All about the profession of an electrician

Modern human civilization is infinitely dependent on electrical appliances - a power outage actually throws us at least a hundred years ago. None of us wants to give up the usual level of comfort guaranteed by electrical appliances, and if an ordinary owner can still independently repair an outlet and a switch, and at best, some household appliance, then a complex technique still requires the intervention of a highly qualified professional, if repairs still cannot be avoided. An electrician is exactly that specialist whose area of ​​responsibility includes the repair and adjustment of electrical networks of any complexity.

An electrician is an extremely broad concept, by no means limited to the primitive repair of sockets and switches. Nowadays, the relevance of the profession is growing. Qualified specialists are needed everywhere, and their work is well paid. The duties of a modern specialist include absolutely any service, one way or another related to the electrician, that is, he is engaged not only in wiring, but in general with any electrical equipment.

The history of the profession goes back over a hundred years, although theoretically it can be extended to two hundred years. - until the time when physicists in laboratories were just beginning experiments with electricity and could be considered the first electricians. At that time, the properties of energy were little known, and the experiments themselves were fraught with injuries, and even death, because historically it turned out that the specialty is dangerous and is considered the most suitable for men.

Over time, electric lighting and electric trams were introduced, and their businesses were among the first to need an electrician as a full-time employee. With the proliferation of indoor electric lighting, household appliances and industrial equipment that used electricity, the number of vacancies only increased.

Like any other profession, being an electrician has its own pros and cons. If you are just thinking about choosing a profession, it is worth considering the advantages and disadvantages of such work in order to get an adequate idea of ​​what you will have to do in advance.

Let's start with the good - here are the reasons why being an electrician is beneficial:

• the profession remains one of the most relevant - humanity is still very much dependent on electrical devices, and in the near future mass technologies are not expected to replace a living electrician;
• you can always help yourself and your loved ones - the profession is very useful at home, and you can solve any emergency situation on your own, without waiting for the arrival of third-party specialists;
• the work of an electrician, as a rule, consists in observation and prompt response, therefore, you can work at several enterprises at once, maintaining the electrical equipment in proper condition;
• if necessary, you can earn additional income by helping neighbors on small things or by providing electrician services under the freelance scheme.

It is equally important to be aware of all the disadvantages of the profession in advance so that they do not become unpleasant surprises. So, here's what can push you away from getting the profession of an electrician:

• household equipment uses a relatively safe voltage of 220 volts, but the serviced equipment demonstrates much more impressive characteristics, so the work of an electrician is still dangerous;
• communications requiring repair can be located at a considerable height, and this is always a certain risk of falling and discomfort for a person who is afraid of heights;
• considering the profession of an electrician as profitable and well-paid, one must understand that income strongly depends on the complexity of the work performed and even the region where you work: you can work with sophisticated modern equipment in a technological plant, earning very decently, but you can also be an electrician at school, earning a penny.

According to the classifier of professions, an electrician is not a profession, but rather a group of related professions, one way or another related to the operation and maintenance of electrical equipment. The professional standard assumes a number of different narrow specialties, among which we will consider only a few of the most in demand:

• electricians - are engaged in the laying of electrical networks, from large-scale highways to intra-house lines, work as part of emergency or construction teams;
• operating personnel - in a sense, "theorists" from the world of electricity, who do not so much lay or repair highways, but monitor their normal and correct operation, select the optimal operating modes in a specific period of time;
• electronics engineers - have more to do not with wiring, but with electronic circuits, repair complex equipment, which is easiest to describe as computers;
• auditors - Estimators of electricity consumption and energy consumption, engaged in the optimization of costs and losses for more efficient use of electrical networks.

When applying for a job, a vacancy can be described in even more detail, because it is clear that electricians can be technicians at a power plant, maintain a car's electrical systems, work on a railroad or solder broken household appliances.

For obvious reasons, the exact list of duties strongly depends on the place of work, but at the same time, there are groups - categories that allow an electrician to receive permission to perform tasks of a certain level of complexity or danger. In other words, the boss has no right to demand that the employee perform those duties that are not provided for by his category. Strictly speaking, this classification affects even people who do not have any specialized education, they are assigned the first category, which allows them to use electrical equipment and provide first aid. The highest - 6th grade - makes its owner a universal specialist, able to cope with a task of any level of complexity.

If we talk about the duties of electricians and representatives of related professions in general, one must be prepared to perform the following work:

• lay an electrical cable;
• connect equipment to the mains;
• calculate the required cable size;
• plan the wiring diagram in the premises;
• preventively inspect the entrusted electrical equipment and wiring with the aim of early detection and elimination of any deficiencies;
• repair electrical networks upon request;
• mount sockets and insulators;
• carry out commissioning work before connecting the devices;
• train junior personnel in the rules of safe behavior with electrical appliances;
• constantly learn and improve their own knowledge.

Job descriptions in detail may differ not only from enterprise to enterprise, but also depending on what category a particular electrician has. Nevertheless, in general, the provisions will be approximately the same, which allows you to evaluate them in advance, making your own conclusions about what is allowed to the employee:

• act to eliminate irregularities and inconsistencies associated with wiring and electrical equipment, ideally working ahead of the curve;
• rely on social guarantees established by law;
• rely on the assistance of other team members in the implementation of the rights and obligations of an electrician;
• demand the provision of specific conditions necessary for the comfortable and safe performance of job duties;
• access documentation related to wiring and the use of electrical equipment;
• improve the level of their own professional training;
• to declare to the management about the revealed shortcomings and violations in the operation of electrical appliances and wiring, to offer their own vision of a solution to the problem;
• familiarize yourself with the job description, your own rights and responsibilities, as well as the criteria for evaluating your own work.

Timely and adequate fulfillment of the duties stipulated by the job description is an important point. But the work of an electrician is also difficult in the sense that he is directly responsible for emerging emergency situations that may result in losses for the employer, injury or even death for employees.

As in the case of rights, the exact area of ​​responsibility may depend on the specifics of the place of work and the position held, but in general, you will have to answer in the following situations:

• failure to fulfill their direct official duties within the prescribed period, including refusal to use the rights provided by the job description, if this entailed any undesirable consequences;
• ignoring safety regulations, fire protection, internal regulations and so on;
• communication of the trade secret of your enterprise to any third parties who do not have authorized access to such information;
• failure to comply with the provisions of internal regulatory documents, as well as their implementation in an insufficient or inappropriate form;
• any offense provided for by the current legislation in the course of labor activity, with the incursion of the punishment provided for by law;
• damage to the employer through oversight or malicious intent;
• excessive or unauthorized use of the rights provided by the job description, including for personal gain.

An electrician is a person on whose shoulders a significant amount of responsibility is laid, since the well-being of the enterprise and the safety of other employees depend on his timely professional actions. For such an employee, sufficient qualifications are extremely important, therefore the first and most important requirement for an electrician is to understand his main field of activity without the help of auxiliary books and cheat sheets, be able to quickly assess the situation and take immediate action to correct the problem. In other words, a good electrician should know the design, specifications and operating principles of the equipment he will work with.

Special attention is paid to the personal qualities of a person, because not everyone is a priori capable of being a good electrician. At the very least, you need to be a very responsible and attentive person, because an electrician has no right to make mistakes in work or leave a task in progress. Sometimes fixing a breakdown requires a huge amount of applied forces, while it is impossible to postpone the repair - therefore, physical endurance will be appropriate. When working in potentially hazardous conditions, it is worth having a good reaction and a certain degree of accuracy.

The desire to become an electrician as a professional rarely appears without a pre-laid base - a person interested in this business is somehow interested in the topic on his own, receives certain knowledge from his father or acquaintances, practices at home in fixing sockets and switches, as well as other household appliances.

Today, the Internet allows you to get a lot of information about electrical engineering and wiring, and the persistent self-taught, supplementing all this with good literature and training videos, is really able to reach a certain level. Let's just say: thanks to this approach, you can learn to do without the called masters at home and even earn money by helping neighbors and acquaintances, but it is unlikely that you will be able to get a permanent and official job - the employer will still want to see documentary evidence of the specialty received.

If you decide to study thoroughly in order to get a profession and the right to work, you should consider one of three options for educational institutions.

• School or college. Having entered here, you will hardly be able to count on tremendous vacancies and impressive salaries in the future - it would be more correct to say that “workhorses” are trained here, who are engaged in performing mechanical tasks of the same type according to schemes they have not invented. The advantage of such training is that anyone can enroll, and it will take only 1-3 years to get a diploma.
• Technical College. This is already an order of magnitude higher than the one received at the school.The theory in this case is not limited to the minimum basics, and although you will not be an engineer, most good vacancies will be available for selection, which means that you can earn decent money. It is also relatively easy to enter here, but it will take 3-4 years to get a diploma.
• Higher educational institutions. Higher education is given in order for a trained specialist to work with his head rather than with his hands, respectively, the positions will be even more responsible and a little like managerial ones, and the salary, of course, will also increase. You will have to spend 4-5 years on training, and of all this time, not so much will be spent on practice, but a huge theoretical base will be laid. It will be possible to enter only after grade 11 or graduation from a technical school or college. As it should be in universities, you will have to take the Unified State Exam, and the core sciences will be considered the exact sciences - computer science and mathematics.

The huge need of society for electricians leads to the fact that it is possible to get an appropriate education in any more or less large city - a settlement does not even have to be a regional center for this. Many people choose the profession of an electrician also because it allows them not to go far from home during their student years.

The uniqueness and profitability of the profession of an electrician lies in the fact that almost any more or less large enterprise needs it, and it can also work on the principle of freelancing. You should not be surprised at this - there are very few people in the world who do not encounter electricity at all or completely take responsibility for the correct operation and timely repair of all electrical equipment and wiring located in their territory of responsibility.

To once again emphasize what has been said, consider several examples of potential electrician jobs, specially selected so that they are as versatile as possible.

• At the management company. One of the most predictable options that allows you to serve ordinary citizens in their homes, as well as to repair the main communications that ensure the operation of elevators and street lamps, light in the entrances, and so on. Work is largely a response to emergency calls even in the middle of the night, but it allows you to find a job within walking distance of your home address.
• In a sanatorium. This place of work resembles the one described above, only clients are vacationers - people who have paid money for a comfortable stay at the recreation center and do not want to endure discomfort even in a force majeure situation. Accordingly, a faster response is required, due to which the area of ​​responsibility is smaller, and the salary, as a rule, is, on the contrary, slightly higher. If the sanatorium is also located in the wilderness, you may be the only person on whom the light depends.
• At a construction site. In this case, the main task will not be repairs, but the primary laying of communications, when there is an opportunity to clearly plan out your duties and work according to a pre-planned schedule. A huge disadvantage is the dubious comfort of the construction site with its dust and noise.

Calling any one specific figure, it is almost impossible to guess the electrician's salary - the salary fork is too varied. Predictably, in rural areas and without northern allowances, an employee with a minimum qualification, whose duties include only replacing sockets and switches, will receive mere pennies - perhaps even less than 20 thousand rubles.An employee of a large enterprise in Moscow, in the North or in any other place will look fundamentally different, if it is a strategic industry, and the electrician himself is not an ordinary person, but is responsible for the operation of complex equipment. The salary of such an employee can be close to 100 thousand rubles.