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Grass is always greener on the other side!
Why is the grass always greener on the other side?
Had a guy start a few months ago.. Straight from sign college, 2 years he done.
Very nice guy indeed.. Good laugh.
1 month down the line I realised he could do nothing without chatting and keeping others off their work. Now, I don’t mean he worked while doing this.. Well he did but was completely useless.. Anyway, because he fitted in well with others, I persisted his constant mistakes. Hoping he will snap out of it and get one with it soon.
He didn’t.. 1 month after that, I began to loss the rag. I sat him down and told him straight. He took the huff and daily, began to mumble to others he was good enough. “Its just Robert that’s a nark! Blah blah blah.”. He always spoke about starting up and how people go bust. I always pointed out. There are far more ways to go bust than being a successful company. I think he always thought I was trying to mislead him, steere him off, but I wasnt.. “He new best anyway” one Monday he’s off! By Thursday I hadn’t heard from him and thought. Good. An excuse to let him go politely.
He did.. He asked for his wages, sent in a mate for them and never returned.
I learned shortly after he had been speaking to a friend that was working at large ice cream company that was looking for signs.
THe freind found out this guy now works with us and wondered if he was interested in making some money. 500 signs a week they wanted (vinyl only).. Small ones but 500 then may move onto 1000… depending on cost. Obviously he was thrilled and saw this his way to go it alone.. He went to the local Amari and bought 20 metres of vinyl or so..
Said to friends he is going to do the first few weeks cutting by hand & when he gets paid he will buy a second hand cutter and move on and on to bigger things…
Oh well I thought.. Well done. Ambitious! 😕
2 weeks later I said to an existing employee, how’s your mates sign business doing. He chuckled.. He works in a brewery now.. I said what about this contract he won and the 500 signs a week etc etc..
He said. He went on the info second hand. When he went in to speak to the company bosses. They wanted samples, turnaround time etc.. Unprepared he bluffed it.. They then wanted costs etc.. He hadn’t a clue.. He said he would get back to them..
They gave him an existing so called sign they wanted 500 of.. It was actually a vinyl label. With hundreds of tiny text “ingredients etc on it” flavour & so on.. 😮
I laughed and said, “so what did he say to that?” he said… “It would be ok once I got my cutter but how can I cut all that 500 times a week at .15 mill high? My hands will kill me and ill use god knows many scalpel blades..”
We both laughed.. He was so up his own backside he didn’t realise it was screen prints. Even after the interview He still thought it was vinyl cut because the guy kept saying our last guy supplied us this vinyl lettering… 😆 😆Oh well you win some you loose some.. in this case I think I won some how! 😉
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5 Replies
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It makes you wonder what they teach them at college.
It certainly aint common sense 😕
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tell me about it phill..
i dont know many have passed through our doors.
everytime they say.. god this is nothing like college!
a guy i have just now, and who is pretty good. told me that in his first three days with me i had taught him more than 2 year course in college.he said they showed them how to build a light box.. then said because of funds we will make it in MDF but we can make belive its alluminium etc.. (!)
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Geez – 2 years sign college and I expect the chap to teach ME – Perhaps it was a 3 month course he failed a few times.
I never hire on paper – burnt my fingers too many times like that – they come with a CV thats more like war and peace and all those fancy qualification mean zilch – there is no practical experience – no idea how to work under pressure and no “Kop” or savvy – ask the guy to make a plan and you get a blank stare.
I actually have 2 degrees , a B Bus Sci finance and a Bsc Comp sci and believe me , I NEVER use ANYTHING I learnt at University in business – serious not one thing I learned there is applicable – not even the computers cos in my day it was punch card readers etc – modern computers are not the same.One of my laser operators who had no design experience , went on a 4 week Corel course (He actually paid for it himself and when I heard about it – paid him back his fees) and he eclipses my “main” designer who has been here for 3 years. He comes out with amazing ideas and is really creative.
There is no way you can teach creativity or lateral thinking.
Worst of all , over here in SA we have extremely restrictive labour laws re hiring and firing , restrictive to the employer that is , it’s almost impossible to get someone out here unless they do something really serious (like murder a fellow employee 😉 -
Right I’m going to sound Realllllyyy OLD now 😆 most of these kids coming out of college these days are less than useless, a pal of mine runs the building courses at the local college and he reckons none of the current mob he is trying to teach would last a week in the trade at the moment, the main problems are that they have no “common dog” what so ever 🙁 are “gobby” “think they know it all” & “have no discipline” bearing in mind that I have known this guy for 30 years and he was lets say “no angel” and when I started work I was a clever little sh*t, but after a couple of weeks I changed because I was fed up with getting thumped every day for being mouthy :).
I left school at 16 and have no college, but have had people come to me looking for work with degrees, expecting to start at 20k a year, but they have no useful experience, they don’t know one end of a screwdriver from the other 😆 If a person comes to me and says “Look I don’t know diddly about signs but I’m willing to learn” then he’s going to get preference over some gradute who only has “Paper qualifications”
To be honest the best guy I have had was late 50’s semi retired and was only after part time work but he’s moved to Spain, jammy sod! 😆 😆Robert in my experience taking people on from further education and expecting them to be able to do the job straight away, well sorry mate but you will HAVE to spend a lot of time re-teaching these people, first job is give them all the crap jobs and see how they last, but tell them why they are sweeping up, its called “Man Mangement” mate, if they manage a month of sweeping up and making tea then they might be OK, scrap all this college rubbish and bring back apprenticeships, then send em’ to college. Am I making sense ?
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quote :scrap all this college rubbish and bring back apprenticeships
Steve as you said Apprenticeships are the best way to learn any trade IMHO.
I left school at 15/16 (youngest in my year0 and i completed a 4 year apprentiship for Lucas Aerospace as a machinist / toolmaker. now i didn’t stay in that trade afterwards for long , but the real life experiance it taught me is somthing i do not believe i could ever learn just in “further Education”.
We have Graduate Managers where i am on the railways ATm (hopefully after xmas i can go on my own) and there isn’t 1 decent manager amoungst them , they have no common sence, they can’t manage people, but they have all these degrees ect. now the managers who have worked their way up from the bottom, some ex appretices are probably the best we have, ok they may not fit in with the new way that the company want them to behave, but they get the job done and most inportant of all, they have the respect of the Staff. something i honestly dont think the graduates will ever get.Anyway enough of this rambleings.
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