Where is the love?

[Arcforce]

There are some top notch tradie's out there but they are few and far between, getting fewer. I myseelf am a relitivly young man (30) and used to look up to my senior tradesmen for advice and knowledge. It seems even in my time I have seen a massive deterioration in the leadership of senior tradesmen into the she'll be right attitude. Is it the apprentiship boards taking power away from tradesmen and companuy? or is it just because there is such a shortage of skilled workers that nobody cares about the profession of boilermaking, just the money of boilermaking? This is a lunchroom rant, does anybody have experiances to the contarary. 

[Flash]

Hey ArcForce
gee this is a can of worms

I tend to agree with you in the main
I think the shift to temp employees has had an affect on the way employees view the profession, I think alot of people feel under valued as they may feel their is little loyalty by employers, if the work drops you are gone, but employees do the same always chasing the better dollar

Apprenticeship boards are a thing of the past as far as I know, new apprenticeship centres look after that sort of thing

I agree there is less top notch tradies (but I have seen some great young ones coming thru), I think most employers expect the tradies to fall out of the sky and do not have the commitment to training, maybe this is because there are feed up with dealing with the issues that some apprentices have, I can not answer it

All I can say is do your part and give freely of your skills and knowledge to others, particularly those new to the industry
This could make for some interesting reading with future posts
R
Flash 

[Booka]

Yep , this one is really a can of worms . I’ve noticed over the years ( 40 odd )  that everybody talks about the money to be made in boilermaking/ welding , but does anybody ever talk about the responsibilities of being a tradesman . Any skills and knowledge that we older tradies have accumulated over the years has to be passed on to the young guys coming through otherwise the skills base of this country is going to be depleted to the point of no return . There should be less emphasis placed on college based training and more on work place mentoring . The so called rock lobster effect . I’ve seen young guys with all the knowledge in the world , good hand to eye co-ordination but can’t get it together for a 3g or 5g coded butt . The reason , something that was drummed into me as a 15 year old , POSTURE . If your not comfortable or set up don’t even think about it . This the simple basic stuff these young blokes need help with . So come on guys , give the young guys a hand , the old blokes ( probably dead or retired by now ) taught us , now the responsibility has been passed on to us . Worth a thought , yeh .

[Flash]

here here
great point Booka
I agree it is a shame that the master and apprentice type of training has disappeared
I must say I learnt a lot just watching some of these guys, three quarters of the battle is knowing how to do it, its the tricks of trade we need to pass on
I had the pleasure of working with a few master over the years

[EllaZ]

Makes you wonder.. 🙂

[lozzadarwin]

I don’t think there is much any love. None in the trade school, none with the employer. The only love I find is on the internet from america. That’s cool. My dad was a self taught mechanic, and taught me to strike an arc.  It was an old welding machine, yellow with a fan on the side, 3 phase. It welded great.

But all of the technical stuff, weld amps for weld thickness, the need to put weld tap or gas atmosphere on the other side of a stainless steel weld, penetration, weld patterns, uniformity etc. all came from online.

So in truth, I think it would benefit most if you could find some trick of the trade that you know, that you struggled with make a video about it when you retire and tag it welding tip BLAH. Because chances are that the apprentice will have to know it before he even gets a job, as a formal apprentice.

That way you only have to say it once, too. You also only have to demonstrate it once. And you teach /reach a helluva lot more ‘prentices too.

[Author]

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