New Year, New Company...

It's that time of year again. August is all about hot weather and getting transferred. The JATC has each apprentice transfer to a new company each year to ensure that he or she sees a wide range of different aspects of the electrical industry. My first company (or at least the division I worked for) did work exclusively in hospitals. My second company was a large company that had me working in large data centers and on large federal jobs where I was lucky enough to get some excellent experience in low-voltage work.

My new company is much smaller than either of my first two companies. It has been doing electrical work for grocery stores, both new work and renovations/remodels for years. The power aspects of a grocery store are actually rather unique. The coolers and freezers require special attention especially because a loss of power (and with it cooling) would result in a huge loss of product (and money!) Each cooler is monitored separately, though I've been working on a power crew, not a control crew.

What I have been doing is replacing fluorescent fixtures with LED fixtures. Sounds pretty straight forward, doesn't it? It is. The only catch is that the fixtures are in the coolers and freezers! After weeks of working in the hot weather I'm carrying my sweat shirt and jacket to work because the coolers are 37 degrees and the freezers are -30!

So far I'm pretty thrilled to be working out of the heat.