Arrrrgggg!

[Alf]

Making a mistake is one thing (you don't want to hear about mine - we'd be here for weeks), but lying-in on the day you're supposed to be coming back to work right after you've made it? Sorry, but that's a lad who really needs to work on his attitude.

Cheers, Alf

[pitbull]

I think about taking on one. But then the thought goes as quick as it came. But Im hoping to get a few more large contracts one of which would be 2600 doorsets approxamately. So if they couldn't hang a door after all of that then there would be no hope. ;D

[pitbull]

toobyefore said:

Making a mistake is one thing (you don't want to hear about mine - we'd be here for weeks), but lying-in on the day you're supposed to be coming back to work right after you've made it? Sorry, but that's a lad who really needs to work on his attitude.

Cheers, Alf

That would be the part that would have me having to pull a chisel out of the brick wall or something

[cadas]

His dad came to see me today

Usual stuff "really wants the job, loves it here, etc...."

then came the killer, "it wasn't his fault he didn't get up, his mobile phone really did switch off in the night, anyway if you could n't wake him you should have phoned me and i'd have got him up"

I dispair...............

I softened into giving him another months trial (mainly because I need the workshop decorating internally and externally and I'm away on a site job for the next two weeks) ;D ;D

I can't keep him though, because I'm based in France employment laws are merciless, as he is at 3 months, I must sign off his contract, to do so makes it impossible to sack him for at least two years then I think he actually has to murder his boss to get a verbal warning.( remember only 37.5hr a week)

I know it is really his dad who is pushing the job because as an 18year old in rural france his prospects are sod all and he will end up on the dole for life, but he doesn't care.

[Head clansman]

really is that right only six months , that's crazy there's no way you can learn anything in that amount of time , in my days it was a six yrs apprenticeship, in six months any apprentice would not have been aloud to cut that sort of timber unsupervised usually we were still sweeping up running to the shops for fags etc i know time have changed but that's crazy

[pitbull]

apprentiseships peeve me off purely because no one would take me on, I paid for college myself. And as it was full time course I was unavailable for work, so the dole office where trying to stop the benefits that I was getting at the time. Try to explain I was bettering myself, they weren't interested. I was just figure on a stats sheet. Wanted me to quit college to go for a job in a factory.

[cadas]

Apprenticeships here are 3 years, during that time they work for you for 3 weeks a month, then go to college for the fourth week. At college they do a full educational course including french, maths, etc as well as woodwork.

For french companies, they are cheap (often used as virtual slave labour) you pay them 50% of minimum wage about 640€ a month, and the government pays you back about 1000€ every quarter.

As long as you get rid of them after two years you don't have to give them a job for life.

The apprenticeship scheme here is long established and highly regarded and very sought after.

[Head clansman]

Hi cadas

when I was an apprentice back in the early sixties it was very similar but we had a block training of about three weeks every 12 weeks i enjoyed that very much from 9 - 4 30ish , I learnt a lot that way , then they changed it to one day a week from 9am - 9pm at night bloody hell that was a long day studying and it was surprising just how many apprentices drop out as this day was compulsory if you missed to many then you apprenticeship was cancelled.

Its a shame you have to get rid of them after that time and cant keep them as well as training other on behind , its nice to see that others are still coming on behind and your skills and knowledge are being passed on to and not being lost for every, in the naval base at Portland we stopped training any trades back in the late eighties government economics sham-full now we have a huge shortage of qualified skilled indentured tradesmen/woman or should i say tradesperson now,

[rich]

Martin, what makes it worse is once our generation goes, WHO is going to do the teaching,
for the sake of my two lads, I despair.
Rich.

[Head clansman]

Hi rich


you are so right , that what i meant when i said ,it's a pity he couldn't keep his apprentice when he finished training and take on another one and another one and another one and so on (and pass on all his skills and knowledge to many other') so all this trade knowledge is not lost , once one tradesman dies all his knowledge is gone forever.

There are many forms of woodworking / carpentry / joinery cabinet makers etc, now start multiplying all that knowledge not being passed on to other , mind boggling, its a shameful waste condoned by our government