I can totally understand where you're coming from - if you've spent many years building a skill base, knowledge, a business, loyal customers etc and have become a consummate and very experienced professional, then some 4-weeker upstart calling themselves an electrician is going to grate a little bit. But I'm more of an electrician that some hapless DIYer who simply knows how to make a circuit work regardless of whether it's safe or not. So I'm not trying to convince you of anything.
I don't think you do understand where the qualified and experienced sparks are coming from you mention "building a skill base, knowledge, a business, loyal customers etc" I can also assume that proper qualifications class as an etc in your book. To compare yourself as "more of an electrician than a hapless DIYer" IMO actually reflects the level you are at by your own admission
However, competence is not the same as experience - Engineer54 i'm guessing you are competent AND experienced. Competent is defined as having sufficient training - and if on a job I'm faced with something that I don't understand, then I stop and either get advice & help - I certainly don't "muck around" with peoples' electrical installations. Which is where my point about integrity and maturity comes in - it means knowing your limits. Nobody knows everything - we're all on a spectrum of experience so don't put the newer guys down. Please.
Your seem to be digging a bigger hole the more you comment, competence and experience is not the same as being properly qualified with the underpinning knowledge to complete the task in hand as many contributors are on this forum are.
The advice and help you need when you don't understand something will more often than not come from someone who is fully qualified and your comment seems to reflect the "Who wants to earn ÂŁ54k a year" mentality where the options are 1/ Do a short course because I haven't got time 2/ Phone a friend 3/ Post a question on a forum 4/ Have a whinge when people don't take you seriously
The only thing I agree with you is that nobody knows it all and in the ever changing industry we are in every day is a learning day and IMO even the most qualified and experienced on this forum will admit that
Some responses have suggested that I am being disrespectful, dismissive of apprenticeships and that I muck around with unsuspecting people's electrics. I wasn't aware at all that I'd given that impression - but forgive me if have.
You and many others have been sold and sucked in by a dream you believe that 3 or 4 years training can be thrown in a training microwave and delivered in a matter of weeks the reality of life is that this is not case and most are left in debt without the proper qualifications to pursue the chosen career path
I chose a new career in good faith and took the route that was open to me through the MOD. Although I worked bloody hard to pass C&G 2382, 2393, 2394 (and am due to take 2395) and my site inspection with NAPIT, am I to believe from this thread that in the industry these qualifications are not taken seriously? Sorry if that's a naive question but I'd like to get peoples honest thoughts.
In choosing your new career you may not have researched it sufficiently to get an understanding of the qualifications required as mentioned previously all qualifications you have are additional and peripheral qualifications to a core qualification e.g. C&G 2330 that you don't have
It is about time the City & Guilds clamped down on the course / exam entry requirements and issuing additional and peripheral qualifications without the candidate having the necessary core qualifications to get the industry back to being properly qualified and not just competent, the 2360, 2330 etc appear to have no worth these days as they take to long to get
