Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Friday, February 5, 2021

Hot Culture

I performed a bit of electrical work yesterday.  Not an extensive project.  I replaced (“changed-out” in electrician-speak) a three-way switch at my home’s garage entry door.

Okay, not a huge deal.  Especially, considering I have been an electrician for 44 years now.

What is a big deal, however, is how I performed in a “hot work” culture for much of my career.  I, and most of my coworkers, rarely de-energized circuits when working on receptacles or switches.  We “worked them hot.”  

Yesterday, the older and improved version of me de-energized the circuit.

In the era when I constructed my home, most switches were not provided with a grounding terminal and the switches were, therefore, ungrounded.  Such was the case with my original switch.

Today, I would like to announce I not only de-energized the circuit—I also grounded the switch.

It has only taken 44 years to get this far.  Someday, I might be pretty good at this electrical stuff.



Mitchell Hegman

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