Engineer For 5 Years - Trying To Build A Solid Knowledge Base

[al-yeti]

I can usually do this with customers but i'm not sure how i'd manage in an interview situation.

Can any of you think of any 'essential reading' for an alarms engineer? Something that's more general and not product specific. What are the things we should really know? I mean things like regs, system grading etc.

No point trying to blag regs just say you don't know, and blag everything else

[norman]

Bloggers always get caught out, I prefer someone who's upfront and honest from the start.

[totoro]

Bloggers always get caught out, I prefer someone who's upfront and honest from the start.

 

I wouln't really call what i do 'blagging'.  I usually know what i'm doing, i just tend to make the customer think i absolutely know what i'm doing at all times. 

 

However I did openly tell a customer today that i didn't know how to do something and that the only person on the firm who could help me is on holiday.  They praised me for my honesty and i came out the other side smelling of roses haha. 

 

 

loads of Btecs & city & guilds  http://www.tavcom.com/training-courses/intruder-alarms/

 

I'm definitely interested in these, i don't quite understand the difference between the foundation course and practical course though, the content seems very similar.

[al-yeti]

What was it you couldn't do , let's test these house bashers

[norman]

My simple answer (and I use it a lot) would be I don't know but I can find out for you.

[Rob Kirk]

Worst thing for me is we was given the regs in college in bundles of photocopies intruder fire and cctv i had two big folders full of them, threw them out when i got my certs and now i wish i hadn't now I've gone on my own. Got me thinking how often do company owners on here pay for the new regs? expensive stuff if you have to buy them every update.

[james.wilson]

you have to have them as an approved firm

[totoro]

What was it you couldn't do , let's test these house bashers

Program a Texecom comWIFI. Never done it before and the first thing I saw when I opened the manual was "consult an IT professional". Coupled with the fact I didn't have a laptop to use. I put the software on my personal laptop but couldn't get the cable drivers (if anyone has a link to the drivers it would be much appreciated).

The job's been a pain in the **** from the start, my manager 'designed' it, gave me a rough idea of what was going where and then decided to bugger off on holiday for a week. Lots of stuff was agreed verbally with the customer and the information was either relayed to me incorrectly or not at all.

Also, I thought at the very least I could give the customer a bells only system for the weekend but then realised the new Odyssey siren I have seems to be faulty, it wouldn't power up at all.

[Wyatthaplo]

I would think most approved firms use the option via SSAIB or NSI were you can pay i think its about £100 a year and you can access secure copies of all regs on there website. You can download them but they expire after 3 months i thinkk then you have to re-download. Also you cant copy or print them if i recall. Protected PDF's

[datadiffusion]

Befreind a Uni student and print them out for free pre-approval.