Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 338. Professional Development Tools & Resources in Refrigeration

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Episode 338. Professional Development Tools & Resources in Refrigeration · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast. Lemme host for Matthews, and we're doing another. Morning coffee with Trevor and Andrew. It's Saturday morning early for Andrew. 6:00 AM This guy's a, a champ, but it's always good to have a conversation, learn a little bit about what's going on in the industry.
• 0:01
  We're representing ourselves, but we're also representing the company that we work for. And that means something, ? You want to be out there every day doing your best. You, ? Serving your customer, serving yourself, trying to get to that next level. I had a conversation.
• 0:02
  And what, what's that? Like a professional development tool? Why is time management important? Well, time management is super important because this really helps you you know, develop your weak for an example. And I know things can get thrown in like, this week, your, your week was crazy, you told me. ?
• 0:03
  But that's really what helped me, I guess, from my day to day, my hours, what I do. If I don't have that, I, it's kind of like a free for all there. You don't have any, I guess, management of your own time, so then you're kind of reacting instead of being proactive about it. So once you get, I, I mean, when I first started out, I wasn't, I didn't, I don't think I was.
• 0:04
  And I'm doing a course right now for a, a contractor course where it's, we're talking, Hey, what's up my man? Where we're talking about they are taking a lot of the calls from the technicians, the apprentices, but they're like, Trevor, like today I took 25 calls. I couldn't really do the jobs that I needed to.
• 0:05
  With a success plate. So on that plate, a checklist, have 'em, have them have a checklist of from point A to point Z of what you should already have when you call. Probably a lot of those calls are just kind of like getting the ball rolling for 'em as far as, Hey, what's super eight? Oh, I don't know.
• 0:06
  Andrew: And then once you get stuck, call me. Yeah. So it's really helping your team out with these checklists.
• 0:07
  And you click, they click on it and it says, okay, you put your gauge here and here, and your temperature probes here. ? So at the outlet to evaporate, you're gonna see an access fitting and have a little picture there. ? So if the standard cases is you and then the temperature probe, and this is a visual look, I do this all the time in my training courses when we're, we're there showing them, okay, we're going through a checklist.
• 0:08
  Yeah. Down. And then what I would do is, so next time I would call 'em, I already have that answer for 'em. So then it would, we would just knock the, the questions out, right. So it just made made my life a lot easier. And I think it, the frustration you could tell, like over the phone, because they're busy.
• 0:09
  And some people are like, well, no, they charge apprentices out at a journeyman rate, but. That's, that's not profitable. Like when, if they're doing a job that's a two hour job and it takes 'em six or seven hours, it's not profitable for the business. There's other jobs that need to get done, and that's where backlogs have, that's why they rely on you as a senior technician to solve the harder problems and get the jobs done and the right amount of time.
• 0:10
  Some people are like, oh, this is not my, this is not my job. I don't need to do that. That'll make your job easier. You know, like, Hey, send out a checklist. Oh hey, this week, this is a new tip. Here's a checklist for the winter, winter maintenance or the summer maintenance. This is what I do. You know? Or take a quick video and send it to all of them.
• 0:11
  I go it might be some sort of little training thing. The latest one was how to properly clean a h air handler evaporator where you have to split the coils up because they're double layered. So something, just something simple like that. Some of these guys, they're so new to the trade, they don't even know that you could split the coil a little bit to get even, you know, clean the condenser.
• 0:12
  Trevor: Yeah. I think that that's a really good point because like yesterday when I was calling all these technicians in the CO2 program and I was chatting with one, like, I asked him like, do you work outta your truck or do you go into the shop?
• 0:13
  ? Oh man, I was running into this, into this issue at this store. We both work at the store, but we never see each other, ? At that store. Like, you'll get a call there, you'll go do it, I'll get a call there, we'll go do it. And maybe the two of us own that store and we've gotta try to work together to make that store the best maintain as possible.
• 0:14
  Andrew: Yeah, unfortunately that happens all the time. And that's what I mean with the miscommunication that techs have. Especially when you go there, my mind's always, always thinking who else has been on this? What else has been said? You like some of the, the, depending on the your software that you use for your billing purposes or whatever, you could actually go back and read the history and you know that, you know, Bob was here two days ago and it sounds like it's probably, or maybe the same thing.
• 0:15
  You don't want to do that. Yeah. You gotta see where they're at and see what's going on because you weren't there. So a lot of mishaps, I guess and communication pieces towards the manager or the owner is missed because, because we're running from call to call to call. So it's important to get that team, like I said, together, talk about it, whoever was at that job if it was, and make sure you just, 'cause you don't want them to not, or you don't want them to lose trust in that other tech that you got going on.
• 0:16
  Andrew: And I guarantee that that individual is doing the best that, that he probably can to fix it, to say it. And sometimes we all need coaches. I mean, I, I, there's, I do personal development. I do, I do. Profess, yeah. Professional, individual development. I mean, I'm always trying to learn, always trying to be better at what, who I am.
• 0:17
  ? Because we can get, we can get a lot of stuff built up, kind of like we talked about that call last time. When you get there and it's racked down, like that's, it's a stressful situation and it takes years of experience to be like, okay, it is stressful. My goal here is to find, figure out the problem.
• 0:18
  ? Like, I had this conversation with this customer and how do you think it went? Like, role playing. I do that in lots of different programs as well. You know, get, get, have them. I asked like, what was that conversation like with the, that retailer and how, how did that, how did it feel? ?
• 0:19
  I couldn't write an email 15 years ago as a technician. I couldn't write an email. It took me two or three hours. It still takes me a long time to write an email now, but it used to take me forever as a technician 'cause I just didn't do it. Now I've been practicing 15 years. I'm getting better, but it still takes me a while.
• 0:20
  You just haven't built that confidence yet. And that shows when you talk to the customer too. So I've been, I've I've had that conversation with the new, new technicians in the field where the store manager would actually call me and it says, does this guy know what he's doing? And I'm like, and I go, yeah, I was coaching him over the phone.
• 0:21
  So just being courteous like that goes a long way too. I most likely, you're probably not gonna get commented like, oh thanks for parking in, you know, in the back far out. But there is times where, you know, the manager's coming back from lunch per se and notice that you're way out in the back versus right up front because there is a spot, huge shirt, making sure the at least when you first start out, you have a fresh shirt, fresh pants, no holes, nothing raggedy.
• 0:22
  We're, we're dealing with the people and being clear and, and talking about how you were safe up there and, and bringing and safety issues up to the attention of that customer. But getting back to it, that language that you're using to them is so, so important. You want to be professional about it and have that, like you said, professional image because it's not only you're representing the, the company you work for, it's your rep.
• 0:23
  Andrew: Yeah. And, and to piggyback, I guess, or keep going with that conversation that I just popped in my mind is, oh, when you're on the job site and you're working, make sure you clean up everything. Even if you leave water or you accidentally left water or whatever happened, there's water on the ground.
• 0:24
  And I'm just like, you want to go above and beyond to show that, to bring that value to yourself, your customer, and your company. And the more you do that, honestly, people, people notice this stuff. People notice everything that we do. You may not think it. And then I see pictures of, rack rooms. And I remember pushing doors trying to get into rack rooms before, like the customer didn't, they just used it as a shell stocking, stocking room.
• 0:25
  Andrew: Yeah. Holding yourself to a hierarchy, I guess standard is, is huge. And to be honest I don't know. I. I've seen this time, time two where we're on online where people will walk up to the rooftop or walk into the machine room and it's dirty. Who are they gonna blame right away? The texts or whoever company that's already there like this shouldn't happen.
• 0:26
  Then you get the leak detector out in bubbles. She's like, what? That's kind of weird. So, I don't know. That's something that I'm coaching my team on, you know, is, is if I, if there's a leak or oil, any oil, clean it because like I said, that's a visual thing. And if I see it, I'm like, oh man, there's a leak here.
• 0:27
  Even if it's an old 30-year-old store, that is, they don't feel like they care about it, you know, you don't feel like they care about it, they don't care about maintenance. I still did the best, went above and beyond, you know, as mo as much as possible. ? Because you can't do, you can't be going out and doing eight hours of work and not getting paid for it.
• 0:28
  But if you walk in and it looks like, you know, like it's not really cared for, then a lot of other people, well, if they don't really care, like you said, Trevor. Why would I care? But then that piles and piles and piles. So now that thing evens worse. Yeah. And that's where I think us as techs, as mindsets, we should probably get that even better.
• 0:29
  Call Trader Joe's calls and said, we lost communications. I'm like, all right, well I'm only seven minutes down the road. Lemme come by and see what's going on. So I get there and, and yeah, went and checked the alarm and, you know, I lost communications and first I thought when I, 'cause normally when I see communication, it's like a board.
• 0:30
  That was a total game changer. I go, so I was talking to him and I was like, did you guys happen to have somebody in here about eight o'clock last night doing, because that's when I, I go and read the alarm logs on the E two and that's when I started, or we started pinging on this lost communication call.
• 0:31
  Andrew: So what, that's how I was able to figure that out by having that conversation with the manager. 'Cause it's, other than that, like I said, that this thing's been running 10, 15 years and all of a sudden I got an IP address that's duplicated.
• 0:32
  'cause now you're, you're EMS, now you're you're, you work for towards this. And then congratulations on that too, Andrew, is because, you know, you told me last year or the year before, it's like, this is where I wanna work towards, you know, I want to get to be EMS, I wanna work on controls more. You know, I've been doing this for 18, 20 years and, you know, I know controls and I learned it, but it's I didn't spend a lot of time on it.
• 0:33
  Is it input, is it an output? You know, just, just super basics. But the one thing that I would say from, you know, jumping into the EMS side that I. Did not realize when I was just servicing. And like you said, putting the fires out a attention to detail. It is huge. And the simple minor thing could be the whole reason why it's not communicating, not working.
• 0:34
  Trevor: And, and I think it, and it's even, it is not even new people in the industry, people that have been doing it for a long time.
• 0:35
  By going in and using AI to, to troubleshoot it. I do this all the time, like if I don't understand what's going on, is that you can take it and you can say, okay, here's all my descriptions of all the analog inputs, outputs, and you put it that all in. And then here's the, the flex. This equals that. If this happens to that, and then it'll spit out and kind of give you an idea.
• 0:36
  Andrew: Just, I mean, what you just said is basically what I do. I, when there is a call that I'm gonna get, and it's not like I have to be there right now, I do the research, right? I'm sitting at home drinking a cup of coffee, but I'm reading A PDF on, on a, multiflex combiner or
• 0:37
  Those are the stuff as a service tech as I guess that's what I would do. Now I'm taking this controller, tossing it out, I'm putting a new one in. Well, how do I get what that was doing into this one? So, a lot of that time, that's me. That's me taking the time, building myself. Understanding what I need to do, coming up with a game plan and, and then tackling it.
• 0:38
  That's another thing that I would do is go through the whole entire program after you install that new controller and make sure everything's working. I, I come across where not everything transfers for some reason. And then you have to either rewrite it or, or change a set point or something.
• 0:39
  But when you get into the controls, it's really understanding those controls, like analog input, you know, it's the, those, it's the dig, the pressure coming back. So that's an input, you know, or the temperature probe, that probe that's out on the, the suction line or the air flow, you know, the discharge air, return air, that is a, an input, an analog input coming back.
• 0:40
  That's the, that's where you're, that. Where you need to invest, you know, in yourself, just like you guys are here right now. Investing in yourself and, and learning. And ho hopefully you guys are picking up something, you know, from this podcast. But yeah, this, this is where, where we as technicians learn is, is just talk and shop right here.
• 0:41
  But what are some tips when you're working with contractors around the world on the control side of it? What are some of the tips that you give them when you're working with them?
• 0:42
  Trevor: Yeah.
• 0:43
  Guest: Us, usually the technicians we work with are, are, are, are pretty skilled. And, and, and, and. Yeah, okay. Maybe in Europe we are a little bit ahead of you guys in, in, in terms of using controllers, electronic controllers. So there's a lot of schooling on that even from trade schools, so they, they know what they're doing when they get out mostly but getting a too high access level to, you know, to be able to change too many details, too many settings, I don't think that's a big issue.
• 0:44
  Yeah. Because in ca, you know, you always get into some cases where, okay, I need to do some reprogramming here to make stuff work. Maybe the customer got a new setup maybe he added some new, new rooms or something. Or you change something and change the load configuration and you need to make, make the controller aware of that.
• 0:45
  And you need to have free some degree of freedom to do that.
• 0:46
  Guest: it. Yeah. But see what, where, where you don't wanna be is you, you put yourself in a situation where you have changed the system in a, in so much that you cannot find your way back again to a working condition. So it's better to have something working 70% than, than not at all.
• 0:47
  There's nobody coming. We are a startup. You need to start that up. You need to get it up and running. There's no one to coming to help you. And it's up to you as that startup commissioning technician. So if you're a tech out there, try to get on that. 'cause that's where all the controls are really happening.
• 0:48
  But this is learning, ? I pay, I go to trainings and events all the time where I'm not paid. ? And, and going out and getting this training. 'cause that's training you,
• 0:49
  Yeah. Yeah. So, so my time is, is used anyway. And, and, and to, to get as many people into knowing what they're doing with this stuff is the better it. And it doesn't need to be. The commissioning engineers, the maintenance guys are equally important if the pipe feeders are important because there's a lot of.
• 0:50
  You know, actually talking with the, the, the manufacturer, if it's a manufacturer talking with those commissioning technicians, that goes a lot longer than the a hundred dollars you make that day, or a couple hundred dollars you make that day or whatever it is. Because now you take that with you, you've got knowledge where now you can go take harder calls.
• 0:51
  Learning about other jobs, learning about events coming up, A lot of times they will give you the time off. ? Maybe it's, maybe it's not paid, maybe it is paid, but they'll be like, okay, you can take those days off. Or if a lot of times they even pay. They're looking for someone to go and, and learn that stuff.
• 0:52
  Andrew: Yeah. And it's, and it's, the event is free, so that's all that's really nice except for your time getting there.
• 0:53
  They do such a great job over at the N-S-A-R-C there, so it's really, really good to, and like you said, it's free for technicians free to learn. Networking and all the time you're learning. I sit in the same presentation, like Ru Rusty Walker. He's their their main trainer, their lead trainer, and all the time I'm picking something.
• 0:54
  Like what's the difference? Or like, how far are you're away? What does, how does that make a difference? ? And because I think about that stuff. Or how is their, like Eric said earlier, like how that systems pipe makes a difference. It makes a huge difference if it's pipe one way versus the other way.
• 0:55
  There was one thing that I wanted to say about the, the EMS stuff is double checking the inputs making sure they are reading what they are reading. I don't know how many times I've come across where I get on the computer, everything looks fine computer wise, but my case isn't running right. I go, well, it's doing what it's told, so let's go figure out what it.
• 0:56
  That relief should have been blowing. Yep. But the e was it E two and E two was saying it was running at five 50 or five 15. Like it was just, yeah, but the rack was running real, every compressor was running real hard and then you were like, this doesn't make sense. 'cause you had an apprentice check the pressure, is that right?
• 0:57
  I think it was right around. 500, I, I don't remember the exact pressure, but he hooked up the, or the trans-critical CO2 gauges and, and we hooked to the flash tank and he we're, of course, across the, the room. I'm at the controller just looking through things and he goes, what's the pressure supposed to be?
• 0:58
  So then I start looking at the flash tank and figuring out where that pressure transducer was. And yeah, I found it. I isolate it, pulled it off, and as soon as I pulled it off, oil just came right out of it. I'm like, well that's, that's strange. Shake the oil out, throw it back in real quick. Fire it back up.
• 0:59
  Trevor: Yeah, and I had a, I have a so many conversations with lots of different control tech saying, and, and even technicians, like they see a lot of guys trying to troubleshoot from the, the main controller or remotely.
• 1:00
  Just really to support the technicians around the world, right? Because this is what we're here, we're a community to help each other. We want to uplift all of us. We're learning together, like we've been doing this 20 years, and I'm still learning every day. Honestly, every day I'm learning something new, trying to learn about the landscape now, like I talk about CO2 a lot, but man, there's a ton of different regulations changing with like a two Ls and R two 90 and, and different, different things happening out there.
• 1:01
  Guest: Same. Same. Always, always keep sharp and a good thing sometimes, you know, when you go for a new startup somewhere and you feel comfortable about the system. Try, try bring some of your sales guys or, or, or project managers because they, they also keen to learn, but they never get the chance to do it right.
• 1:02
  You know, it's not like we just we came onto the planet and we knew all this stuff. Before I was, before I, before I started refrigeration at, I think it was 24, I started, I knew nothing, didn't even know what an air conditioner was. 'cause we didn't have one where I was from, so I didn't even know like that.