Hit 400 panel installs, never thought I'd get that far

Started counting when I did my first Vista panel in a basement in Toledo back in 2019, just to see how long I'd last in this trade. Yesterday I finished panel number 400 and it hit me that I've been doing this longer than most guys stay in the field around here. Is there a number that made you realize this was your career and not just a job?

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the_dylan25d ago

Hang on, I gotta point out that Toledo isn't in Michigan, it's in Ohio. Probably just a typo, but I'm from the area so it jumped out at me. Anyways, congrats on 400, that's a solid number. For me it was around 250, when I stopped getting that nervous pit in my stomach before touching a live panel. That's when I knew I'd seen enough weird wiring to handle whatever got thrown at me. But honestly, the real shift was when I started teaching the new guys, because you can't fake that kind of knowledge. You don't just memorize panels, you get a feel for how they fail and that's when it stops being a job.