcohol and live music. I’m sure there is no parallel to be drawn here. But I left the student life and just started working whatever job and telling myself this was for me. When in actuality I knew I need to give it another college try.
From here I travelled the world, settled in Australia, got a dog and turned 30. After a brief existential crisis, I decided my 30’s would be as fun as my twenties, just ‘with more money’. So I started thinking about how I could make some serious money and how could I be happier with my career. Australia had recently launched its ‘Free TAFE’ campaign which is essentially free entry level higher learning courses. I spent ages weighing up what each of these courses would fundamentally interested me the most. Decided on a trade and then narrowed down the options based on conversations with friends and how their spines and knees are faring. It seemed Sparkies had the least amount of body wear and tear, didn’t have their hands in toilets all day and made a pretty penny. Aside from the risk of death and ungodly amount of Maths, I had a found a winner with limited downsides.
At this time I was living about three and a half hours away from the nearest TAFE centre, that was also doing intake in a reasonable amount of time, or else I could have had a closer option, but I would have had to wait 10 months to start and I couldn’t think of anything worst than waiting at this point. So I signed up for the six month Certificate 2 in Electrotechnology. Eight Hours per day, two days per week, in the beaitufyl windy city of Geelong. I had a number of jobs at this time and had to cut some essential shifts to make this happen but I felt it would be worth it.
So for 6 months, I woke up at 3am, drove three and half hours to Geelong, starting class at 8am, finished class and slept in the car park until the next morning, started class again at 8am, left at about 3pm to start my now 4.5 hour drive home thanks to peak Melbourne traffic, making it home for 7pm if lucky, to be up at 4:30am the following day for work. Suffice to say, this sucked, and having a dog made this all substantially more draining. However, I summoned some of the study skill points I had left over from my college years. There was a lot of unused effort here and a healthy amount of guilt that I didn’t want to let myself down again. This propelled me to completing the course. The sense of achievement was quite something.
I immediately started calling local electricians to begin an apprenticeship but hit my first of many rude awakenings/road blocks regarding the industry as a whole, and the mentalities of the tradies themselves. The first road block being something in the vein of “Even on minimum wage, a mature age apprentice just costs too much money, I’d rather work solo or hire a 17 year old”. This was a major blow, as not a single local sparky would entertain it. All had just enough work for them and didn’t want to take someone on, which I respect, still sucked though. I had to find way to sell my career history and my transferable skills, that they were getting a competent worker who could not only hold a conversation, but be trusted to work alone and had a proven track history of meeting what was expected of them and just real life shit a teenager can’t bring. I had one chance left locally before I’d have had to consider moving house (in this economy?!) and I didn’t want to do that. When first relocating this area, I had a sales job selling Solar energy systems with a government rebate, wasn’t for me. But I did leave on a good note with this mob and thought they might be able to point me in the right direction, and point me they did.
Fast forwarding now, I’m introduced to a semi-local Solar Installer with a small crew. After a trial shift and a thumbs up from the crew, I was signed up as the fresh faced apprentice. The crew consisted of our Boss, a 4th year nearing completion of his apprenticeship and a second year with the skills of a 3rd/4th year but had completely stuffed up his schooling due to not showing up. A good crew and I was happy to be part of the team. I was to be at boss-mans house for 6am, so we could drive to the actual worksite for the day for 8am. A slog of a drive each way but it doesn’t matter when you’re new and getting paid.
We worked together for a total of 10 months and I learned a great deal. Each day was just the installation of a different Solar PV array, with occasional battery installations, switchboard upgrades and Electric Vehicle charging/generators. A mixed bag but little to no traditional electrical work. During this time the second year began clashing with boss-man. My attitude was, “shut up and show up”, this is their business. I spoke privately with both and they were just over each other so it wasn’t for me to pry further. The second year then leaves abruptly. Shortly after the 4th year was nearing completion but didn’t want ‘leave the nest’ so to speak as he wasn’t confident with his electrical skills. Another thing I found concerning considering that they had spent 4 years together at this point. So he leaves, now it’s me and boss-man. Alone in a car for 3-4 hours a day, installing the systems then home and repeat. During these long drives we got to know each others views better and this is where things went wrong for me.
There is only so many times I’m willing to nod and do the ‘oh yeah’ thing to someone saying things I disagree with. So I would occasionally push back on a topic here and there. From here I felt a very quick change in how I was spoken to. It was gradual but noticeable enough. More passive aggressiveness, and as someone with a very positive demeanour 99% of the time, I felt it. A new apprentice was brought on, and I noticed the same thing was happening that had happened with the second year, when boss-man became my best friend as he’s dissolving his relationship with someone else. I was just now on the receiving end of this. Started to wonder how I could do another 3 years with him at this point and I didn’t have to wonder for long.
As I was going to bed one night, a normal nothing note-worthy night in an ordinary week, I was treated to a series of notifications from our shared job board, alerting me that I manually been removed from each one. Listing jobs done, upcoming, general info. A very disconcerting feeling but I assumed he could have just been updating everything. An hour into our drive to site the next morning, I asked him about the notifications and was asked ‘Why do you think?”. I had no clue, but what followed was pretty ridiculous. The problem was of a photo I had taken of a panel that I had cleaned for him while doing a cash job. I took a photo of this panel to send to him to check my work. All sweet, now months later I use that same photo (zoomed and edited so you couldn’t trace it of course) for the back ground of my solar panel cleaning side gig. Permission was asked. Verbal permission was obtained. I showed up for work one morning and it’s just us, we now get to “Why do you think?”. He wasn’t happy that I had used the photo, I apologised and offered to take it down, despite it not being traceable to anyone, he seems happy with this and we go on the smash out the day as normal, awkward but nothing he hadn’t been like already. We finish and get back to the site, where I’m told I’m being fired for a ‘breach of intellectual property’. I was also told that I have sped in his car before and I was endangering the life the apprentice. Which was literally insane, being told you’re dangerous by someone who smokes Meth and texts while driving but I digress.
I was stunned. It was all over in an instant. But I walked off respectfully. As I knew I needed a good reference to keep this train going despite my grievances. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I wasn’t learning anything that was helping me to become an actual Electrician. I was a glorified panel bitch. But positivity aside I bumped into my second major road block in being hired as an adult apprentice.
This part I feel is incredibly important information to any adult apprentices, looking to start an Electrical apprenticeship and only have Solar Energy as an option. As at this point, I am a 10 month apprentice, with confidence working at heights, off ladders, great tool control, great understanding of DC energy, solar, batteries and so much valuable knowledge. Lot’s to still learn, but I really shined at this. As I drove home that day after losing my job, I just immediately recalled the Electricians I had initially had no luck with. Being a 10 month apprentice the conversations were better but still ended as either “no”, or “maybe i might one day put someone on one day”. So I focused my energy into my side businesses in the meantime to keep the wolves from the door. Until I get a text asking me to start on Monday to trial for an apprenticeship.
Enter, our second road block. We had a rough-in job at a build new property for our first job together. I’m told what to do and I do it. Lot’s of feeding cables in walls and things I understood well. After the first day he says I did great and looking forward to tomorrow. At the end of the second day however we hit a problem, and that problem was that I was not a competent nearly second year electrical apprentice in his eyes. I was a competent nearly second year solar installer and I was not deserving of the second year pay rate. As I was his first employee and he was a small business this is something could understand from a financial perspective. It seems apprentice pay is set quite firmly to increase each year and you can’t just pay what you want. Which is great for people who want a basic living wage, but not great for someone desperate who would forgo it slightly for the opportunity. I found later however, that I can enter into an agreement with my RTO (school) and my employer. If all 3 sign off we’re sweet. And all 3 signed off. Sweet.
So this is where I’m at now. For my second year as an apprentice, I will continue to be paid as a first year until the year is done or he deems me suitable to be paid at a higher rate. Which on paper doesn’t sound great. But just the fact that I have learned more with this guy in three months than I had with my previous employer in ten to me speaks volumes. Thankfully, I am once again excited by this opportunity and want to learn everything I can.
This blog will hopefully end up as me primarily recording what I’m learning in an effort to reenforce it. If you read this far, reach out, I’d love to hear feedback and your stories and experiences, whatever they are.
Illiteral Electrical 