He's just being pedantic. He's also likely in the union and will refer to himself as an industrial electrician who knows nothing about houses or even much commercial.
Possibly. I did have to make a numerical correction to my post. The house I mentioned was 1600 amps, not 600. Fat fingers.
Plenty of ways to describe something.
I knew a guy who learned to call a bubble level a whiskey stick. Granted, it is "ackshually" de-natured alcohol in there but it everyone knew what it was.
Diagonal cutters are dikes. Any groove joint plier is called a Channel Loc, which is a brand name.
Any lineman's pliers are called Kleins, which is a brand name.
We use Pennunion S-6 split bolt connectors for some of our work and we still call them Kearnies, from the brand name Kearney.
As for the "switchgear" I have built, I am speaking the huge high school in Prosper, Texas that sits on 64 acres. In the main building is 5,000 amps. Two housekeeping pads. One had a 3 section for 3,000 amps, the other had a 2 section for 2,000 amps.
I drove the skytrack and unloaded them from the truck and set them in the main electrical room. As well as the 2,000 amp gear in the main electrical room of the separate athletic building.
I got my 1 ton chain hoist and chains and 3 in rigid to put up in the trusses and light and swing each piece into place, mostly by myself.
I bolted the cabinets together. I installed the buss bar splices between each section with my torque wrench. It is my signature on the torque logs, which have to be filled out to keep the (Square D) warranty.
I used the company's megger (megahom tester for the autistic) and made a meg log to insure the integrity of the insulation on the service entrance conductors from the Oncor transformer to the gear. It is my signature on the megger logs that had to be turned into the builder and the architect and the school district.
I did all the terminations with a torque log on those lugs and signed that.
I, alone, go in on the day that the transformer is energized. And I use the handle that loads the spring by pumping it a number of times and hit the release button. It slams the blades into contact.
So, I know a one or two things about building and connecting "switchgear."