Had a talk with an old timer that made me rethink how I run conduit

Was pulling pipe in a basement remodel in Portland last week and this 70 year old retired electrician walks by, watches me for a minute, then says 'you know you're fighting the pipe instead of letting it work for you'. I thought he was just some know-it-all at first but he showed me how to use the bender with more of a body rock instead of arm force. Cut my time on a 3/4 inch run by half after that. Anyone else had someone call out a bad habit you didn't even notice?

3 comments

3 Comments

garcia.laura2mo ago

Oh man, that hit home hard. I got called out by this old timer once for how I was pulling Romex through studs, and he was right, I was just jamming it through instead of feeding it in a smooth motion. It felt like such a small thing but it saved me so much frustration and time. Sometimes we just get stuck in our own way and don't realize there's a better move until someone shows us. Good on you for actually listening, a lot of folks would have just brushed him off.

black.pat2mo ago

Yeah, "good on you for actually listening" is about the rarest compliment in this trade.

kim9631mo ago

My buddy got chewed out once for stripping way too much sheathing off a cable and the foreman made him redo the whole run. He was pissed at first but a week later he admitted it made his connections way cleaner and he never went back to his old sloppy method. It really is something how the smallest tweaks from someone who's been at it longer can completely change how you work.