Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 372. Neurodiversity in Refrigeration

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Episode 372. Neurodiversity in Refrigeration · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Trevor Matthews, and as always, thank you so much for taking the time to listen. I'm hanging out with my good friend Aiden Lucy. He's the ambassador of the Refrigeration Mentor Hub. So go to refrigeration mentor.com/hub 'cause he is in there. If you're in supermarket, refrigeration, CO2 refrigeration, answering questions, really helping you along your journey.
• 0:01
  Aidan: I mean, I've noticed a lot for myself, right? And a lot of good technicians. You have that ability to just hyperfocus on something and just solve the problem. You forget to have lunch, you forget to look up, and sometimes you know, you go too narrow and then you don't go wide, go like narrow and then wide you don't come back.
• 0:02
  Aidan: Definitely validating. Like it made a lot of sense. Right? Whereas other times you're thinking, oh crap, my brain doesn't work like someone else's.
• 0:03
  Aidan: I mean, you gotta, it's hard, right? Because you just gotta find the help, the outlet. Like I find exercising works for me a lot. 'cause like I find if I say it's been a couple weeks and I haven't been working out, got busy, whatever it was, I find, your brain starts going. A hundred miles an hour, you might have a hard time sleeping or shutting your brain off.
• 0:04
  You're not like, you can't slow the brain down. So I mean, to recognize it, I mean, it's kind of tough. I only really recognized it when I was going through that stuff with my son. Like I always knew my brain worked differently. I didn't know how or why. So yeah, you definitely find it very validating. And then you're able to.
• 0:05
  So that's something that took me years to, to break tho those habits where it's just, that was the, the release for, for. The escapism, yeah. Of all that, that crazy stress and the life and the road life and working and all this stuff. So that's one thing that if, if that's you are going through that talk to someone, reach out to someone in the community, like I, I've seen this because it can really affect your mental health, which comes back to what Aiden said.
• 0:06
  So now the first step is recognizing you. A lot. It's easier to, I find it's easier. You can recognize when. Something's going on with someone else because it's, you're, you're want to help them, and you wanna look at them. It's a lot of times it's like us, our last and you want to help the people around you first.
• 0:07
  Aidan: So that's the hard part too, right? Because it's a lot of just one size fits all and you have to fit in the system, whereas the whole point is you don't.
• 0:08
  There's no kind of hide this or that, which you can't. Right. Especially when you have kid. We have kids as well. Right. Like everything, you're out in the open with everything. So that's what's really helpful too. And she did a, she did psychology too, so she, she already had me figured out.
• 0:09
  Aidan: I find you just as you get a bit older as well, you get better at setting boundaries. Like, when you're younger you're like, yeah, I'm gonna do the 20 hours 'cause it's a badge of honor. I gotta go, round the clock. We've all been there, do this, especially when you're on call, but you know, you get better at being like.
• 0:10
  About making money and putting the pounding, the hours in, and just putting the time in. I put a lot of hours in now, but it's in a different, it is in a different realm of the training and education, building the programs, trying to help support people and the community and things like that. So it's, as you go along your journey, you're, you will change, right?
• 0:11
  Aidan: Just try to be more empathetic. Right. That's what I find helps a lot like is you don't know. What's going on in someone's day? Like I work at a really good young apprentice. The guy's always super positive, always happy, doesn't matter, he is just genuinely cheery person. And I noticed there was a couple days where, he was very off, just not himself and he was working away and I kind of pulled him aside and I was like, Hey, like is, is everything okay?
• 0:12
  Trevor: Sometimes you need that time to sit down, reflect one of the things that we do and it's easy to do in the supermarket industry where refrigeration just go to work and just do more work. 'cause there's lots of it. And then you just try to push it down and, and just forget about it. You know what I mean?
• 0:13
  It's okay to start again tomorrow.
• 0:14
  Right. Like, 'cause how many times, we've all been there, you're like, oh crap, my boss is gonna gimme hell, this sucks. It's not gonna work. Then you go talk to him like, oh yeah, that's fine. Don't worry about it.
• 0:15
  And it, it's a situation, hopefully you have good people around you, experienced people around you that can give you advice. But I know I've talked to lots of people, but there's not always that with service managers, directors, lead technicians, business owners, that, it's the. They're just not always super nice people.
• 0:16
  Trevor: hear this a lot that the younger generation doesn't wanna work or the, they just work differently. You know what I mean? I see so many technicians come into the, the, some of the courses and they're just crushing it, and they go out and they learn really quickly.
• 0:17
  It shouldn't be a struggle. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, but there's always gonna be pain. There's always gonna be a struggle. How do we make that. That pain or that struggle a bit easier for that next person coming in because our industry is not that easy, just the long hours, the people, there's a lot of great people in the industry, but there's a lot of rough people in our industry, yep. Yeah. And I was having this conversation last week with some, some technicians and the company has like HVAC technicians, they have some chiller technicians, they have some supermarket and a commercial refrigeration. And when did they say that the install guy team is rough? That's what they say.
• 0:18
  Aidan: Yeah, but I mean that's the thing that I don't buy for a second when people, oh, the younger generation is lazy, they this or that. I think it's a lot of older generations is just envy it. They're working smarter. They're way smarter than we were. They're using all the tools they have to. Their advantage with the generation before us was they were glad to have a job.
• 0:19
  He was definitely troubleshooting better than me at four years in now. Just showed him the way he went out and he'd practice on the racks, he's in the community, but six, six to eight months. 'cause he was on his own. He was like, they just gave me a vehicle and said, go figure it out. Like that's what's happening out here, here in Canada.
• 0:20
  Trevor: Yeah. And that, and that, and that happens too where it's might not be the, the job for you and then, but if you went to, it might be a trade in general, that's not for you.
• 0:21
  Trevor: It's a lot different than a picture. So there's a kind of a disconnect it seems like to me. So this is why we gotta, I'm trying to always paint the picture of what I think was value when I started out is, is making a pile of money.
• 0:22
  I mean, you've been there. I'd been there. Right? Like it's, you learn a ton and it's stressful. But also there's vacation paid for.
• 0:23
  You, you, the more specialized you are in our industry, the more opportunity you're gonna get. Because I see now, like, yep. In our industry, so many manufacturers, contractors, anybody looking for specialized people can do EMS, can do controls, can do startups, can be foreman, you know what I mean? Can be supervisors.
• 0:24
  See, the big thing is, is though, it's once again, like he said, it's getting your hands on it. That's why the, the supermarket and the CO2 academies and courses are so successful because the people that come in, they got equipment to work on. So it's just teaching them how to go out and.
• 0:25
  Aidan: And then start investing time and learning electrical.
• 0:26
  'cause you can't just search for everything. It just takes that much longer. And that's what like electrical troubleshooting. It is easy to look some electrical troubleshooting videos up and then start to, okay, I get it now. But if you just remember how to do it, that that sequence, the process, it makes your life easier.
• 0:27
  Just talking about how to troubleshoot, just like in the programs. Right. Step by step, and that's where I struggle, was electric. 'cause nobody taught me the way that I've been taught now, unfortunately outta the field and learning, working and doing training on it and working for manufacturers and getting the startup guys to show me how they do it, and electrical experts showing me how they do it and the best results and really understand behind the scene.
• 0:28
  If it's all mechanical, epos, if you can come back the next day or come back in a day or two. 'cause guaranteed if you leave it a 50, you'll come back in a few days. You're gonna be a few above and a few below. So just what anything is patience. Especially you. You know you're making changes to say the high pressure valve.
• 0:29
  It was a condensing unit. It was maybe a 3D or a three cylinder compressor. I can't remember. Two or three cylinder compressor. I had to do a replacement on it. I think it was, the evaporator coil leaking, so it replaced the coil. And then set it all up. It was like four or five in the afternoon.
• 0:30
  Aidan: And that's the thing that stuck with you till now, right? You get those kind of learning moments that you never forget and they're the ones you gotta pass on.
• 0:31
  Trevor: Yeah. Coming up with that solution, right? Don't let them come up with a solution. You come up with a few ideas, even it might be the wrong solution, but at least it looks like you're moving towards fixing that issue or that problem. 'cause we are problem solvers of refrigeration technicians. That's our job.