Time served, experienced,semi skilled & skilled????

[davidjohnperry]

Congratulations mate

 

[toddy]

thanks....
been waiting for the result for a few weeks now.... but hay payed to wait i dont mind

but i know that i defo wouldnt have gotten the job if i didnt have my apprentiship paperwork, but hay i didnt even apply for this one, they contacted me (and no not an agency.. there HR) emailed one day, in for a "chat" the next and 2 days later job offer.

but i have been qualified in nearly every welding technique (mig/fluxcore, tig, mma, saw, laser(pulsed and CW) and electron beam) and think that is appealing to alot of places.

 

[davidjohnperry]

Good God ur like the holy grail of welding man I wish I had half that fair play mate I hope it all works out

 

[rocket01]

When I was an apprentice we had a graduate join the company that had a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering (I am not sure where from) and this guy was clever and I mean seriously clever... BUT he was sent to our engineering shops before he could go into his graduate job because he had zero experience in a heavy industry environment. When I say this guy was clever, he was a typical boffin, all brain power no street smarts or common sense. One of the machinists sent him for a long wait, he didnt know the correct way to remove a bolt! 2 years down the line he was covering as engineering manager of an entire area, probably on 60k plus.

 

[Wedg1e]

What you should realise about colleges is that they are buisnesses & they get paid for having students ie bums on seats, if you throw any out you lose funding. At my old place we had one moron who had been reported by staff with a "cause for concern notice" wait for it...80 times. It took that long & three years to get him finally excluded.
Other lads who in the workshop were frankly a liability & disruptive had dealines extended time & time again & were spoon fed by the lecturers until they passed.
This is not fair on the skilled & motivated kids.

Here's a true story for you

Back in the late 90s when 'New Labia' got into No.10, one of Blair's edicts was that everyone should be computer literate. So they initiated schemes where Jonathan T. Public could sign up for basic computer learnings, for free, regardless of whether you were unemployed or working.
The usual arrangement was that a college or similar would open an 'IT shop' in a town centre and claim back a fee per botty/hour on a seat.
My ex-wife (one of them ) ended up as the manager (small M ) of one such in Newton Aycliffe, up north in County Durham... in Blair's constituency.
One day the phone rang. A voice said "Hello, I'm Hilary, the PM's personal secretary. Tony will be in your neck of the woods for a mucky weekend with Cherie [OK, I'm paraphrasing here] and would like to come and officially open your centre [which had already been open 6 months] on Friday, MI5 will be popping in to see you shortly."
"Yeah right, and I'm the Queen of Sheba", quoth our (ex)lass.
Ten minutes later a bunch of suits arrived, flashed their IDs and wanted to see a list of names of all those who'd be parking their posteriors on the appointed day, presumably in order to make sure no Tory sympathisers or Liberal fundamentalists would be present (like that would happen up north ). 'Er in drawers was told to keep the whole caper on the down-low, of course.
On the day Tony and his cronies turned up, pumped the flesh (ooer), snipped the ribbon and a select group of Press who'd been tipped off about the secret visit snapped away.
Then Tony left, presumably to pop into Aldi for some Alpecin shampoo and Schtinkin aftershave for his date.

Some time passed and one day the phone rang. "Yo, it's the PM's biatch", came the word.
"Checkit, blud", says the witch, "How's it hanging?"
"Listen up," spake the minion, "Me and Tone and them have had a rap and we think it'd be cool if Tony was to sign up for one of your courses, and that, like, he'll be there on Friday, yeah?"
Sure enough, Tone and the cronies arrived, signed up for a course, Blair sent Cherie an email, typed a letter which was printed on his special scented Downton Manor - I mean, Downing Street - paper and had his picture taken with my other half, by now in full-on simpering mode (for a while she actually had Cherie's email address in her diary).
So far, so good.
Now the rules of the game were that if you failed to attend for two consecutive sessions, a letter would be sent out asking if you still intended to continue with the course. Further absences would result in you being taken off the roll.
Blair never went back so, following a threatagram to No. 10 (which went unanswered), the ex signed a letter telling Blair that due to his continued failure to attend he had been removed from the course forthwith.
The dreamers amongst us might wish that some polititicans could be removed from office quite so easily...

There is a part 2 to this, let me just grab a coffee and I'll fill you in...

 

[Wedg1e]

... so while the big event with Tony and his typing skills was being held, I was over in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on a training course to satisfy Saudi Aramco that I could do a job I'd been doing nearly 10 years, but without a bit of paper from the makers of a particular bit of kit to say that I actually could take all 8 screws out and put them back in correctly .
So I got on the plane back to Memphis from BR to catch the connection back to Amsterdam and found myself sat next to some American bird, all hair and shoulder pads, and we opened a polite discourse, as you do when held captive in an aluminium tube with a total stranger.
"Gee, you're English, wow, I wanna have your babies", was her opening line... oh alright dammit, no it wasn't, actually it was "Some guy was killed here last week, ground crew... he walked backwards into the prop of a plane that was taxiing".
So once the ice was broken and we'd had a bit of chat, she asked me what my wife did and I said "Well actually, she's Tony Blair's IT teacher" and told her about this great new IT initiative.
Then someone in the row behind tapped me on the shoulder and said "Like this, you mean?", folding his copy of some American paper and handing it to me, with the photo of the wife and Blair that had been syndicated around the world...