Back when I was in graduate school I worked for Simplex, a major fire alarm manufacturer of high rise fire alarms. One of the big jobs I participated in was the Marquis II office tower, part of the Peachtree Center office complex in downtown Atlanta. This was a 33 story office tower. The IBEW electricians had been wiring the building for months for the fire alarm. When we arrived to to the final hookup and testing the room that contained the fire alarm panels was about 15’x15’ with 6’ tall fire alarm panels lining the walls. Each had between 200-300 wires hanging loose at each panel. No biggie. We saw that a lot. The problem came when we realized that these dipwads had wired the entire building without marking a single wire as to it’s destination. When I inquired with the IBEW “Master Electrician” who was running that part of the project he said “we thought you’d know where they go”. It said plain as day on every print that marking both ends of every wire was required. They spent the next eight weeks ringing out wires and tagging them so that we could do the final termination and testing. Many of the so-called “electricians” I worked with on that project, every one of them IBEW members, did not even know how to use a volt meter. Real, true professionals!
Unbelievable. I think that their shoddy workmanship comes from their “You can’t fire me!” attitude.
I’ve been in that building a few times on my rare visits to Atlanta.
Not that long ago, I looked into union electrical training/apprecnticeship that was advertised. I have some electrical and electronics background including knowing to how to use a meter and I went to an interview at the run down union hall.
It went well enough and it was mostly technical but like 99% of my interviews that I have had in the past couple of years, nowhere.
Good God, that’s just pitiful.
I was a Co-op at a Georgia Power plant in college. The dos and don’ts due to being a non-covered employee were pretty interesting. All the electricians were IBEW, and I think the mechanics too. They might have been Machinists. I was working with the instrumentation and controls technicians. Good times, I learned a lot.