Going above and beyond expectations!
When I first started out in my Fire Sprinkler apprenticeship I still carried a bit of my lazy mentality which I had has a teenager.
Like most teens, I often wanted to take the most easy route to do stuff and sit around on the couch with the majority of my time.
A wall of procrastination and resistance to hard work had formed in my mind and it was not easy to change this.
After many years of working with different Fire Sprinkler foreman and being inspired by there skills, my mentality began to shift.
I wanted to excel at my trade and become as good as they were so I could make as much financially as them, as well as be proud of my work I installed.
I saw how awesome their work looked after, and how fast they could put it in which gave my HUGE motivation to work harder than ever before.
Eventually I worked with so many different companies with different style of foreman that I never backed down to any kind of difficult task anymore. Instead I would actually invite them to see if I could do it or not as a challenge.
By the time I got to my 4th year in my apprenticeship, I began to always go above and beyond. I never took short cuts or tried to do things half fast just to make the money and not care about the work.
I experienced other sprinkler fitters being lazy and not taking pride in what they do but I did not join in with this mentality.
I continued to always PUSH my limits in both being super reliable, good at the most difficult tasks and never complaining about anything.
This then led to many of the site managers being very happy with my work and telling my boss about it later. My boss then gave me openings to become a foreman and run my own crew.
As a foreman I continued to do my best at all times and never took the position for granted to sit around and make more money than all the installers. The people I worked with really respected me for this reason and saw I was there on the tools just like they were.
Eventually I moved up to a really good position with the second largest Fire Sprinkler company in Vancouver, BC and was making a good salary.
I was super happy with this position and company, and everyone in the staff and crew respected me for my hard work and dedication.
It was actually really tough for me to leave this because I began to love where I was after all the years and hardships it took to get there.
The point then is no matter what job you have and where you are in the world you can surely accel and move forwards by always going above and beyond.
Picture – some of my work I installed with this company which was super difficult to put in because of no scaffolding to reach such a high ceiling but I still got er done!