What I Wish My Journeyman Had Told Me
Instead of Throwing Pipe Wrenches at Me
When I was an apprentice, training was different.
There were no QR codes on equipment.
There were no manufacturer apps.
There were no YouTube videos.
There was no pulling a wiring diagram up on your phone.
Actually, there wasn’t a phone.
At least not one you carried around with you.
If you got stuck on a service call, you couldn’t take six pictures, drop them in a group text and wait for four technicians to tell you what you were doing wrong.
You couldn’t Google a fault code.
You couldn’t watch some guy in Ohio troubleshoot the exact furnace sitting in front of you.
You had a meter.
You had a paper wiring diagram.
You had whatever manuals happened to still be in the truck.
And you had your journeyman.
God help you.
Your Journeyman Was Google
Except Google doesn’t throw things at you.
Your journeyman knew everything.
At least that’s what you thought.
There was no internet in your pocket to fact-check him. If he told you that’s how something was done, then as far as you knew:
That’s how it was done.
Why?
Because he said so.
And if you made the mistake of asking why at the wrong moment, you might receive a detailed technical explanation such as:
“Because I told you to.”
Excellent.
Very informative.
I’ll remember that.
He was the installation manual.
He was technical support.
He was YouTube.
He was the HVAC forum.
He was the troubleshooting app.
He was also a man who cursed like a sailor and apparently believed fear was an acceptable substitute for a structured training program.
And somehow…
We learned HVAC.
Lesson One: Learn to Read Minds
This was perhaps the most important skill for an apprentice.
Your journeyman is on a ladder.
Both hands occupied.
He looks down.
“Hand me that.”
You look around.
There are approximately 47 objects below him.
Which one?
You make the fatal mistake.
“What?”
He points vaguely.
“THAT.”
Ah.
That clears it up.
You grab the screwdriver.
Wrong.
He wanted the channel locks.
The screwdriver comes back down slightly faster than you handed it up.
Education has occurred.
Tomorrow, somehow, you’ll know.
Asking Questions Required a Risk Assessment
Today, an apprentice can be standing in an attic looking at something he’s never seen before and send somebody a picture.
“What is this?”
Thirty seconds later, he has an answer.
Beautiful.
We didn’t have that.
If you didn’t know something, you basically had three options:
Figure it out.
Go back to the shop.
Or ask your journeyman.
Option three required careful consideration.
Did he already explain this once?
Was I listening?
Should I know this?
How busy is he?
How angry does he currently appear?
What objects are within throwing distance?
Trades education was very interactive.
But Here’s What I Wish He Had Actually Told Me
I wish he’d told me:
You’re not supposed to know yet.
That’s the entire point.
You’re an apprentice.
You’re going to be slow.
You’re going to grab the wrong tool.
You’re going to forget things.
You’re going to ask questions that seem ridiculous to you five years from now.
You’re going to look at wiring diagrams and see hieroglyphics.
You’re going to listen to experienced technicians talk about superheat, subcooling, static pressure and enthalpy while thinking:
I may have made a terrible career decision.
That’s okay.
You’re learning.
If you already knew how to do this job, we wouldn’t call you an apprentice.
I Wish He Had Explained Why
This might be the biggest one.
The old way was often:
“Do this.”
So you did it.
Put the gauges on.
Okay.
Check the capacitor.
Okay.
Move this wire.
Okay.
Adjust that.
Okay.
But nobody necessarily explained why.
And there’s a massive difference between knowing how to repeat a procedure and understanding what’s actually happening.
Don’t just tell an apprentice:
“Put your gauges on.”
Ask him:
“What are we trying to learn?”
Don’t just tell him to check the capacitor.
Explain what the capacitor does and why the symptoms made you suspect it.
Don’t just tell him to take static-pressure readings.
Explain what static pressure tells us about the airflow system.
An apprentice who learns steps can repeat repairs he’s already seen.
An apprentice who learns why can eventually diagnose problems you’ve never shown him.
That’s the technician we’re trying to build.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Slow Down
Every apprentice wants to be fast.
Because the journeyman is fast.
He walks up to the condenser.
Panel off.
Meter out.
Checks three things.
Diagnosis.
Done.
Meanwhile, you’ve spent eight minutes trying to get one screw out.
So you start rushing.
Don’t.
Your journeyman isn’t fast because his hands physically move faster than yours.
He’s fast because he’s already made 10,000 decisions you’re still consciously thinking about.
He knows which screw.
Which tool.
Which measurement.
Which sound matters.
Which thing doesn’t.
That comes from repetition.
You cannot rush your way into experience.
Do it correctly.
Then do it correctly again.
Then do it correctly another thousand times.
Speed will show up on its own.
I Wish He Had Told Me You’re Going to Break Things
You will.
You’re going to strip a screw.
Crack PVC.
Blow a fuse.
Drop something.
Miswire something.
Snap something.
And at least once in your career, you’re going to find yourself holding two pieces of something that was very clearly one piece approximately four seconds ago.
There will be a moment of silence.
You’ll stare at it.
You’ll replay what just happened.
And then your brain will ask a dangerous question:
Can I make this look like it was already broken?
No.
Don’t.
Tell somebody.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Own My Mistakes
Fear makes apprentices do stupid things.
Especially when the guy training them has previously demonstrated that he considers airborne pipe wrenches an effective communication tool.
But hiding a mistake almost always makes things worse.
If you break something, tell me.
If you wired something wrong, tell me.
If you’re not sure whether you did something correctly, tell me.
I may be annoyed.
We may have to fix it.
We may lose time.
We may even lose money.
But we can deal with a mistake we know about.
We can’t deal with the thing you quietly covered up and left behind.
The mistake doesn’t tell me nearly as much about you as what you do next.
Integrity matters more than looking competent.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Ask Questions
We didn’t have Google.
We didn’t have smartphones.
We didn’t have instant access to thousands of service manuals and troubleshooting videos.
What we did have was the guy standing next to us.
And sometimes we were afraid to ask him anything.
That’s a shame.
Ask questions.
Why are we checking that?
Why did that reading matter?
Why did you test this before that?
Why did you know it wasn’t the compressor?
Why are we using nitrogen?
Why are we pulling the vacuum that low?
Why does this system behave differently?
Ask.
But here’s the deal:
Listen to the answer.
Nothing will make a journeyman reconsider his commitment to modern, compassionate apprenticeship faster than answering the exact same question he answered yesterday.
Write it down.
Remember it.
Then use it.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Learn How to Find the Answer
You have something we didn’t have:
Information everywhere.
That’s an incredible advantage.
But access to information isn’t the same thing as knowledge.
Don’t immediately grab your phone every time you don’t know something.
Think first.
Look at the equipment.
Read the wiring diagram.
Take measurements.
Try to understand what the system is doing.
Then use the resources available to you.
Read the manual.
Look up the service literature.
Call technical support.
Ask another technician.
Technology should make you a better thinker, not eliminate the need to think.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Put the Damn Screws Back
Every one.
Not most of them.
Not the important-looking ones.
Not four out of six because:
“It’s not going anywhere.”
Put the screws back.
Put the panels on correctly.
Put the wire ties back.
Put the caps back on.
Pick up the wire clippings.
Clean up your trash.
Wipe your fingerprints off the air handler.
Don’t leave the homeowner’s attic looking like a raccoon serviced the equipment.
Craftsmanship isn’t just whether the system is running when you leave.
It’s what your work looks like after you’re gone.
There will be things you do correctly that nobody ever notices.
Do them anyway.
That’s the trade.
I Wish He Had Told Me the Homeowner Is Part of the Job
You can be an incredible mechanic and still be a terrible service technician.
The homeowner doesn’t know whether your superheat calculation was perfect.
They probably don’t know how impressive your electrical diagnosis was.
They know:
Did you show up?
Did you listen?
Did you respect their home?
Did you explain what you found?
Did you make them feel stupid for asking a question?
Did you clean up?
Did you tell them the truth?
Technical ability matters enormously.
But you’re working on equipment inside somebody’s home.
The human being comes with the air conditioner.
Learn how to take care of both.
I Wish He Had Told Me Not to Talk Down to People
Homeowners.
Apprentices.
Other trades.
Parts-counter guys.
Other HVAC technicians.
You’re going to see bad work.
You’re going to open panels and wonder:
Who did this?
You’re going to find incorrect diagnoses.
Missing screws.
Bad wiring.
Improper installations.
Explain what you found.
Correct it.
Move on.
You don’t need to make yourself look smarter by making somebody else look stupid.
Because someday another technician is going to find one of your mistakes.
You are not exempt.
I Wish He Had Warned Me About “The Last Guy”
HVAC technicians love blaming The Last Guy.
Loose wire?
Last guy.
Wrong refrigerant charge?
Last guy.
Missing screw?
Last guy.
Drain pitched uphill?
Definitely the last guy.
Terrible ductwork?
We may not know his name, but rest assured:
The Last Guy did it.
Then one day you have a horrifying realization.
You worked on this system six months ago.
You open the panel.
Look at the questionable repair.
Think for a second.
Oh.
You’re The Last Guy.
Act accordingly.
I Wish He Had Told Me Your Tools Don’t Make You Good
Buy good tools.
Take care of them.
Learn how to use them.
But don’t confuse owning diagnostic equipment with being a diagnostician.
Your meter doesn’t diagnose equipment.
Your gauges don’t diagnose equipment.
Your probes don’t diagnose equipment.
Your phone doesn’t diagnose equipment.
They give you information.
You diagnose equipment.
You need to understand what you’re measuring, why you’re measuring it and what the result actually tells you.
The fanciest meter in the world is still just an expensive object in the hands of someone who doesn’t understand what the number means.
I Wish He Had Told Me It’s Okay Not to Know
When you’re an apprentice, you don’t even know how much you don’t know.
Then you become a journeyman.
Now you know enough to understand how much there is to know—but you’d rather nobody discover there’s something you don’t.
Then eventually, if you stay curious long enough, you become the senior technician.
And you’re the guy everyone calls when they don’t know.
Ironically, you’re now the person most comfortable saying:
“I don’t know.”
Because you’ve learned those words aren’t the end of a diagnosis.
They’re the beginning.
“I don’t know. Let’s figure it out.”
Learn to say that early.
It’ll save you a lot of expensive mistakes.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Take Care of My Body
Wear the knee pads.
Use the gloves.
Wear hearing protection when you need it.
Drink water.
Get somebody to help you with the heavy stuff.
There is no trophy waiting for you at retirement for having the worst knees in the company.
Nobody is going to gather around and say:
“That man was incredible. Never once asked anybody to help him carry a compressor.”
They’re going to wonder why you’re 54 and walking sideways.
You’re going to need your body for a long time.
Take care of it.
Being tough and being stupid are not the same thing.
I Wish He Had Told Me Never to Tell a Customer How Long the Job Will Take
Never.
Do not do this.
You walk into the house.
The homeowner asks:
“How long do you think this will take?”
You’re young.
Optimistic.
You’ve done something similar before.
You look at the job.
“Probably about two hours.”
Congratulations.
You have just guaranteed that this job will take six hours.
The moment those words leave your mouth, the HVAC gods begin making arrangements.
The first screw strips.
The fitting won’t come apart.
The replacement motor has a different wiring configuration.
The drain breaks when you touch it.
The part you were given is somehow wrong despite every number appearing to match.
And something that has remained completely undisturbed since 1997 chooses today to fall apart.
At exactly two hours and one minute, the homeowner appears.
“I thought you said two hours?”
You did.
You were young then.
You’ve changed.
Explain what the work involves.
Tell them you’ll keep them updated.
But never confidently announce how long an HVAC job will take.
The equipment heard you.
And it took that personally.
I Wish He Had Told Me Never to Tell Anyone What Time I’ll Be Home
This may be even more important.
It’s 9:00 in the morning.
Your girlfriend asks:
“What time do you think you’ll be home?”
You look at the schedule.
Three calls.
Nothing crazy.
You’re feeling optimistic.
And because you have learned absolutely nothing from this trade, you say:
“Probably around 2:30.”
You fool.
You absolute fool.
You have just destroyed your entire afternoon.
At 1:45, you’re feeling great.
Last call.
No cool.
Probably simple.
At 2:17, you’re standing at the bottom of an attic ladder.
The homeowner points upward.
“It’s all the way in the back.”
Of course it is.
At 3:06, you’ve discovered this isn’t simple.
At 4:12, you’re still troubleshooting.
At 5:00, you’re in an attic that feels like the inside of an oven wondering whether anyone at home remembers what you look like.
Your phone has 4% battery.
You’ve eaten half a granola bar.
There’s fiberglass in places fiberglass should never be.
And the homeowner asks:
“Do you think you’ll be much longer?”
You stare into the distance.
You’ve learned.
“I’ll keep you updated.”
That’s the correct answer.
Your journeyman knew this.
That’s why when you asked him at lunch:
“Think we’ll get out early today?”
He didn’t answer.
He just looked at you.
You thought he was miserable.
Twenty years later, you understand.
He knew better than to tempt fate.
I Wish He Had Told Me That Ten Minutes Now Saves Two Hours Later
This one takes a while to understand.
The job is basically finished.
The system is running.
Your tools are packed.
You’re ready to go.
The truck is sitting right there.
It’s Friday afternoon.
And your journeyman is still standing in front of the equipment.
He checks the drain.
Looks at the wiring.
Checks his connections.
Walks outside.
Looks at the condenser.
Comes back inside.
You’re thinking:
What are we still doing here?
It works.
Let’s go.
Then he says:
“Let it run another ten minutes.”
Ten minutes?
We’ve been here all day.
You have places to be.
You have absolutely no idea what those places are yet because you’re 19, but you’re certain they’re extremely important.
So you stand there.
System runs.
Five minutes.
Seven minutes.
Ten minutes.
Nothing happens.
Everything works.
You leave.
And those ten minutes seem completely pointless.
Until the first time you don’t wait.
System starts.
Looks good.
Good enough.
Tools in the truck.
Tell the homeowner everything is fixed.
Drive 45 minutes away.
Phone rings.
“Hey…it’s not working again.”
Fantastic.
Turn around.
Drive 45 minutes back.
Unload the tools.
Walk back inside.
Take the panel back off.
And discover something you would have caught if you’d stayed ten more minutes.
The drain backed up.
A connection came loose.
The system tripped after running under load.
The problem only showed itself after the equipment operated for fifteen minutes.
And while you’re standing there doing the same job for the second time, you finally hear your old journeyman’s voice:
“Ten minutes now saves two hours later.”
Oh.
That’s why the miserable old man wouldn’t leave.
The apprentice thinks speed means being good.
It doesn’t.
Anybody can leave quickly.
A professional knows when the job is actually finished.
Run it.
Test it.
Look at your work.
Check your connections.
Make sure the drain drains.
Make sure the thermostat satisfies.
Make sure the equipment shuts down properly.
Take one last look before you close the truck.
Ten minutes feels expensive when you’re standing there waiting.
It’s considerably cheaper than driving across the county to fix something you could have caught before you left.
Ten minutes now saves two hours later.
Someday you’ll become the journeyman.
You’ll finish a job.
The apprentice will already be standing by the truck.
You’ll say:
“We’re going to let it run another ten minutes.”
He’ll look at you like you’ve lost your mind.
You’ll smile.
Because you remember.
You used to think the old guy was wasting time too.
I Wish He Had Told Me Some Days Are Going to Be Terrible
It’s 5:00 on a Friday.
You told your girlfriend you’d be home at 2:30.
See?
Already broke the rule.
You’re standing at the bottom of an attic ladder.
It’s August.
The attic is approximately the temperature at which aluminum becomes a liquid.
You haven’t eaten since breakfast.
There’s insulation down your shirt.
The homeowner says:
“It’s right up there.”
Of course it is.
You climb.
And for approximately three minutes, you reconsider every decision that brought you to this moment.
That’s part of it.
Some days this trade is incredible.
You solve a difficult problem.
You help somebody.
You learn something.
You leave feeling like you can fix anything.
Other days you’ll spend four hours chasing a problem and discover the answer six minutes before you were ready to surrender your tools and pursue a career in accounting.
Those days count too.
I Wish He Had Told Me to Take Pride in the Boring Stuff
Everybody wants the weird diagnostic call.
Everybody wants to be the guy who figures out what nobody else could.
But most craftsmanship isn’t exciting.
It’s tightening the connection correctly.
It’s making the drain look good.
It’s securing the wire.
It’s putting the panel back properly.
It’s checking your work.
It’s cleaning up.
It’s staying those extra ten minutes.
It’s doing something correctly even though the homeowner will never know whether you did or didn’t.
That’s where your reputation actually gets built.
Especially when nobody is watching.
And Then One Day, You Realize Your Journeyman Has No Idea What He’s Doing
This is a major career milestone.
Nobody tells you when it’s coming.
For years, your journeyman is basically a wizard.
He knows which tool.
Which wire.
Which measurement.
Which sound matters.
He walks up to equipment and seems to know exactly where to start.
You’ve spent years trying to catch up to him.
Then one day…
You’re standing beside him on a service call.
The system is doing something weird.
He checks voltage.
Walks outside.
Comes back inside.
Checks something else.
Looks at the wiring diagram.
Walks outside again.
Comes back.
Checks the same thing he checked fifteen minutes ago.
And suddenly a thought enters your mind:
Wait a minute.
You watch him for another minute.
Oh my gosh.
He has no idea what he’s doing.
This is shocking.
This man taught you HVAC.
This is The Guy.
He’s supposed to know.
But now you can see it.
He’s troubleshooting.
He’s forming theories.
He’s eliminating possibilities.
He’s confused.
He may even be…
Wrong.
This is deeply unsettling.
Then Something Even Stranger Happens
You have an idea.
Not one of those apprentice ideas where you suggest checking the capacitor after you’ve already watched him check the capacitor.
A real idea.
Something doesn’t make sense.
So you say:
“What about this?”
He stops.
Looks at you.
Looks at the equipment.
Checks it.
Long pause.
“Huh.”
Then:
“Good catch.”
That’s it.
That’s the moment.
Not when you bought your first good meter.
Not when you got your own truck.
Not when you ran your first solo service call.
Not when somebody finally stopped calling you “the helper.”
This is when you know you’ve made it.
Because for the first time, your journeyman doesn’t look like somebody who knows everything.
He looks like another technician.
A very experienced technician.
A technician you respect.
A technician who probably still knows considerably more than you.
But still:
Just another guy standing in front of an air conditioner trying to figure out why it’s doing something ridiculous.
And Somehow You Respect Him More
Because now you understand what he was actually doing all those years.
He wasn’t always knowing.
He was knowing how to figure it out.
That’s different.
He knew where to start.
He knew what questions to ask.
He knew how to eliminate possibilities.
He knew when a measurement didn’t make sense.
He knew when to start over.
And sometimes?
He had absolutely no idea.
You just weren’t experienced enough to recognize it yet.
That’s expertise.
Not knowing everything.
Knowing what to do when you don’t know.
Then Somehow You Become Him
One morning somebody says:
“Hey, the new kid is riding with you today.”
You look around.
Surely they’re talking to somebody else.
They’re not.
Somehow…
You’re the journeyman.
When did that happen?
Yesterday you were the apprentice.
At least it feels like yesterday.
Now there’s a kid sitting in your passenger seat.
He doesn’t know anything.
He asks too many questions.
He grabs the wrong tools.
He moves too slowly.
He forgets things.
He makes mistakes.
He wants to leave the second the system starts running.
And occasionally he does something so incomprehensible that you just stare at him.
Then one afternoon you’re on a ladder.
Both hands occupied.
You look down.
“Hand me that.”
The apprentice looks around.
“Which one?”
You point.
“That.”
He grabs the screwdriver.
You wanted the channel locks.
And suddenly…
You understand your journeyman completely.
The Moment of Truth
You stare at the screwdriver.
You look at the apprentice.
You look at the pipe wrench.
For one brief moment, generations of tradesmen are standing behind you.
You can almost hear them.
The cycle must continue.
Your hand moves toward the pipe wrench.
The apprentice looks nervous.
You pick it up.
Pause.
Then set it back down.
“Blue handles. Those are channel locks.”
He looks down.
“Oh.”
He grabs them.
Hands them to you.
“These?”
Yep.
“Thanks.”
And that’s it.
No dramatic speech.
No training seminar.
No QR code.
No YouTube video.
And most importantly:
No pipe wrench flying through the air.
Just a journeyman teaching an apprentice something he didn’t know.
Because he wasn’t supposed to know yet.
That’s why he’s there.
Then One Day, He’ll Realize You Don’t Know Either
And that’s the best part.
Years from now, that apprentice will be standing behind you on a difficult call.
You’ll check something.
Walk outside.
Come back.
Read the wiring diagram.
Check something again.
He’ll be watching.
You won’t notice.
Then suddenly he’ll have the same realization you had years ago:
Wait a minute.
This guy has no idea what he’s doing.
Congratulations, kid.
You’ve made it.
Maybe he’ll notice something you missed.
Maybe he’ll point it out.
Maybe you’ll look at him and say:
“Good catch.”
And without either of you realizing it, the whole thing starts again.
Teach the Next One Better Than You Were Taught
The old guys taught us plenty.
Some of them were extraordinary tradesmen.
They knew things you couldn’t find in any textbook.
They could diagnose equipment by sound.
Build things by hand.
Solve problems with whatever was on the truck.
And many of them cared about their apprentices considerably more than they knew how to express.
We learned work ethic from them.
Craftsmanship.
Toughness.
Resourcefulness.
Pride in the trade.
And eventually, we learned why the old guy wouldn’t tell the homeowner when we’d be finished.
Why he wouldn’t promise his wife what time he’d be home.
Why he made us put every screw back.
Why he made us run the system another ten minutes when we were already standing by the truck.
Why he made us redo something that was technically “good enough.”
Why he occasionally stared at a machine for twenty minutes without saying anything.
Turns out…
The miserable old guy knew some things.
Keep those things.
Keep the standards.
Keep the craftsmanship.
Keep the work ethic.
Keep the pride.
Keep the expectation that the next generation learns to do this work correctly.
Make apprentices think.
Make them work.
Don’t accept laziness.
Don’t accept dishonesty.
Don’t accept sloppy workmanship.
But explain why.
Let them ask questions.
Let them make mistakes.
Correct them.
Teach them.
And remember:
They’re not supposed to know yet.
That’s why they’re standing next to you.
Someday that apprentice will become the journeyman.
Someday somebody will hand him the new kid.
And hopefully, when that kid grabs the wrong tool, he’ll remember what you taught him.
Not because a pipe wrench flew past his head.
But because somebody finally took the time to explain it.
Teach the next one better than you were taught.
That’s how a trade gets passed down.