The 4 worst things

Hi all,

I'm curious to know what you feel are the 4 worst things about the fridge/ac trade?

I'm a gas breakdowns engineer with 10 years experience and was based in London before recently embarking on a year long around the world trip. That experience made me really re-evaluate my chosen career and made me realise that there were a few things that I generally hated about it. I wander how my 4 relate to yours in the fridge game.

1) The driving
Working in London was a killer as I would spend half of my day, stuck in traffic or racing from job to job.
2) The lack of colleagues
Despite constantly meeting customers from job to job, its a pretty lonely job with few opportunities to work as a team as well as make friends.
3) Hours
Yes the standard hours might be 8 to 5 but it would frequently result in getting home passed 7pm after the time consuming drive home.
4) The rush
Diagnostics and the safety regs were what drew me to the job, with companies trying to cram in 2 days work into 1 there just isn't time to implement these effectively any more.


The money was great (35k+), but I'm going to jack it all in as it can't be just about earning money. I'm concerned however, that all the work required to get into the fridge game is going to result with me working in a another trade with the same problems as I will definitely be back in London

I don't want this thread to be all about me though, what are the 4 things you dislike about it the most?

Get outside of your comfort zone and extend yourself, do not wait for some one else to do it for you. Your situation is what you make it.

Very true and something I have always believed, hence the decision to start all over again.

Apart from retraining in AC/fridge, I am considering a degree in International Development after working for a charity in India.

Each option will be a huge step which I wish to make an informed decision on, I think that the question I asked above will hopefully be one the things to help me make it :)

Hi Guys:
I'm no longer in a service truck but when I was, the two things irritated me the most:
• One was doing Roof Top HVAC repairs in the winter. I've found that there is nothing worse than sitting in the dark at -30°F (-35°C) with a 30 mph (48 Kph) wind blowing snow in my eyes, trying to patch a 30 year old RTU owned by a customer who is probably not going to pay me anyway.
• The second was after mentioning to a friend-of-a-friend at a party or pub that I am a fridgie; the first thing they say is "I have this fridge at home and it…..".

I work indoors now so I don't have worry much about working on a cold rooftop but I still do spend a lot of time explaining my trade to the uninformed.

I had thirty four years on the road and as I`ve said before I`m glad I`m out of it. Off work with stress, depression and bad back ache...I didn`t need that anymore. I started to evaluate how I`d be when I reached my early sixties (sixty now) several years ago and I realized that if I didn`t change I`d be one of those guys I used to see when I was starting out at sixteen: worn out with ruined knee joints etc. I always promised myself I`d never be one of them and I`m glad to say (touchwood) I now won`t be.