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Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

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PhilMTL

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Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:53 am

Location: North America

Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:31 am

Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

Hi guys,

I'm seriously considering a career change from my current IT role.

Reasons for the change include wanting to get away from the desk, work with my hands, do work that is more tangible and directly related to satisfying basic human needs. I don't necessarily want to debate the merits of whether change away from IT is a good idea or not. So let's put that question aside for the moment.

Being a hobby picker I've considered locksmith training. I've also looked at alarm / security system tech as I'm interested in physical security in general

Where I am (Quebec, Canada) the statistics I've found point toward better employment outlook for alarm technicians.

As professionals working in the field do these stats reflect your experience? If you were in my shoes and had to start down a training path in the next couple of years, would you go the locksmith route or the alarm tech route? I understand that this forum may not be the most unbiased source of advice on the question and I mean no disrespect to either profession. Just looking for honest opinions on the state of things right now.

A couple of considerations:

1) I'm already very fluent with computers & networking technology. TCP/IP, routing, server admin, etc... Pretty competent coder.

2) Where I'm located both locksmithing and alarm tech require a seperate 1 year trade school course in order to get a license from the provincial government. Offered not too far from me during the night time so I could potentially work part time days while completing the courses.

3) Married, no kids at the moment. Wife working full time so if there's some lean times as I get going it's not catastrophic but obviously would like to avoid it


I think my IT background is probably more of an asset for the alarm tech field but I understand that automotive locksmithing is now increasingly requiring these skills as well.

In and ideal world, I'd do both courses and get licensed to do both things but I'm still in the very early planning stages and not sure how feasible that is. Would really appreciate any input you may have on this.

Cheers.
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jeffmoss26

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Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:52 am

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

I work in IT but locks/security are my hobby and passion.
If you could somehow do a mix of alarms and locks (plus CCTV) I think you would be set. The industries are definitely converged. Being able to provide all those services to a prospective customer would give you an advantage.
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xeo

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Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 1:21 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

PhilMTL wrote:do work that is more tangible and directly related to satisfying basic human needs


I find IT very satisfying of human needs. Baseball-batting copy machines and/or destructively throwing various pieces of IT equipment around the office is an excellent work out. Remote blue-screening of user systems when they leave me 30 voice mails has its therapeutic benefits that I just cannot describe here because I lack the proper words. Nothing fires me up more and gets me motivated to tackle the day when I'm asked to carry a 24 inch monitor to another building and "set it up" for a mechanical engineer who apparently is smart enough to design super complex mechanical models in Solidworks yet cannot plug in a DB15 connector to save his life. I think you're really missing out. As far as relaxation goes, washing mouse balls always takes the edge off for me. As relaxing as that sounds there is still always that one guy who has a USB track ball mouse who asks you to repeatedly help him with some trivial Windows task that requires using his trackball mouse for extended periods of time as you glide it across quadruple monitors and his mouse cursor speed is set to the minimum Windows setting. It helps you with anger management as you really need to resist the urge to just rip the trackball mouse off his desk and smash it onto his desk until it explodes into small pieces using a sort of lasso cowboy motion with the cord. There are so many other benefits!
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MBI

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Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:25 pm

Location: Utah, USA

Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 3:54 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

Having done both, I can say I wouldn't want to do either one on a long term basis as my full time work. I got a lot of job satisfaction from both, being able to help people to better secure themselves and their famlies, but I'd have gotten burned out if I'd done either one full time and long term. Then again, I'm also saying that from the perspective of a grumpy old man, so take it with as many grains of salt as you like.

If I had to pick one to recommend I'd say locksmithing. I enjoyed it more and I did it an awful lot longer than alarms, but I think that's partially because I had a fortunate confluence of circumstances that allowed me to do it part time and more or less at my leisure so it was never stressful for me. I don't think I'd enjoy locksmithing if I had to do it full time for 20 years. I'd eventually lose patience with the idiots and people with bad attitudes that you constantly have to deal with. Or doing lockouts on a cold, freezing night.

With alarms I got a lot more enjoyment from design and sales than I did from installations. My sales tactic was like the TV show To Catch a Thief where he breaks into the residence with the owner watching to show the home or business owner just how incredibly vulnerable they really are, except I did it years before that show ever aired. I've "burglarized" many hundreds of homes and businesses, with their permission. I never used any specialized tools, just my pocketknife and whatever materials I could find on site, and without leaving any trace of entry. I'd estimate I got in with improvised NDE about 80-90% of the time. The rest of the time I'd have needed picks, bump keys or a rock to break in. In which case I'd show the homeowner which windows are most vulnerable, and which landscaping elements they might want to change since it gives me the item I'd need to break that window.

With installation I imagine you'd have no problems programming panels if you're even halfway competent at IT work. I know some guys who always had trouble with it but they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed. The part I hated were the nasty crawl spaces and attics you have to crawl through to run wire. Itchy fiberglass insulation... I didn't do installation work very long. Just long enough to learn the basics of the job since it helped me be able to design them better. And to know wholeheartedly that installation work wasn't for me.
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PhilMTL

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Posts: 17

Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:53 am

Location: North America

Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 5:03 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I'd say of the two the locksmith work interests me more. But amongst my concerns is that I'm probably imagining much more picking of locks than actually occurs during the day to day of a locksmith. Unless I do purely lockouts. Not sure how feasible that is.

The pie in the sky, fantasy dream job would be doing physical security red teaming / assessments where you get paid to try to break in to people's facilities and evaluate and report on their security. R&D of tools, how to bypass security, etc... But I don't see how to get there from here (without LEO / mil type background).

With the above in mind, and trying to be realistic and honest with myself as a sensible adult, I'm worried that I'll switch gears career wise and the day in day out reality of the work will slap me in the face and I won't be any happier than in the IT business. Grass is greener syndrome and all that.

I appreciate all of you contributing your .02 on my ongoing existential crises, hahaha.
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mdc5150

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Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:01 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

The company I work for is amazing. They took me in still very green behind the ears as far as locksmithing goes and gave me all the room I need/needed to make mistakes and learn from them. In my interview they asked if I had ever locked up a safe. When I said no they chuckled a little and said you will eventually and everything will be alright when you do. That gave me mountains of confidence. I do 98% commercial work where I am so lock picking is very little. We also have an alarm/access control/cctv division and those guys stay busy and it looks like hard work a lot of the time running wires in buildings in Phoenix in August that don't have any AC yet. Or trenching and running cable etc.

I was told a long time ago that if you can make a living doing something you love you will never work a day in your life. So just make sure if you decide to change careers it will be worth the disruption to your life and income.
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PhilMTL

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Posts: 17

Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:53 am

Location: North America

Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 7:49 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

mdc5150 wrote:I was told a long time ago that if you can make a living doing something you love you will never work a day in your life. So just make sure if you decide to change careers it will be worth the disruption to your life and income.


Thanks for the reply. Definitely trying to put the advice above into practice. All I know for sure at this point is I'm not there now.

I leave work feeling like I didn't really accomplish much of anything significant and come home feeling more 'wage slave broken to the yoke' than 'triumphant and proud provider'.
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Neilau

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Location: Australia

Post Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:20 pm

Re: Career change - Locksmith or Alarm Tech

Have you considered "safe/vault technician" - not sure if that is the right name.

Interesting work, get to work on and in some amazing places. I don't think there is an oversupply of these techs (at least in Australia) plus I believe the pay is pretty good (again, in Australia).

The work involves more that just safe/vault doors. There are also some electronics/computer skills, installing and servicing the other alarm systems that are used in these facilities. Modern ones incorporate quite a few different security systems.

You might have to invest in some intensive training. Other members here will have some good advice on what/where the good training organizations are and what other options you have.

Just a thought.
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