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Comment by biomcgary | Hacker News Reader

One of my frustrations with professional licensing (beyond being intentionally protectionist) is that it requires X number of hours in a seat, not really demonstrated competence. This slows down market response to increasing demand (I can't find an electrician in my area).

A very involved exam stretching over multiple days would be much faster and more likely to achieve the stated purpose of licensing competent people.

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Actual conversation from a few years ago:

"You are not certified to use this obscure electrical diagnostics tool, I have to do it for you."

"Hey, cool, I helped write the firmware for this tool. Let me show you an undocumented command."

"You are not certified to use this obscure electrical diagnostics tool, I have to do it for you."

"Type this command number in, it thinks you're saying thank-you to it, and it will print You're Welcome".

The guy types it in, it prints YOU'RE WELCOME. I ask if he wants to know anything about this tool from one of the developers.

"You are not certified to use this obscure electrical diagnostics tool, I have to do it for you."

It was a very embarassing interaction.

Were you a guest at some other site? If so, the other person following their policy is a pretty reasonable explanation for your story. The policy isn't going to have an exception for them where they can evaluate your competency outside the established practice at the site.

I agree it's kind of weird if it were just a personal interaction with no surrounding context.

We were both at a customer site. I was called in because at the time my job was "The regular technician can't deal with this, we will send an engineer". The whole job was about a hydropump barge.

One might argue that time in a seat doing a job under the supervision of a licensed professional, without getting fired, is a good demonstration of competence - and has the added bonus of the student getting paid for their time while learning. Apprenticeships can be beneficial to everyone involved and have the added bonus of supporting social mobility.

Unless your job is just to get coffee for someone at minimum wage.

You can’t guarantee what someone’s job is day to day, and what they get to learn, at scale. Also the pay is terrible at most of these jobs, and significantly raises the cost to enter the field.

Apprenticeships are different from gopher internships.

Society has used the apprenticeship system to pass down specialized knowledge for thousands of years; it seems to work reasonably well.

Agreed and think this definitely applies to software. Most CS students would be better off in an apprenticeship learning under multiple skilled developers rather than 4 years of school.

I learned 10 as much my first year than in 4 years of school combined.

I would love to study on my own, take an exam, and be qualified to do electrical work on my own house. The only thing stopping me from attempting is the hour requirement.

I kinda see the point, practice is important. But I'm not about to transition careers and work as an apprentice at this stage in life.

In many US states, you can already do electrical work on your own home without a professional certificate as long as it's done to code and inspected.

Or if nobody notices.

Or as a sibling of mine did recently. Electrician didn't have time to do the work so sibling did the work and electrician reviewed on completion (when he was back from vacation) for a nominal fee. Electrician noted the work was meticulous, in fact better than any of his assistants. Several things to note, siblings meticulous work also applies to day job as developer, it probably took longer than the electricians assistants would take and finally you could say the electrician 'approved and merged the PR'.

Certain jurisdictions do allow you to do electrical work without a license if you're the property owner.

Practice is important, but mostly for speed. If you could pay me minimum wage or a master normal prices to do electric work, you are money ahead paying the master even though the quality of work is the same in the end. I've done enough electric to know how to do pretty much anything, but it will take me much longer as I don't know all the shortcuts, I'll spend more time going to find the right tools (which would be in the belt of the master). I won't think that an outlet also needs a.cover and so be back to the store several times.

In the end either way the job is done right, but I know how much slower I am. I could get faster with experience, but it isn't worth my time.

My state allows homeowners to do electrical work if they have it inspected. In practice, homeowners are terrible electricians and typically fail multiple inspections before finally passing.

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