Tales from the trenches, stories forged in the fires of experience.
This episode sponsored by Technical Training Associates.
Learn more about Jim Johnson and his training outreach at escogroup.org and on the HVACR
Learning Network.
Hello everyone.
Thank you for joining Did You Know?
The ESCO HVAC Podcast.
So we're spending some time at the National HVACR Education Conference with about 1200
educators learning to be better deliverers of content, better understanders of students
and spending a lot of time with our manufacturers and trade associations as an industry moving
forward to progress our industry.
We're spending some time this morning with Jim Johnson.
How are you, sir?
Doing great.
And as I sure are you also?
Yeah.
Well, having a good time.
Yeah.
It's incredible.
When you get the opportunity to come to this every year, you keep understanding how it
just gets better and better and better and better.
I remember attending the first ever conference for the HVAC excellence.
So you've seen it all.
At Circus Circus many years, what seems like many years ago.
And it was a wonderful thing to do then because there was such a limited amount of opportunity
back in those days for instructors to be able to get together and learn.
And what it has turned into now is just absolutely just off the charts, phenomenal.
If anybody's in the HVAC industry and they don't get the opportunity to show up here,
they need to do it.
It's just that simple.
It's grown quite a bit in especially in the last few years and we look forward to it.
So let's spend a little bit of time talking to students.
We don't do this very often and we I haven't haven't really been focusing on that.
I should.
Well, here's the thing about obviously what we do.
The bottom line is we deliver this information to students, to the people that are trying
to learn all this information.
The message that I have for students is I hope you're strapped in real tight.
It's going to be a journey, isn't it?
Because when you compare what went on in education and how we were learning things in an increments
and increments and increments in gentle terms, you know what I mean?
And steps.
These days, everything is moving so much faster.
Isn't it crazy?
It's like the technology that we used to do and let's just say we did it in 10 increments
and they were sequential and they were, you know, they were, you know, short, but not
too brief.
And you got through this.
Well, that same 10 steps that we used to do and over a period of time is like done from
step one to step two.
That's how much it's condensed.
Everything is accelerated so much.
So students, like I said, the other thing, I hope you're strapped in real tight because
not only is it accelerating the learning that you're doing here, the opportunities that
you have in this day and age compared to what it was like when some of us are teaching graduated
from trade school is completely different.
Yeah, the avenues and the opportunities in our industry has just exploded and the ability
to make a very, very high income has really developed.
Well, that's true.
I mean, you can look back into many years back when you had people that were, they were
considered refrigeration mechanics.
Sometimes back in those days, refrigeration technicians came along a little bit later.
If you compared the wages that they earned with the person who was working, let's say
in a manufacturing plant, like a general electric company or something like that where, and
by the way, there's a big difference between our people, let's call them our people.
Our community.
Our community, our people that work out in the field and go from place to place and as
opposed to the person who works in a shop.
And I'm talking about in a factory.
You know, I did that for a very short period of time.
And I got to tell you, there's a big difference.
When I remember one day I came home and I told my wife, you know, every time that door
slammed shut behind me in that factory, I feel like I'm in prison.
So I got to get out and do something.
I got to let my wings out.
But the point is the reason that that paid so much back in those days, one of those reasons
was what I just explained to you.
You're confined in a space and it's drudgery and it's repetitiveness, all these things.
Those guys made a lot more money than the guys out in the field that were out there
doing, you know, different kinds of work and a variety of work today.
That's all gone.
Isn't that different?
Today?
It's all gone.
Our people now that graduate get to not only enjoy themselves and get a lot of satisfaction
out of the work they do, and it's not drudgery and they get to do all that, but they also
make as much or more than you see people making in manufacturing jobs.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I enjoy seeing a lot of the a lot of the short videos that are put out of jobs that are found
in the trades shortly out of school.
And there's one of the hashtags that I see that I really enjoy.
And it says HVAC paid for it.
And it's young men and women that are standing next to their their new toys, their new vehicle,
their new motorcycle, their new boat, right, their new computer, their new gaming system.
And they're proud of what they do and they're proud of the rewards that come from working
hard.
Absolutely.
I mean, when I first got started teaching, of course, I worked as a technician, like
almost all of us did for quite a long time before I got started teaching.
And I got to admit, when I first got into it, I was thinking I'm a little bit frightened
about this.
This was new to me and is and instructor development programs like we have today didn't really
exist.
You are kind of on your own.
Here's your keys.
Have fun.
Yeah.
But and but the thing was after doing it for a few years, it became much more rewarding
than being out in the field.
It really did.
And I can still remember instances where after I taught for six, seven, eight, nine, ten
years and maybe five years after that, I would walk up to somebody or they would walk up
to me.
I mean, and they say, do you remember me?
And of course, if they were a student of mine, see our programs that I worked in, you had
a one person with you for a long, at least a six month stretch.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you didn't know him well.
You remember the yeah.
And I had a one one incident comes to mind.
A fellow's name was Marty.
I still to this day remember his first name.
He come walking up to me and he had his it turned out a woman was with him and was his
wife.
And he walked up to me and he said to his wife, he said, you like that house we're in?
You like that van we can drive around in?
Here's the guy.
He's the guy that got this for us.
And I thought, oh, my goodness, I never heard it that way before.
So there's this this wonderful feedback that you get constantly from people while you're
doing class.
But then the rewards are when they come up to you after they graduated and telling you
how much they love the industry that they're in.
It is.
And it's such a good industry.
And there are times where it's hard work.
It's part of the jobs.
And so I always encourage people to when they enter into the trades to understand that there
is an investment into this work.
It's not going to be the easiest.
It's not going to be the cleanest.
But as we progress, we start getting into more advanced systems, more modern systems.
We get to work on a lot of the technology that is incredibly interesting and exciting.
And we all invest a little bit.
So sometimes it can be a little difficult getting getting adapted into the trades and
acclimated into the work.
But once you do, it is so rewarding and gratifying.
It certainly is.
And you know, going back to that original thing that you were mentioning there, like
I said earlier, when people work in a factory, they clock in at seven thirty and they clock
out at four.
And you know, and our industries have never our industry, I should say, has never been
that way.
It's always been.
Well, I'll give you one example.
When I was an independent contractor years ago and you know, my wife would, you know,
we all when a small independent contractors all did it the same way.
We were all just a one person operation and our and our home office was there.
And you know, often if you had if you were lucky enough to have a spouse that was willing
to participate, they picked up the phone and did other things.
So I grew up in.
Yeah.
And so at any given day, my wife would say I'd be heading out on calls and she'd say,
what time do you think you'll be home?
And I used to say, honey, I'll be home at dark 30.
Yeah, that's about right.
I had no idea.
No idea when I was.
But again, it was, you know, the thing about it was that was the juice for me.
It was.
It was in a lot of ways.
I mean, I might start out, you know, let's go.
OK, I got five calls.
I'm going to run today.
I'm going to have a nice straightforward day.
And certainly within, you know, an hour or even less, something would happen.
I'd give the phone call.
Nope, that's all out the window.
There you go.
That whole thing about being flexible.
And I think people in our industry, really, I think it's innate.
I think it's within their I don't know what you want to call it.
Their conscious subconscious, their servant heart.
Yeah, that they are they are destined to not be in a 730 to four o'clock schedule that
they know.
And they and they honestly thrive on it.
Yeah, they really I think our people really do thrive on the unexpected.
Yeah, that's what that's what makes it exciting.
It is very exciting.
It's not just the opportunities, but the way it works for us and the unexpressed that you've
got there.
You're doing something.
You've done it this way four times.
And all of a sudden, you've got to figure out a different way to do it.
That's part of the juice, too.
It is juice.
It is the juice.
Yeah, it really is.
Look at us.
What do you think?
We're getting ready to work on a piece of equipment.
You know, something that is very important to understand, I know that many of our our
younger listeners are listening to us older guys going, oh, yeah, I see that.
But the most important thing for me is I want to make a difference in the world.
And you know, the beauty about that is that's exactly what you and I have done.
That's absolutely true.
It's like we you have no idea.
And it hits you sometimes.
Sometimes you're going along and you're just going about your day and you're busy and things
just seem like, oh, OK, OK, we're moving along.
And then all of a sudden, you have a service call that you have to get to.
And you find out that that wasn't just someone who was slightly uncomfortable because their
air condition was broke down.
It was someone whose health was in peril.
Absolutely.
And when you get done with that, it's like you kind of lean back afterwards and say,
what did I get myself into?
But then you realize it's it's more than just working on equipment.
We're actually, in some cases, making people's lives not just comfortable, but their ability
to.
Well, if you want to come right down to it, to live, to live.
Yeah, absolutely.
It is.
You know, we always talk about we're in the business of comfort cooling.
We're in the business of heating.
We really are in the business of environments and people being comfortable and and being
able to function.
I mean, we're talking about think about it.
If you didn't have the right climactic conditions indoor, as you might want to call it, and
you had a classroom full of students that had to be bundled up in their bed, big coats
in order to be able to what would that be like?
Yeah, exactly.
And by the same token, if you switch, say, from the northeast where that might happen,
if the if the system is broke down, let's let's move over to the Phoenix.
What if you're in Phoenix and it's July and the air conditioning in the classroom breaks
down in July when it's really miserable?
Well, let's go for one hundred and six degrees and a humidity of around maybe 50 percent.
How uncomfortable is that going to be?
So we're in the people business.
We are in the people business and the business of making difference in people's lives.
So as you're struggling through getting through the content, getting through the classes,
getting through the tests, just remember you're entering into a field that will change people's
lives.
And when you when you get out there and you're getting your first job, that's that's what
I want to talk to people about.
You get your first job.
And I want to say this, because you get your first job and you go out there and you're
fresh and you're new and you're excited and you're thinking, oh, this is great.
I want to caution you about something that even though our industry is one of the most
wonderful ones there are, you might run into somebody who doesn't belong in the industry.
This never did.
But somehow got themselves in there.
And you come in as a new person and you're kind of looking up to this person.
And you're thinking, oh, there's some influence there.
And then they say things like, oh, they don't pay me enough to do that.
Or that's not my job.
I hate that.
I just don't understand why those people stay in the industry, because now if they were
working someplace where it was a dead end thing or some I can understand that.
But I just want to caution people that are going out there.
Yes.
When you get your first job, you walk out there and this person is not a positive influence.
You got to figure out how to just get away from that.
Get away from that.
Not just get it, but tolerate it if you need to.
But make sure you never lose the idea of what we were just talking about.
What we have is we have the ability and the skill and the dedication to take care of people.
Not just equipment, but people.
Fantastic.
Jim Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today.
We're so grateful for your contributions to our industry.
I love meeting you.
Get to know you in person now, especially now that we start talking about the juice.
You're right.
Great to be here with you.
And we'll look forward to doing this again sometime.
I'm very anxious to get.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.