I'm Back! - Common Questions about Getting into Low Voltage (AHL 10 1)

We pick up the live stream after a rough month and dive straight into the most asked questions on getting into limited energy: tools, licenses, certifications, first-day tactics, site safety, career ladders, and the real work behind the title. Along the way, we flag code changes for 2026, unravel myths about sprinklers, and share practical tips to stand out from day one.

• limited energy rebrand, PBB acronym, upcoming episodes on 2026 code and extended Ethernet
• what counts as low voltage across structured cabling, access control, DAS, fire alarm, fiber
• PoE beyond access points, smart buildings, IoT as growth paths
• licensing differences for workers vs companies, union considerations
• when to buy tools, buy once buy right, what basics to expect
• BICSI Tech prep, FiberU.org, test-only pitfalls, cost reality
• certifications vs on-the-job learning, signaling commitment
• entry roles, quality checks, documenting and communicating
• daily life: early starts, PPE, lifts, crawlspaces, teamwork with other trades
• career ladder from helper to PM to leadership, specialization options
• construction site rules and culture, safety orientations, logistics
• mistakes to avoid: not listening, rushing, poor labeling, cable protection
• sprinkler pipe code reminder: nothing touches, compliance first
• first-day playbook: arrive early, ask questions, write notes, quality before speed

Chapters

• 0:31 Back live, health update
• 2:43 Teaching at BridgeValley and ideas
• 3:24 Acronym challenge: PBB
• 4:24 Upcoming episodes and industry shifts
• 6:03 Why a Q&A on getting started
• 7:23 What counts as low voltage
• 8:43 PoE, IoT, smart buildings
• 9:22 Licenses vs “limited energy” rebrand
• 12:06 Getting hired and when to certify
• 12:43 Tools to buy (or not) first
• 15:00 BICSI Tech path and prep
• 17:01 Entry certs vs on‑the‑job learning
• 19:28 First roles and expectations
• 22:40 A day in the tech’s life
• 25:00 Career ladder and branching paths
• 29:21 Electrician crossover and convergence
• 35:09 Construction site realities and safety
• 39:35 Top mistakes new techs make
• 46:48 Is this trade right for you
• 49:30 Residential vs commercial differences

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Back to doing live streams again. I'm sorry. It's been a rough month, a rough month. Um as you all know, I had dental surgery. That knocked me out for a while. And then right behind that, I had uh a trip to Chicago, a trip to Ohio. I worked 12 days straight. I worked 12, 14, 16 hours every one of those days between working, driving, and all that other stuff. I worked myself into the ground and I got sick, really sick. Uh ended up taking off some sick days from work. Knowledge is power. Yes, it is. Knowledge is as a matter of fact, here you go. Just to prove it is knowledge is power. Yes, absolutely. Um, so worked myself in the ground, and then I got sick, and that obviously affected the podcast. That's why you've seen a couple re-airs, but I'm better. Uh, I'm 98% there with the whole dental surgery thing, and I'm almost through the chest cold now. So almost there, and but I um I just decided I'm going to go ahead and just kick this up and move on because you know what? I don't like being sick, and too bad, so sad. I ain't got time to be sick. I got things to do, people to see, people to teach, people to mentor, people to encourage, help them get the RCDDs, help them change their lives for the better, and that's worth it to me. I'll I got plenty of time to sleep when I die. Plenty of time to sleep. So let's get on with this. It's been a while, so I might be a little bit out of practice, but here we go. What are you drinking? What are you drinking? Go ahead and tell me in the chat box what are you drinking? Tonight, you know, this Chuck is drinking tea. Tea, right? Tyler's in the house. Tyler's in the house. Welcome back, Tyler. So um, you know, one way to tell if I'm if I'm sick, if Chuck is drinking tea. Well, that's not true. That's not true. I do drink tea otherwise, but tonight I am drinking um heck, I can't even read that. I think it's it's not Earl grade. Um, I'm not sure what it is, but I got a throw lozenge in it and stuff. So that's kind of help. I've been teaching for the last two days here in Charleston, West Virginia. Uh got to teach at a really cool place. A really cool place, Bridge Valley, Bridge Valley uh community and technical college. They got a Bixie lab there, and so I got to teach some of their guys and some local people here as well. And and uh man, what an impressive facility. Maybe, maybe I can talk to them coming on the show and doing an episode. Oh, why did I think that before? Oh my gosh. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna reach out to my my contact and I'm gonna ask them, hey, do you want to come on the show? And let's do an episode. Really cool facility. Really, really cool facility. All right, let's do the acronym challenge. Acronym challenge. What does PBB mean? PBB. Tell me in the box below, what does PBB mean? That's the acronym challenge for the day. There you go. And I apologize for people watching on the other feeds. It's a little yellowish because obviously I'm not in the podcast to you. I can't control the lighting here. And of course, my emeat camera is like, oh no, we gotta follow them. We gotta track them. No, I don't want you to track my camera. Again, I'm still kind of working through these issues. Let me uh get out of tracking mode, get into the standard mode, and and go ahead and fix that, right? There we go. There we go. Nobody's put in it in yet, PBB. What's that acronym mean? Come on. You got I got an RCD in the house and a couple wannabe RCDDs in the house. What does PBB mean? There it is. Tyler got it in the chat box. Yes, primary bonding bus bar. Excellent. Good job, Tyler. Yes, yes. All right, so I got a lot of ground to make up. Okay. Um, when I was at NECA, I sat in a class that talked about the 2026 code changes. So, watch out for that episode. I'm gonna be doing an episode on that. I'm also gonna be doing an episode on um the standards has decided to look at and maybe create standards about extended distances, Ethernet cabling. You know, and people hate when I talk about game changer cable, but what game changer cable did was it it shocked the industry to realize look, maybe that 100 meters can be thought about and fixed, okay, whether you like game changer or not like game changer, because all the manufacturers do some form of uh extended distance now. So the stands are gonna look at that and they got a call to action. I got I'm gonna do a whole show on that and uh stuff like that. I also still have my interview with John Daniels from Bixie, uh Bixie in Vegas. I got to finish editing. It's a two-camera, two-microphone thing, so it's a little bit more involved. Uh, same thing with another interview with Chuck Wilson, two camera, two microphone. Got to kind of work my way through that. And and I got a whole bunch of in a whole bunch of episodes that I had set up right before I got sick and right before I had my surgery, my dental surgery. And uh, so I've already shot everybody an email and said, look, I'm on the road this week. Let me get back off the road, let me kind of recoup, re regain my senses, you know, get my traction, get grounded. There you go, get grounded, and uh let's get you back, let's get these interviews back online. I got lots of great interviews lined up, lots of great interviews. So tonight's show, I wanted to do, you know, I get asked a lot of questions, a lot of questions as to Chuck, how do I get into low voltage? What's the best way to do this? What's the best way to do that? And so I figured what I would do is I would just go ahead and do an episode with all those questions. So that way, if somebody asks me that question, I could just send them right to this episode, right? And that way, that way I'm good. Because, you know, here's the thing you know, a lot of people are afraid about where the low voltage industry is going, you know, because of this changes in the code. I'm telling you, the low voltage industry is strong, strong with AI, with everything else. It's it's it's nothing to worry about. They we are going to be good for a long, long time. And I'll talk about the name changes and the code changes in that in that future one. So so uh make sure that you put your comments in the in the thing below. Let me know if you have any questions. And if I get through all this, and uh because I don't have to be off by 6 30 tonight because I'm on the road. And if I get done and you're asking questions, then I might just go ahead and answer additional questions, okay? I drink honey and chimomil tea. There you go. There you go. I love honey. Honey's really good for the throat when um when uh when you're teaching and you're projecting your voice a lot. So the first question comes from Mark Peterson, and he says, What exactly counts as low voltage work? I hear them all the time, but it seems kind of broad. The term low voltage is broad. It is broad. It's like saying you work in the the automotive industry, right? Do you design cars in Detroit? Do you fix cars in the local gas station, or do you paint cars in a local paint shop? They they all work in the low low voltage, they all work in the automotive industry. It's the same thing with us in low voltage, right? There are people who pull voice and data cable, and that's all they do. They they make good money. I get that. There are people who do um access control, there are people who do you know um das systems, people who do fire alarms, right? Those are all part of the low voltage industry. And so what I would suggest is if you're thinking about getting into low voltage, just do a little research on all those verticals that I mentioned and see which one interests you. Because nothing's worse than you know getting a job, uh um, and then going to work for a company and realize, yeah, that's not really my bally wick, right? Um are some cool emerging areas that I would suggest. You know, uh maybe look at PoE, Power Over Eastern. A lot of people think PoE is just for wireless access points. No, it's not. No, it's not. Uh as a matter of fact, when I came up here, flew up here on Monday, I wore my PoE Consortium t-shirt that I picked up at NECA. Uh, I'm not wearing it now because I'm on the show and and I already wore the shirt, and it already smells like chuck. So I'm not wearing it anymore. It's it's gonna be put away until I get home. So PoE, because there's all kinds of cool stuff that you can do with power ethernet, smart building technologies, right, and internet of things. These are all areas that that might interest you, and you might want to go ahead and and think about that. Okay. Second question. This comes from Jasmine Lee, Jasmine Lee, and they want to know do I need an electrical license to start in low voltage? Okay, so if you're talking about starting a company in low voltage, you're going to need a business license. In some areas of the country, you are going to need a low voltage license. You may even need to have a uh a journeyman electrician to do stuff. But I don't really think you're asking about starting a company because again, just with the from the c the conversations we had, I really think you're talking about just getting into the industry. Getting into the industry, the the low voltage. By the way, the name low voltage is no more. Um when the 2026 code book, the well, technically you can actually read the 2026 code book now. It's actually available online. Um, but when the hard copy comes out, and I got to order mine, they changed it from low voltage to limited energy. Limited energy. So getting into the industry as a as an installer, no, you don't need a license. Now, there are some areas of the country where they've got very strong union press presences, so you might have to go through through that way. There's areas that don't have a strong union, so you can go work. You don't just at work in low voltage, no, you don't need an electrical license. See, there is a huge difference, a huge difference between high voltage and low voltage. You know, a lot of people tell you the difference is, well, anything 600 volts and above is high voltage, and anything below 600 is low voltage. That's not really true, not really true. But and I you know it's one of those things that's not really defined in the co-books low voltage, and I think it's they're trying to create that. But you know, when you start talking about uh doing getting your your license, getting in, the uh the best thing to do is to um find yourself a company to work for, and uh when you interview with that company, I've seen somebody just listened the other yesterday or day before. When you interview with the company, remember it's not just them interviewing you, it's also you interviewing them. You got to make sure that there's a good connection, otherwise, why would you want to work there? Okay, um, and then you know, maybe look at some of the certification paths. I I I don't I don't recommend somebody going to get a certification if they're jumping from another industry to get into this industry, unless there's a really strong reason to do so. Like, for example, let's say that your dad or your what your mom or your uncle owns a low voltage company and you know that even though you don't know anything about low voltage because it's a family business, you're going to stick with it. In that case, maybe get maybe get your certification right out of the gate. I highly suggest that just go work for them first, and then if you give it six months, give it a year, and then if you decide that, hey, this is cool stuff, and this is a cool industry, this is absolutely a cool industry. Um then if you decide to stay in it, then start thinking about credentialing. Okay, then think about credentialing. Carlos Alvarez says, What tools should I buy when I'm just getting started? Okay. All right then. So number one, don't buy tools before you go work for a company. Okay, and and the reason I say that is because some companies may buy you tools. Okay, it may buy you tools, some may not. It you know, it's kind of depends on where you get to go. And then when you get hired by a low voltage company, ask them what are the basic hand tools that you require me to have, because that's gonna be a different different list between different companies and and different verticals, whether they're doing structured cabling or if they're doing DAS or if they're doing fire alarm. There are certain basic tools that you might need for one where you may not need for the other. So wait till you get hired and then, or actually maybe doing the interview process, or or when they call you to give you the job, ask them, okay, what basic hand tools? If they don't tell, you know, I just this just crossed my mind. If they don't tell you which hand tools you should have from when they offer the job, knowing if you if you're honest with them and tell them about your experience level, shame on them. Shame on them. But you should ask them, okay, what basic hand tools? You're probably you're gonna need, you know, a pair of snips, some people call them scissors, um, uh, an assortment of screwdrivers, Phillips and regular, not many, but a few. Um, you're gonna want to have um a pocket knife, you're gonna want to have maybe a punch tool if they don't provide that. And that's what I said, you really got to ask them, right? You know, people say, well, Chuck, what about what about continuity testers, right? And um and stuff like that. That's really a company thing. That's really company thing. And what I highly suggest, if you start buying tools, if you decide this is gonna be your industry, what I highly suggest is buy the best tool you can afford today. Okay, the best tool you can afford today. And the reason I say that is tools are an investment, they're absolutely an investment. And if you buy good quality tools, they're gonna last you a long time. Okay, nothing, you know, nothing hurts more than if you buy a cheap tool and it breaks on you, right? Uh, Zoom Miller wants to know, hey Chuck, I'm trying to get my Bixie Tech cert. How should I go about it? Okay. Great question, Zoomiller. Um, two ways. Uh what well you sometimes you actually can pay to take the test and not sit in the class. Okay, and you can do that. That is an option. I don't recommend that option. Okay, and because you gotta take a hands-on test and a and a written test. I don't recommend that option because especially for the hands-on, there's things you'll learn in a class that you that you that you're gonna be tested on. When you when you put when you're just paying to take the test, there it's not time for instruction. If you do it wrong, you fail. So, with that being said, I highly suggest. I don't remember where you're at, Zoom Miller, but if you go to the Bixie website, I'm pretty sure you can find the local Bixie authorized training facilities, ATFs, in your area and look them up and and and price one there. You can always come to Tampa too. You can come to Tampa, but here's the thing you know, the Bixie certification is not cheap, it's it's 2300, 2500, 2800, you know, with lots of stuff rolled in with that. Um, but I would suggest that you know you at least get a copy of the It's a manual, the Information Transport Systems Installations Methods Manual. And I always always highly suggest that you read through that book before you go take that class. And uh so here's you know, yeah, cool thing is uh, like I said, the place I was teaching at today, uh again, I was teaching at Bridge Valley um community and technical college. They have a Bixie training facility there. And I met the instructor, I met the guy who runs that, a nice guy, smart as a whip. I'm gonna try to see if I can't get him on the show. So maybe we can talk about how to prep for someone going to take a Bixie class. That would be kind of cool, right? That would be kind of cool. All right, MC. So we did Carlos. Let's go ahead and go to Hannah. Hannah Brooks, she goes, How important is certification when you're new? I kind of already touched on this a little bit earlier. Okay, if you're if you're coming to the the limited energy, the low voltage industry, and you're not sure if you're gonna stick with it yet, I would stay out, I would get maybe manufacturer certifications and certifications that you can get for free. I would wait six months to a year, like I said earlier, before you even think about doing certification. Because here's the thing to try to pick a good company you work for, one that's got a good training background, and if you do that, like they will send you to go get your training. But there's also some value in on-the-job learning, on the job learning. Like, yeah, and sometimes I got a little negative on on-the-job learning because it really depends on who it is that's training you. Have they been trained the right way? I hate when people say, Oh, that's the bixie way. I hate that. It's not the bixie way, it's the way that's in the standards, the way that are in the best practice manuals. Bixie just adopts them and teaches them. Okay, it's not the Bixie way, it's also known as the correct way. The correct way. So, yeah. So I'm gonna do a show, more show that's that a little bit because that's gonna be a really, really, really cool job, really cool um show if I get them on there. Uh, so here it goes, uh, certification versus on the job winning. So there are some entry-level certifications that you can get from uh from Bixie. You just there's some basic entry level you can get from the FOA. Um, as a matter of fact, there's free online training. I've I mentioned this every single class that I teach. Fiber U.or.g. FiberU.org. It's a free online fiber classes. You can take it and uh and then get your certification. Now, there is there is an argument to be made that having them ahead of time is gonna help your ability to land a job. I get that. I get that. But what if what if you decide to go to the fire alarm side of low voltage, right? The fire alarm voltage, fire alarm side of low voltage, and you get your certification, your nice set certification. I got a show coming up talking about NISAT too. Um, I was talking to a guy, I did a live stream the day yesterday or day before, and we're gonna come on and talk about NISAT. And um so you know, the thing is if you get your certification and then you decide that's the wrong vertical, you want to go do structured cabling, you want to go do fiber optic cabling. I won't I'll never say that learning is a waste of time or money, but it is delaying your long-term goals. Okay, delaying your long-term goals, right? But certifications, I know a lot of people will argue certifications are great, and then other people say, well, I've been doing this for 40 plus years, I don't need a certification. I get that too. I get that too, but having a certification signals to the industry, signals to your potential employer that you are committed to this trade. You are committed to this trade. And what does that mean for you? If I'm a if I'm a hiring manager and I got two people applying for a job, and they're both applying for the same job, they both have the same background, right? And one has some type of a certification, the other does not. Right? Now that doesn't necessarily tell me anything, um, but what it's going to do is it tells me that they are committed to this to this industry because you know how can I say this without offending somebody? Let me let me think about this. I I I if you haven't noticed about me, I choose my words carefully. And I don't do that because I'm afraid of hurting somebody's feeling. I'm afraid of saying something wrong and sending somebody down the wrong path. That's that's my that's my fear. That's my fear. So as a hiring person, yeah, the person who has the certification, even though they're exactly equal, I would probably lean towards that person because that tells me they're committed to this industry, and that's the type of person I want. There are two types of workers uh in any industry, not just not just limited energy or low voltage. There are two types of workers. I was telling this to that that the Bix instructor today at the at the class I was at. Uh, there's people who just do this for a job, and by job, what I mean is they show up at eight o'clock, they work, uh they work hard, they learn, don't get me wrong, but when they get off work, they're like, nope, I ain't gonna think about cable. I'm done. And then there's other people who treat this like a career. A career. And they will invest their time to learn, to get knowledge, to maybe get tools, right? It that signals commitment. That signals commitment, right? Next question from David Simon. He says, What kind of jobs can I expect starting out? Okay, if you're starting out with no experience, don't assume, don't assume that you're gonna be terminating fiber on day one. I hate to say that, right? But don't assume that you're gonna start out, you know, being a lead tech, right? But be willing to start at the bottom, and that means being a helper. You know, the the the biggest things you can do for yourself, getting in any job, any position, not just limited energy or low voltage. Uh oh, somebody said they just got certified today. Who said that? Hold on. Who just said they got certified today? Raymond just got certified today. Yes, Raymond. Nice. What certification did you get? Let me know in the uh the chat box. My cousin's in the house. Hey, cuz, how you doing? Um, see, I guess I tracked it. There's my there's my ADHD for you. Squirrel, uh, squirrel. Yeah, it happens sometimes. So start out, be willing to start out as a helper, be willing to be the person to push the broom, be willing the person to go out the truck to get stuff. Be there, be be on time every day, be ready to work and work. Those are the biggest things you can do, right? And now, if you do that, they're gonna notice you because you're gonna in today's environment, you're gonna rise above a lot of other people, and they're gonna say, look, even though this guy's a helper, he's here 15 minutes early every day. And when there's nothing to do, he does he find something to do, he sweeps the floor, he he cleans the tools, he reorganizes the van, right? Be willing to do that, okay? Be willing to do that. I say that don't let's don't assume that you're gonna be turning fiber on day one. I have known people who've gotten in this industry with no experience, and that's all they've ever done is turn A fiber from the very first day. So it can happen, but it's kind of rare. It's kind of rare. But also be willing, you know. Again, talking to uh David asking about starting out, be willing to work and terminate your cabling under supervision. As a project foreman, as a as a lead tech, if I'm hiring somebody new and I don't know your your skill level, your commitment to quality level, you bet your bottom dollar, I'm gonna be checking your stuff. Not every Jack. I mean, uh the general rule that I used to apply was I would uh if I knew you were terminating an area, I would check 10% of your work every day. If I found an error, I would then want to check another 10%. And then if I found an error, go another 10%. If I found an error, I would use that as a training opportunity to teach you. Because again, you're you're new to the field, you don't necessarily know everything. So I'll I would use that opportunity to teach you, right? And if you make that same mistake again a second time, especially being brand new, I would let that slide because you're brand new. A third time, you and I are gonna sit down again, and I'm gonna figure out okay, how did I fail you to teach you how to do this? Because see, not everybody learns the same way. You know, people like me, us old boomers, you know, we we you know love classroom things and sit down, we can read and we can learn that way. Other people learn different ways. I've learned that as an instructor over the last 15 years. So you got to find the way that that's gonna motivate and help your person learn. So that would sit down. How can I help you? How can I teach you that so help you learn? Okay. And then we just go from there. You know, I have a lot more leniency towards someone who's brands making new to the industry than somebody who's got 10 years of experience and they're making the same mistake over again. I'll talk about that in a different episode, right? Um and then make sure that uh, you know, again, just you know, what can you expect uh for David? You know, you're gonna be working multiple jobs, different the beautiful thing about our industry, I love this about our industry, is if you don't like the job site that you're on today, just wait a week because that job will be done and you'll be in another building in another city, maybe another, maybe in another state, right? I I've worked in some pretty cool buildings in my career. I've also worked in some pretty nasty buildings, and uh you know, most projects, generally speaking, are less than a month. You know, most of them are usually a week to two weeks. So if you don't like you don't like that atmosphere, just wait. And another cool thing about this is you especially you'll start doing a lot of work on new construction sites, and that's gonna help you get exposure to other trades. All right, and so that's gonna help you see how things are done. That has helped me so much outside of low voltage, when you know, just from being on job sites and watching how electricians do things and how uh how structural mechanics do things and how drywallers do things. That's helped me with my house because I've watched it done so many times that I'm willing to try to do that because I've seen it done so many times. That's a cool thing. All right, Pira Pira Nyer, what's a typical day look like for a low voltage technician? Okay, I hope you like getting up early. I was talking to my local rep here this week, and uh and I told him we were talking about starting times, and I told him, I said, Yeah, I usually start the class at 7:30 because technicians would rather start early so they can get off early to avoid traffic. It's not unusual for low voltage technicians to start at at 5:36, 6:37, 7:30. I mean, not I'm saying I'm not talking about rolling out of bed, I'm talking about being on the job site at those hours. So that way they can get off at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock. Okay. So be willing to start early. Be willing to be ready. You if you're working for a good company, you're gonna be sitting in safety meetings. Not a lot, but at least once a week, hopefully. And be willing to learn because the safety is gonna keep you from getting injured. The safety meetings are gonna keep you from injuring other people. So be willing, have a good attitude about that, right? You're gonna be pulling cable. You're you're gonna be pulling cable in on new construction sites, you're gonna be pulling cable in existing office spaces, you're going to be you might even be crawling underneath of buildings. Yes, crawling underneath buildings. Done it, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Got the t-shirt. There's there's some crawl spaces. I used to do a lot of law law offices in downtown DC, and they would have these raised floors, and the only way you can get to the cable to the backside is to get crawl underneath the floor. I mean, we're talking about crawl space where you have to suck in, you have to re you know, suck, get all the air out of you just to be able to get through some things. Hey, don't better not be claustrophobic. You better not be afraid of heights. Okay, that's gonna be that's gonna be getting us, yeah, that's gonna be critical. And then also make sure you you're good, yeah, you're gonna be doing pulling, so you need to be able to pick up 50 pounds, you need to be able to climb up and down ladders, you need to make sure that uh um you're not afraid of heights. All right, and also another key success for this industry is being able to communicate and being able to document. Those are big ones. Those are big ones because you're gonna be communicating with your peers, you're gonna be communicating with your your lead tech, your project form, you're gonna be communicating with other trades. Okay, so just be communicate. I have a list of 147 pro tips on my website, and pro tip number one is document, document, document. Pro tip number two is communicate, communicate, communicate. So there you go. Okay, this question comes from Brian Chen. Is there a career ladder in this field or do you stay an installer forever? That's a great question. That's an absolute great question. You might be wondering why I say that. There are some people that pulling cable, terminate cable, testing cable, they love it. And that's all they want to ever do. And there is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. And you can make that into a good living. But a lot of people, I'd say probably the vast majority of people, like you, because you mentioned it. You said you wanted uh, you know, what's a career ladder, right? Meaning what's the next step, but always looking ahead. And and so that's a beautiful thing about our industry, right? There's there's you know, you're at you're at the trunk right now, and there are so many branches, there's so many opportunities in the low voltage industry, right? So many opportunities, right? You could uh you could work your way out and become uh a project manager, and that or you can work your way up and become a uh an estimator, right? You can work your way up and become like me, uh a trainer, right? Um I wasn't always a trainer. I mean, I like I said, I used to be you know an installer and a project manager and and and all I've done all that stuff. There's so many avenues, so many avenues that you don't you don't want to limit yourself, right? Um so so the typical career path is starting off as an apprentice, working your way up to becoming an installer, someone who pulls terminating test scaling, and then becoming a technician. A technician does everything that the previous two does, but they might also be doing troubleshooting, right? Um they might even be leading crews. From there, you might go to a lead tech or a project foreman. Again, you're doing all the same things in the previous one, but now you're leading crews. And then you might even go to a project manager. From there, you might become a program manager. From there, you might become an area manager. From there, you might even become the chief operating officer of the company. Again, I apologize. I'm still kind of getting over my sickness. Um then you can again, there's lots of ways you can go. You can go the fiber optic route, you can go the wireless route, you can go the MSP route, you can go the security routes. There's so many options. The the opportunities are limitless in this industry. Limitless. Okay, all you gotta do is be willing to learn. That's the key, right? Um, you might you don't want to go that route? Again, I mentioned the estimating route. I loved, I absolutely love being an estimator. And the reason I love being an estimator is because I would get to design things when they were on paper, and then when I would win the project, I literally watched my company build them. That's cool. And I did, you know, I do have another YouTube channel. I haven't put anything on there in a while, but I do have another YouTube channel. I did a video when I took the grandboys into DC one year, and so we were taking uh we were coming up from Florida, heading to Maryland. We cut through DC, and uh because traffic was horrible and I know how to get home through DC. And so as we're going through DC, I decided to give them the tour. So Poppy did the wiring in that building, Poppy did the wiring in that building, Poppy did the wiring in that building, and finally they said, Um uh Poppy, we get it. You have you have terminated every cable in this building. No, I didn't terminate every cable in every building, right? Raymond, can you let me join? I'll turn my camera on and share on and show you. Um so let me get through this first, and then I'll do that, okay? Dallas is in the house. Hey Dallas, how you doing, my friend? Uh Torres, Tori 12. Should I get my bixie as a wireman? So when you say wireman, you mean like an electrician wireman, right? Like that kind of a wirement. Is that what you mean, Tori? I'm just gonna assume that's what you mean. Um, my answer is yes. Yes, yes. And here's why. Here's why. The the electrical industry and the low voltage industry, again, it's called limited energy now in the new 2026 co-book, they are converging together. Converging together. And I've always been a proponent of of learn as many skills, do as many cross-training as you can, because you know, being a for those who don't know how the union works, okay. Um, so you join a union, you become a member of a hall, and then what happens is companies call up the union hall and say, look, I need 20 workers. Okay, that's called, you know, then what they'll lose is to pull people off of the bench. Okay. The more skills you have, the less chance you'll ever go back to the bench. Right? The more skills you have, the more opportunities you have to make more money and stuff. So, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, all right. So let me see, where's my next question? Uh, from Lisa Martinez said, What should I expect when working on a construction site? Okay, first off, there's gonna be some safety protocols, right? They're gonna tell you you have to wear, you know, um hard sole shoes, you might have to wear steel toed boots, you're gonna have to wear PPE. You'll you know, high PPE can be everything from safety glasses to high-viz shirts to wearing gloves when you're terminating, right? To maybe even wearing masks because you're in a dusty environment. And some people don't like that because you know they you know they don't like having to wear an high-vis shirt or or you know, a mask or a respirator. Um, makes them feel claustrophobic. I get that. I get that, but you know, safety is the number one thing on on new job sites. There are some construction sites that when your company gets a word project and you have to go there, you have to sit in the general contractors, the GCs safety program. They'll give you a sticker to put on your hat, and if you don't, or on your held hard hat, and if you don't have the sticker, they won't let you on the job site. Which I always thought that was kind of funny because there's many rules about hard hats. You're not supposed to paint them, you're not supposed to draw things on them, you're not supposed to put stickers on them because it could cover up a crack or defect in the hard hat. So you go through the safety class and then they give you a sticker to put on your hard hat, which is a safety violation. I don't get I don't get so yeah, you're gonna have to go through that, right? You're gonna be working along, um, getting back to Lisa's question again, what can she expect working on a construction site? You're gonna be working alongside electricians and plumbers and carpenters, and you'll find that even though they're in different trades, they're pretty similar to us. The work in construction, we tend to be very sarcastic, we tend to be very hard on each other, and uh and and some people can't take that. I'll give you an example. So at my old church, there was this guy, his name was Larry. Larry's about the same age as my dad. My dad has passed away, unfortunately, about 10 years ago. Love my dad to death, right? Love my dad to death, and uh so Larry, my dad was a Marine, and Larry was a Marine. So when I look at Larry, he's about the same age as my dad was, and he just he emanates my dad. He reminds me of my dad. I love that. So typical guys, we harass each other all the time. And so finally, one day, even at church, and one day my wife says to me, Um, you need to quit being so mean to Larry. People are gonna think that you hate him. And I look at my wife, puzzled, and like, what are you talking about? She goes, You are so mean to him. I'm like, wait a minute. If I'm nice to Larry, he's gonna think that there's something wrong. He's gonna say, Did I offend you? What's wrong? That's just the way we are. Excuse me. Again, I pause it. I'm still kind of getting rid of my sickness. So, other things you can expect, uh Lisa, you know, what you can expect in an extraction site, site rules, like you gotta park your car in this parking lot, you gotta walk this way, you can only use these elevators during certain times. Um, you can expect you know, daily schedules, you can expect having to clean up after yourself, you can expect long days, uh, and you can also expect changing conditions. But there's nothing more rewarding than to watch a project go from ground to being a building to pulling the cable to the customer moving in to them operating as a business and know that you were part of that, that you were part of the the team that brought that out of nothingness. So it is hard work. I am not gonna lie that it's not, although there are some jobs within this industry that aren't hard work, they're pretty easy. But the vast majority of us people say, well, Chuck, you're a trainer, that's easy. Yeah, did you run with me the last 12 days where I worked 14 hours a day, 12 days straight, and drove between Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati? No, so not be careful. Would you say, Oh, your job is easy? Just be careful with that. Next question, this comes from Kevin, Kevin Johnson. What mistakes the new people make when they start? Okay. The biggest mistake they make not listening to their lead tech, not paying attention. Not listening to your lead tech, not paying attention can cause problems. Number one, it could cause a safety issue. If they tell you not to do something, assume that they know why. Okay, because it might be a safety-related issue. Don't don't ever be afraid to challenge that. If you see a better way, a more efficient way, don't be afraid to express that. Um, because if you do that, that person might go, oh, hey, that's a great idea. But there might be a way, there might be a reason why they're doing the work a certain way, because there's might be a certain sequence that the the contract lays out that we have to follow. So make sure that you follow that. Make sure you listen to them. Because rushing through stuff, you're going to damage cable. And it is so easy to damage a cable. A lot of people don't realize that. I say this in every class. Your number one job as a cable technician is to keep the cable from getting kinked, crushed, stepped on, cut, burnt, or painted. Yes, because all of those can affect the performance of the cable and or the uh uh the application of the code towards that cable. So make sure you follow that. Uh also when you when you when you're doing it, make sure that you uh um don't forget the label stuff. Don't forget the label stuff because you don't label then you have to go to it back afterwards. And and it happens. And the biggest thing you could be is OCD in this industry. OCD, right? And uh attention to detail is gonna be the uh the thing there. You're still in West Virginia. Class was good today. Yes, I am still in West Virginia. Um going home tomorrow. Tomorrow. And as I said, I got to teach at a Big Steve training facility owned by the Bridge Valley Community Technical College here today. Man, is uh I got some pictures and some photos that they took of me because they knew me through the podcast. I'll ask them if I can post some of those online. If they say yes, I will. If they don't, I won't. Yeah, because I don't want I don't want to post if they want me to. Sophia asks, how do I know if this is the right trade for me? Well, again, if you like to do hands-on work, you know, there are a lot of women that like to work with their hands. I've seen lots of lots of female electricians, lots of female HVAC technicians, lots of female low voltage technicians. If you like to work with your hands, this could be a good industry for you. If you are comfortable working with heights, and most of the time you're gonna be standing on, you know, a four-foot ladder or six-foot ladder, but there might be times when you'll be on a scissor lift and you might be 22 feet in the air. If that doesn't bother you, good. You might be working, like I mentioned earlier, in confined spaces. So, yeah, and not you, it won't be every day, but you might get asked to go in some some some areas that are gonna be extremely tight. Um, and that's gonna be that could scare you, right? You need to be willing to learn the correct way to do it per the code, the correct way to do it per the standards, the correct way to do it to the best practice manuals. Okay, and be willing to learn, be willing to learn. Next question. This comes from Michael, Michael O'Connor. What's the difference between residential low voltage and commercial? Oh my, that's a great, great question. There are lots of differences. Okay, lots of differences. For example, even though a residential low voltage technician and a commercial low voltage technician will both be pulling cable for telephone and computers, they'll both be doing that. With residential low voltage, you can be doing a lot more home theater, a lot more alarm systems, a lot more small networks. And I don't want to offend anybody, but a residential technician, I think, is a lot more resilient than a commercial installer. See, commercial installers, they're used to pulling cable into office buildings where there's drop tile ceilings everywhere. So you just push that tile open and you run the cable. Most homes don't have drop tile ceilings. They don't. So that you see, if you take a commercial technician and you put them in the uh a residential install, they're like, oh my god, how am I gonna run the cable? Everything's there's no access points. A commer a residential technician learns to look what's behind that wall, what's underneath the floor, what's behind that wall to find ways to route that cable, right? Another difference is gonna be the the the scale, right? You know, most residential jobs are gonna be small. I mean, you're yeah, you're talking about somebody's home. Residential jobs, they could be large, really large. As a matter of fact, one of the team, one of the projects I was on as a as a design team was a project called Penren. We redid all the cabling in the Pentagon, the world's largest office building. Yeah, yeah. It took it took almost a decade to do that project, right? A decade. All right, question number 12. And this is the last question I have, unless I go and look in the feed up there. Uh this comes from Rogers. What advice would you give someone on the very first day? Okay, I've kind of hit this already, but if they tell you to be there at 8, be there at 7:30. Okay. Um if you're not sure how long it's gonna take you to drive from your house to the new job you're working at, maybe the week before, drive there during rush hour traffic. Give yourself time. You do not want to be late on your first day. I say that. I say that, but here's a funny story. My first job in low voltages, I lived in Maryland. The job was in Virginia, and I got hired by a company called Custom Computer Cable, a company owned by Courtney Matthews. So I got hired my very first day. So I ride my motorcycle to work because I was a young guy and and uh we couldn't afford two cars, so that I left the car home with the wife and I rode the motorcycle to and from work every single day. So I get on the BW Parkway, I'm going down the BW parkway to cut through D.C. to go to Virginia. Well, if you don't know the Baltimore Washington Parkway in the DC area during rush hour traffic, sometimes, not always, but sometimes they would just stop dead in its tracks. And it did that morning. So it stopped dead. I'm on a motorcycle, I stopped dead. And if you don't know this about motorcycles, motorcycles are air cooled. They're not water cooled. They can't sit there and idle, they will overheat. And when they overheat, the pistons expand, the engine stops running, and you gotta wait a half hour to 40 minutes toward the cool off to run it again. I didn't know that because of my first motorcycle. So I'm sitting in traffic, I'm like, I'm not gonna be that guy who cuts down through traffic. Sure enough, my motorcycle got overheated and locked up. Again, we're talking 1982, 1983. Nobody had cell phones on them. So I pushed my bike off of the BW parkway to a gas station. I find a payphone, I call that, I call my office, and I say, look, split you know, there's traffic, my bike overheated, I'm gonna be late. And uh the cardinal rule don't ever be late on your first damn job. Luckily, it worked out well. I got the bike running, I met them, I apologized profusely, and we were good, right? Another good tip for you that uh that you can expect on your first day is to ask more questions. And okay, ask more questions and listen more than you talk. Listen than more than you talk, okay? That's gonna be critical. If you're talking, you're not listening to your supervisor. Okay, does cat 6 cable have any chemical reactions on sprinkler? Does cat six have any chemical reactions on sprinkler? Hmm. So I'm not quite sure what you're asking there. Cat 6 cable have any chemical reactions? Do you mean like a fire sprinkler pipe? Is that what you're talking about? I I'm not quite sure. Can you can you give me a little more information on that question? A little more information on the question. Uh let me see. Go back to Emily's question. What can they do on the first day? Show up, have the right attitude, listen more than you talk. And a big one is take pride in your work. Do everything neatly. You know, there's a there's an old saying, you know, you know, to quality first, quantity second. Quality first, quantity second. So learn to do it right because you know when you do quality enough, it'll become second nature, and the the the the production will come. It will come. And then also write down what you learn at the end of every day. Okay, write you down for what you learn at the end of every day. Then we can kind of sit back and learn. Matter of fact, I keep these books with me. I am very old school, and I always write notes on stuff that I do, so that way I can keep track of stuff. I know you can do it on the computer, you can do it on your phone. I get that. I'm a boomer. I love writing. There's there's a tactile feeling that I love about writing things, right? So there you go. Uh, that covers that question. There we go. All right, let's go back and look at the questions up here. The sprinkler guys told us not to let our cables touch the orange sprinklers. That is absolutely correct. That's absolutely correct. It's not because it's a chemical reaction, it's because it's a code violation. Code violation. Nothing can touch the sprinkler pipes. Nothing. That's just that's just the hard fast rule that you have to get used to, right? Hard fast rule. Um, if your cables touch the sprinkler pipes, they will literally cut your cable, cut your cable. So, yeah, it's it's not it's not a chemical reaction, it's more of um the weight being on the sprinkler pipe, potentially causing an issue, not working correctly, and uh so again, it's not really a chemical reaction. I thought the that person who told you that might might not know what the heck they're talking about. Okay, let's see. What's the next question? Uh what do I think uh uh thanks for oh thanks for what you do for checking? My pleasure, man. I love it, I love it. Daryl, the RCDDs in the house, my best friend, my best friend who we didn't get to hang out at Vegas. We need to hang out next time, my brother. Next time, my brother. So let me see. What does your question say? Uh never needs the never mess with the fire marshal. Oh, that's correct. That's correct. Never mess with the fire marshal because they they have the ability. Most I don't know this. The fire marshals actually consider law enforcement. Law enforcement. Sometimes they carry a gun, they always carry a badge. And as Daryl pointed out in the comments, sometimes they carry handcuffs. They carry handcuffs. And uh, so yeah, you don't want to uh don't want to get in trouble with them. There you go. Holy cow, it's 651. Wow, I went way over. Way over. That's okay. It's been a while since I've been on. I apologize for that. So here we go. Let's go ahead and do the uh the ending. I appreciate everybody coming on today, and we'll see you back back next week.