I got a wild hair and decided to become an electrician. This is after close to 15 years spent in the organic produce world with a more recent short stint as the mail-order fulfillment person at Merge Records in Durham. I am also a writer and zine maker. You can check out that world over on my author page.
My interest was piqued when my friend Maryah (Director/Instructor, Construction Trades Career Readiness and Skills Training), from Durham Tech, came to dinner one night in December of 2017. They were talking about how the electrical union was going to start holding their training classes at the school. I asked about it, got the contact information for the union folks and applied for an apprenticeship. I was too late to begin an apprenticeship for 2018. In April of 2018 I called the first electrical contractor that came up on a web search. I called Kemco Electric of Burlington on a Monday and was hired the next day.
What you’ll find here is a blog about what my experience looks like as a “green”, middle-aged electrical helper working in a space where all my bosses are younger than me. There isn’t much information out there about second or third careers in the trades; I hope this blog will remedy some of that information gap.
