Electricians can be broadly classified into the following three categories: the apprentice, the journeyman and finally the chief or master electrician – ordered from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy in terms of the amount of money they get paid as compensation for their services, their experience as well as their skill level. The principles and workings of electricity as a subject are studied buy those who opt for careers as full-time electricians and their learning is often more vocational or technical, and less theoretical or bookish. Electricians can be either linemen or wiremen – depending upon the type of electricity they worked with, i.e., their areas of working as well as their voltages of working. Wiremen were the individuals who were usually assigned with the lower voltage areas in areas like residential buildings, homes and offices. The linemen on the other hand, were right in the belly of the beast itself – they had to work with relatively much higher voltages in the company distribution systems which focused on the centralized distribution and working of electricity. The electrical wiring system was also a critical concept with regards to the overall working of the electrical industry.
There are three levels or hierarchies classified when it comes to work that are available for an individual working as an electrician: starting from the top of the hierarchy these are the Master Electrician or the Chief Electrician, Journeymen and Apprentice. The most experienced level is that of the Master Electrician – this individual develops their specific sets of skills for over a period of seven to ten years. When it comes to managing specific service requests, including repair services and ones that require an instant response in a building, office area or home – perhaps a specific device or appliance is not working or there is a minor fault with the wiring – usually in these scenarios a service electrician is called for. That is, the requests assigned for isolated repairing works, enhancement in wiring in the interior of any building as well as up gradation of any device or equipment is assigned to a service electrician.
Larger projects are usually assigned to another type of electricians, known as the construction electricians- the tasks they are required to complete might involve the installation of the complete electrical system for a building, or working on the remodeling process, which may involve the complete restructuring of an office area.