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jjnr78
Who'd be interested in watching (and participating in) a documentary about the challenges facing the average domestic and small commercial sparkie?
I left a career in the City about 10/ 11 years ago to retrain as an electrician as I thought I could help change the perception of your local sparkie and I also thought I might have a slight edge over my direct competition given my commercial and educational background. I learned very quickly how difficult a career as an electrician is and immersed myself into 12-15 hour days 7 days a week to work, learn, research and strategise to become a better electrician and businessman. Despite a lot of effort I feel the industry has changed massively over that period and not for the better. We've all put in more effort, more hours, more training and yet profits are significantly down not to mention quality of working and personal life. I'm at a point now where if a better career option presented itself I'd leave. Broadcasting has been an area that I have also been involved in and I'd like to combine my knowledge of both to create a documentary about the struggles highly skilled tradesmen (particularly electricians and possibly plumbers) have and are facing with the introduction of the competent persons scheme, European labour, qualified electrician short courses etc. The government need to make massive changes to help the industry and I also feel that customers need educating about the levels required to be properly competent and other matters that they should consider before instructing work in their properties.
I know there is a lot of activity regarding blacklisting and union issues for the bigger sites, but who's beating the drum for the 'one-man-band' and small team companies? I haven't seen any programmes highlighting these wide ranging issues.
If there's mileage in this I'll give it some serious thought and pitch the idea to some networks.
Any immediate thoughts?
I left a career in the City about 10/ 11 years ago to retrain as an electrician as I thought I could help change the perception of your local sparkie and I also thought I might have a slight edge over my direct competition given my commercial and educational background. I learned very quickly how difficult a career as an electrician is and immersed myself into 12-15 hour days 7 days a week to work, learn, research and strategise to become a better electrician and businessman. Despite a lot of effort I feel the industry has changed massively over that period and not for the better. We've all put in more effort, more hours, more training and yet profits are significantly down not to mention quality of working and personal life. I'm at a point now where if a better career option presented itself I'd leave. Broadcasting has been an area that I have also been involved in and I'd like to combine my knowledge of both to create a documentary about the struggles highly skilled tradesmen (particularly electricians and possibly plumbers) have and are facing with the introduction of the competent persons scheme, European labour, qualified electrician short courses etc. The government need to make massive changes to help the industry and I also feel that customers need educating about the levels required to be properly competent and other matters that they should consider before instructing work in their properties.
I know there is a lot of activity regarding blacklisting and union issues for the bigger sites, but who's beating the drum for the 'one-man-band' and small team companies? I haven't seen any programmes highlighting these wide ranging issues.
If there's mileage in this I'll give it some serious thought and pitch the idea to some networks.
Any immediate thoughts?
