I started this company fifteen years ago. I didn't learn my skills through apprenticeship. I learned them at school. I graduated from the Fuhsing Vocational School. My major was electronics. My uncle owned a plumbing shop, and while I was at school I worked there sometimes. Our government has always encouraged vocational schools to open more short-term courses. To build up my knowledge, I attended a six-month electrical engineering night course at the Taipei City School of Technology.
A decade ago, I could do my job without a license. But I've always thought that the trend is toward hiring real professionals to do professional work, as happens in more technologically advanced countries. Times change; that's progress. A lot of technology needs to be introduced and upgraded. I want to build up a data bank of professional knowledge and use it in my job so as to be as professional as possible.
Several government agencies—for example, the Ministry of the Interior, the Taiwan provincial government, and the Taipei city government—issue various kinds of licenses to skilled laborers. The licenses they issue have three grades, A. B. and C. Under the regulations, a junior high school graduate who's attended a six-month training course from a government vocational training center will get a grade-C license. He doesn't have to sit for any exams. Or he can take an exam if he wants to get a grade-B license. Then junior high school graduates who get three years of work experience in a related field can sit for an exam and get a grade-A license. Graduates from a vocational senior high school can also take an exam for the A license.
I didn't have to take the grade-B license exam, because I graduated from vocational high school, but I took it anyway, out of interest. Later I got an A license. That was in 1978. At that time, nobody cared about getting professional licenses. They didn't think a license meant anything. It's only recently that people have started to care about them.
Right after I got the license, I worked as an electrician in a big factory, doing maintenance work. In the late seventies, Taiwan's electronics industry was just taking off. An electronics major was very popular. If you had that, finding a job as an electrician was easy.
I set up my own company in 1979. The government says that a company like mine must have four employees with grade A licenses. I went into business with a few friends. I'm not from a rich family. I don't have any business background. In the beginning, we did some repair work in residential areas, mostly plumbing and electrical work. We also helped a few c1ients—factories, big commercial buildings—set up electrical facilities and apply to the Taiwan Power Company [Taipower] for connection to the power grid.
Now we work on big projects most of the time. I do repair work at night for some of my old customers in the neighborhood. Because I only have two hands, I can serve only a limited number of people. They're all old clients, and I can't say no to them. You know, Do-It-Yourself is quite popular today. Also, labor costs have risen a lot. I can still hire people to do repair work. But young people have a different work ethic today. They just don't want to work hard. They only like to do easy jobs. You can't make them meet your requirements. As far as I'm concerned, if they don't work seriously they can't give my customers proper service. That makes me sorry for my customers. So I'd rather do some of the repair work myself and not hire youngsters.
My business is closely linked with the development of Taiwan's economy. If the economy is doing well and a lot of new factories are being built, business is good. Mine isn't a big company. All its business comes from word of mouth. Some people have got special connections and tactics for getting business, but I don't. I work with my friends. We work together. We don't need to use connections. We don't have to socialize. We don't know how to socialize, either. My business usually comes from recommendations. Some people see that we're doing a good job, so they contact us. If the project's too big for us, we just bring in a few more friends.
When I encounter work problems, the first thing I do is discuss them with my friends. If none of us know the answer, I'll ask college professors I know at National Taiwan Normal University and National Taipei Institute of Technology. I want to make progress. I often consult my teachers. For example, some factories buy new machines from foreign countries, which have different designs from what we're used to in Taiwan. Then I'll ask my teachers how to install these new machines. I want to upgrade my skills. And I want the proper professional knowledge to do my job.
Electricity's very dangerous. Definitely. You need real professional skill to handle it safely. We have to take care of our own safety when we're working. You often hear about this or that electrician being electrocuted at work. Those kinds of accidents happen in technologically advanced countries too. If necessary, we ask Taipower to cut off the supply for a few hours when we need to work on a project. In most cases Taipower will agree, but sometimes it won't, or can't, and when that happens I have to take full responsibility for going on with the work.
When my company's three employees work with high voltage, I always have to be present. We have to be especially careful then. I always follow the regulations. For example, Taipower lays down what size cable has to be used for different voltages. I think that the only way to keep damage to a minimum is by going about things the right way. It may mean I earn less, but safety has to be the top priority. Some people don't do things the way we do. They've got a different outlook. I'm in no position to criticize others. I just do what I think a professional should do. That's my work ethic.
Some companies have the clout to win big contracts, but they either don't want to or can't handle the project by them selves. They hire smaller subcontractors. When that happens, it's very hard to guarantee quality. I think maybe over the next few years this is going to get better: people will only hire professionals to do things. People have got eyes—they can see what's right and what isn't. Taiwan has a lot of experts, and their professional abilities should be developed and recognized.
The government has brought in a mass of regulations. If we follow them, everything's okay; but some people just won't obey them. Whenever they're revised, the union lets us know right away, through internal publications. Oh, another useful thing about those publications: they're how we learn about stolen equipment, so we know not to buy it.
The trend now is for a technician to do only the work he specializes in, but in the old days an electrician had to be ready to take on anything. Today, he's just the man in charge of the power supply. Most companies prefer to hire electricians who've got licenses now. The daily rate for an electrician varies from NT$1,500 to $2,500 [US$55 to $93]. If an electrician has to deal with high-voltage power, the daily rate's from NT$3,000 to $5,000 [US$111 to $185]. Supervisors can earn NT$50,000 to $60,000 [US$1,850 to $2,220] a month.
I never get bored with this job. I enjoy it. People who aren't interested in electricity think it's dangerous—that's true, of course, and it's why I buy accident insurance for my three employees. But as long as you know about electricity, you can enjoy working with it. It's fun. Nothing to be afraid of at all.