What's your job about? What does a day look like in your role?
Andrew Bryson (Owner)
We do a wide variety of work mostly focusing on industrial electrical work and automation. We specialise in the automation of plants and machinery, so that includes design, drawings, installation of the cabling, building the switchboards, as well as programming the plc's and human machine interfaces.
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
So far, I’ve done a bit of both industrial and housing work. I started off fitting a house and putting in power points, that kind of thing, but I’ve been working on a water treatment plant lately. Kinetic Electrical have a wide variety of jobs, I know there's a couple of guys that put the freezers in for the COVID vaccine, they do a range of different things which creates a lot of different learning experiences.
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
Well, the day in the life of me being an electrician, is currently we're doing a water treatment plant, which we're fitting inside 40-foot containers and then shipping them off to Hastings. We will then have to go down to Hastings to connect them up to the water and test it all, make sure it works, and give Hastings some nice clean water. And that's just one of the tasks that we're currently working on.
Jayden Wolfe (Apprentice)
Day-to-day work would be getting on site getting a scope of what we need to do for the project we are currently working on, and from there organising the correct gear and things like that. We need to do things like pre-wire which leads to a fit-off stage and testing, or sometimes it would be fault finding, testing, and repairing.
What's your background?
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
Well, I was doing part-time work for Kinetic Electrical in Year 11, just cleaning up the workshop, and the boss offered me a position. He said to me “If you can finish Year 12, you finish with physics and math, then I can offer you an apprenticeship”. I really enjoyed the work that I was doing there, I had done a few electrical tasks between cleaning up the workshop, just like putting small things together, and I quite enjoyed it, so when I was offered the apprenticeship, I was like, “heck yes, I’m gonna do that”, and I’m quite happy with it, that's for sure.
Jayden Wolfe (Apprentice)
My personal hobby is working on cars and this job fit. Since starting the electrical apprenticeship I’ve learnt a wide variety of new skills, things that have helped me day to day, and things that have helped me when working on cars, and that's just been fantastic.
Why did you choose the job you are in?
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
I chose electrical because it involves a physical aspect but also draws in science and the Maths. I really enjoyed physics and calculus at school, although they are hard, and it brings both of them together because you can't see what you're dealing with.
Jayden Wolfe (Apprentice)
This is a job that I knew I could travel on. In the future I’d like to qualify, hopefully that's happening in the next year or so, and then I’d like to travel, hopefully Australia and the UK as our tickets transfer quite easily over there, and then possibly even the islands to make some good money.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
My favourite part would probably be putting cables in for the first time. Putting new cables in is always satisfying because you can be pedantic about it, and tuck them all away nicely, and make it all neat and tidy. Whereas, if you've got to go into like a 30-year-old junction box and add a cable, it's all haywire and all over the place, and it's just like ahh.
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
So, one of the more interesting jobs we've done was when I got to go over to Australia for a job to connect big yellow jacks, similar to a jack that lifts up your car, except it lifts up entire levels of a building. It was amazing to learn on site, and it was also amazing to go to Australia for free, because everything was paid, expenses paid, all you had to pay for was a bit of food, and you're there!
What new skills have you learnt?
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
Some of the new skills that I’ve learned is how to use an angle grinder, I’ve never used an angle grinder before. I’ve learnt to do a whole heap of things with tools, just a whole heap of new sort of practical things. And it’s great as all the practical things I’ve learned I can apply to other jobs as well.
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
Well, I have learnt a lot of skills throughout my three years, I’ve learned, not only the basics of how to drive a manual vehicle, but also how what the day of life of an electrician would be like, how to problem solve like an electrician, and how to speak with people to help them the best that I can.
Why should someone do this job?
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
You should do an electrical apprenticeship because it's exciting! You're working with something that you can't see, so there's unknown factors and mysteries. It’s not all physically in front of you, you can't see what you're working with, at which point the switch might be off but there still might be current in that cable. So, it creates tension and excitement even in a workplace. Someone should do this job if they enjoy practical activities and maths and physics. If you learn by watching, you would very much like this job.
Jayden Wolfe (Apprentice)
I think an electrical apprenticeship's a great choice for anyone that loves being hands-on, they love getting stuck into it every day, and just getting a wide variety of work, getting to work all over Auckland, and travel. You get to work all over New Zealand and see a whole bunch of new things, and work with a whole bunch of really cool clients, and just really get great experience all around.
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
I would say an electrical apprenticeship is an amazing choice for someone that is seemingly good with their hands, or maybe even not, you can learn the skills quite easily and after three years you complete the book work, and then you’ve got an amazing skill under your belt. That trade will follow you for the rest of your life, and you know how to do this. Everyone needs an electrician as well, you go home and you think, oh I don't like that light switch, boom! You change it, done!
Advice for someone wanting to start out a career in trades (100 words)
Alice Rabbitts (Apprentice)
Advice for somebody who wants to start a career would probably be to know yourself know how you learn, know what you like doing. For me, I’ve always known that I like to be practical, but I’ve also known that I like maths and physics, and more complex things, so actually doing a trade was a perfect fit for me. This is a job that you can do, but you need to be determined to be able to do it.
Jayden Wolfe (Apprentice)
My advice for someone looking to start a career in the trades would be to just get stuck in. You know there's nothing locking you in or holding you into doing an apprenticeship, but if you get started then you might find something you like doing in the construction industry and just double down on that.
Ben Patterson (Apprentice)
Well, my advice for someone that's starting out would be to keep a very open mind as everyone has different ways of doing things. You might come across something like cable tray and think, “ah we can do it this way”, you might have two different electricians that have two completely different ways of doing it, in which both aren't wrong, you can then choose which one you like the most, which one you find the easiest to do.