Dumbed to Death. Life in HVACR contracting

Episode 1 - The Digital Age meets the sophisticated business savvy HVACR contracting industry. (or, an industry to slowly slit your wrists within whilst destined to die a very horrible, terrible, and painfully lonely death, but oh, fail not to mention, it's the people we meet along our individual journeys that provided comfort when there was darkness. I'm personally killing myself laughing while I write this drivel.)

First, In April 2015 I was struggling to gain self employed project work with building owners to create and produce learning materials in a digital format. Basically a first in Canada. I had pioneered a few lucrative productions for the Region of Waterloo, but nothing in that marketplace offered me, my company, Archer Edutainment, further, steady revenue generating opportunities in the production of Mp4 videos/dvd's, HDV, and Mp3 audio files specific for the M/E industries.

I was going to be 1st (first) into the industry. I knew the very first one into any market gets the bloodiest, but I was prepping to be on "the bleeding edge of the sword", one more time.

(Tell them about the Golf profile Dave... tell them about the singing frog... Dave... tell them how you were going to make over $175,000,000.00 in the first year of sales, world wide... tell them what happened... tell them! Maybe tell them about it from a 2024 revival from GolfPsych.com)

The need for these materials to be created and added to government building's facilities libraries I could see was on a trend upwards. For "Green" purposes, for LEED purposes, and for financial reasons... the more complex building environmental systems became, people could see the value in developing resourceful diagnostic tools with respect to their newly designed, built, and installed "as is" mechanical and electrical equipment and systems onto a digital format.

Gone (almost), is the over-all fear if employees who have been there since the doors opened, and building Mechanical and Electrical contractors whom designed, installed, and have been servicing these systems since the beginning - decide to up and quit, leave with all the knowledge of how each system functions, where the controls are, previous repairs, cyclical - seasonal idiosyncrasies, contractors requiring higher prices while the building managers vie for the cheapest, forgive me, I mean, the lowest price possible.

You now have available, on all techs mobile devices, Apps that have all the working - operational - acquiring of parts information on any HVACR system across all of your investments - 24/7.

Give me a practical scenario. Ok. A technician, is up in a crawl space above an office, or, better yet, in a CRAC room (Critical Room Air Conditioning system), where critical to the room is its air pressure/air flow/humidity/temperature/O2/CO2/CO level monitoring from -85c to +75c. And its not running. It's room temperature and they just lost all of their research work valued at $1/2 million US dollars. So, wherever they, the building owner and contractor and on-site technician can access the model number, even possibly the serial number of the unit through a QR code, then watch and listen to, or confirm and compare their readings to, perhaps, a solid state control board and its sensor, and the appropriate meter readings to help with a perfect diagnosis and return the investment to ACTIVE at the earliest possible time frame for the least amount of financial investment. They could complete their diagnosis, possibly make the repair right there, on the spot, discuss maintenance issues, all of it.

But.... this is Canada. One of the most RISK adverse countries EVER. And I'm an entrepreneur. I see a good opportunity and I am all over it. I'd call companies to say I could do this for their builds, train their people to do the videos... biggest complaint... whose paying?

Manufacturer's should have been all over this. No WAY! We aren't giving out our secrets. Wait... use the phrase... unsafe for the public to have this information. Say... it leaves us in a very vunerable position should a gas valve blow up a home, or one of our techs damages a system by incorrectly pushing the wrong re-set? Geeezus.

It wasn't hitting, no matter how hard I tried. It was now the Spring of 2015... I'm 59 years old.

Faced with the reality of possible bankruptcy, I accepted an offer to join Centennial College's HRAC faculty and begin teaching in the upcoming Spring 2015 learning term at a financial level they determined was Step 14... $82,000.00 per year full time, or $120/hr contract. Approx 20 hours a week at 2,000.00 per week.

By the New year of 2016, I was teaching 12 hours per week at Centennial College, and 12 hours per week at Seneca in their BAS program. That was paying $2,000.00 per week as well.

Now, 2016, I was making $4,000.00 per week. That's $12,000.00 per month. That's $144K per year.

But then the Fall of 2016 would be my win and lose decision....

What happened in the Fall of 2016 motivating me to write this minnie series called: Dumbed to Death?

HINT: The Perils of accepting FULL TIME in an OPSEU environment

Join us next episode of... Dumbed To Death

dave