great news last night

[phil d]

Craig, the last young lad I trained up rang me yesterday, he was learning with me for 2 years, he then got on with a big firm for his final year, due to cutbacks he was laid off after he qualified, then shortly after taken back on a self employed basis.

Recently the firm took him back on again on the books, he applied for his JIB gold card and got it, his company has been bought out by a bigger firm and they're keeping him on, they have increased his wage to £14 odd in line with JIB rates, and even better they are going to pay for him to do his I&T exam.

Boy was he one happy bunny when he rang me last night,reckons he's going to pop over with a present for me, for giving him a good start.

Isn't it nice to be appreciated.

 

[Sharpend]

Congratulations Phil, it would appear your life hasn't been wasted after all, one saved soul into the fold  :Applaud

 

[phil d]

Congratulations Phil, it would appear your life hasn't been wasted after all, one saved soul into the fold  :Applaud

I can't help but wonder if in years to come, he'll end up showing his apprentices the stuff I showed him. Makes you feel good to think you're helping the trade to carry on.

 

[Evans Electric]

You don't mean the stuff like squeezing a load of Fairy Liquid down a conduit  you can get another four cables in there  :innocent

I know what you're saying Phil...its good to know you helped someone on their way  ...AND..they appreciate it .!!  

An apprentice who worked with me at a firm in the late 60's  early 70's  went to work for the NHS  , he was doing well at college .      Years later we had started our own firm , were appointed to the NHS contractor list , and first job , he was the Project Manager and was excellent at it . He did the drawings , wrote the spec etc. You could tell he had a practical background  and knew what he was talking about .

One or two contractors had come unstuck with him because they tried to flannel him , thinking he,s just a suit , a chair polisher .  Trying to fit cheaper dist. boards say , when the idea was to try to standardise the make for stocking spares etc.

 

[phil d]

You don't mean the stuff like squeezing a load of Fairy Liquid down a conduit  you can get another four cables in there  :innocent

I know what you're saying Phil...its good to know you helped someone on their way  ...AND..they appreciate it .!!  

An apprentice who worked with me at a firm in the late 60's  early 70's  went to work for the NHS  , he was doing well at college .      Years later we had started our own firm , were appointed to the NHS contractor list , and first job , he was the Project Manager and was excellent at it . He did the drawings , wrote the spec etc. You could tell he had a practical background  and knew what he was talking about .

One or two contractors had come unstuck with him because they tried to flannel him , thinking he,s just a suit , a chair polisher .  Trying to fit cheaper dist. boards say , when the idea was to try to standardise the make for stocking spares etc.

When he started with the other firm he surprised them in the first couple of months, 1st they were on a job in Cumbria, replacing all the fittings and cables on a school. For some reason they had thrown away the screws attaching the lights to the conduit (imperial thread), the guy running the job said they'd now have to replace the conduit as they couldn't get the imperial screws. Anyway Craig rang me, I located them at a wholesalers not far from where they were working, he told them they were available and the job went as planned.

2nd job, they'd 1st fixed a job and ran cat5 for some camera's, then panicked because they'd run 4 cables and needed 5 camera's, Craig pointed out that you could actually run 4 camera's down 1 cat5, if they were powered locally, which they were, so where was the problem?

I used to give him problems and let him work out solutions, and then show him some of the less obvious options, I think teaching him to think out of the box has paid off for him.

 

[Tony S]

A bit better luck than I had with a certain wholesaler. Ordered a selection box of BA screws, nuts and washers, they sent metric. OK try again, same thing happens. I had four boxes on my desk before I gave up.

On my way to work each day I passed a little engineering suppliers I’d never dealt with before. I came out will lots of paper bags with all I needed, they sold them by weight. All I had to do now was prise the cash out of our company.
 

 

[Evans Electric]

Thats actually a classic mistake due to inexperience ....we had exactly the same with a couple of subbies on a job . Took down all the light fittings ...threw away all the 2BA  screws :Godno:   .   Never crossed their minds that they were obviously bigger than M4 s  .   It was due to them never really having had to think & plan as they were always employed at one of the large contractors  before coming to us as  S/E subbies .

They thought they knew it all when in fact they knew eff all TBH  other than basic tubing  & wiring , trunking ...not a clue on planning what materials they would need  or the best way to go about a job .      We had a major falling out on a couple of things , which I've spoken about on the Forum before  .

One was they maintained that a 32A x 30mA  RCD would give overload protection at 32 amps .

The other was , (see  sketch below)  in steel conduit  you cannot pass a neutral through a switchbox :C , so at a hospital, feed from basement , they installed as sketch instead of fitting switch where X is .      Hospital engineer was not happy ...its still the same now.

 

[phil d]

Thats actually a classic mistake due to inexperience ....we had exactly the same with a couple of subbies on a job . Took down all the light fittings ...threw away all the 2BA  screws :Godno:   .   Never crossed their minds that they were obviously bigger than M4 s  .   It was due to them never really having had to think & plan as they were always employed at one of the large contractors  before coming to us as  S/E subbies .

They thought they knew it all when in fact they knew eff all TBH  other than basic tubing  & wiring , trunking ...not a clue on planning what materials they would need  or the best way to go about a job .      We had a major falling out on a couple of things , which I've spoken about on the Forum before  .

One was they maintained that a 32A x 30mA  RCD would give overload protection at 32 amps .

The other was , (see  sketch below)  in steel conduit  you cannot pass a neutral through a switchbox :C , so at a hospital, feed from basement , they installed as sketch instead of fitting switch where X is .      Hospital engineer was not happy ...its still the same now.

View attachment 8163

See what you mean about not thinking, if there was some reason why you couldn't take the neutral through the switch box( I don't know one), then I'd have put a T box at X and attached the switch to that,switch box direct bushed to T box. Far neater, but there you go, some people can't think.

 

[rapparee]

All I had to do now was prise the cash out of our company.

God help you.

I am having trouble trying to set up an account with an electronics repair company, apparently the accountants insist we need the signatures of two company directors of the the company we're looking to deal with. It is a pity that the company I want to deal with is a worldwide multi billion dollar organisation with the directors based in America.

 

[Evans Electric]

See what you mean about not thinking, if there was some reason why you couldn't take the neutral through the switch box( I don't know one), then I'd have put a T box at X and attached the switch to that,switch box direct bushed to T box. Far neater, but there you go, some people can't think.

I found out where this came from .  These guys ...(along with quite a few others )  had misinterpreted where the Regs refer to never switching the neutral only.

Somehow this became ....you can't pass a neutral through a switch box...I had the same on a  twin & earth job ... another guy decided you can't use a switchbox to loop the N  or 3 plate in it .   

We also did work for an adjoining council  to Brum......not allowed to 3 plate at the light fitting beause if you switch the light off  , the rose is still live . :C  

I had yet another subby who maintained you can't wire through socket boxes in a conduit system .It has to be done as below using tee boxes  :C   I never discovered the reasoning behind this .   ( See sketch)  

 

[rapparee]

I had yet another subby who maintained you can't wire through socket boxes in a conduit system .It has to be done as below using tee boxes  :C   I never discovered the reasoning behind this .   ( See sketch)  

View attachment 8164

Probably afraid of some donkey using 3.5mm screws that were far too long and damaging the loom directly behind.

 

[Lurch]

Probably afraid of some donkey using 3.5mm screws that were far too long and damaging the loom directly behind.

I work with people that come out with stuff like this, it's an absolute nightmare. It's hard to argue with them as they aren't technically wrong.

 

[Evans Electric]

Hhmmm !  Well they're not technically right either Lurch.    The two guys with the RCD  & Neutrals in switchboxes fixation became really argumentative and we parted company .  The one was literally screaming at me that you can't draw a neutral cable through a switchbox .  

 

[Lurch]

The two guys with the RCD  & Neutrals in switchboxes fixation became really argumentative and we parted company

Well yeah, those two doofuses (doofii?) were definitely wrong.

 

[Evans Electric]

Oh  thats the plural of doofus then :innocent

 

[roys]

Back to the using T boxs so that there was no through wires, the reason I was taught for doing this was that if the back box became damaged for example a lug breaking it would be easy to change, but would be more trouble if you had through wires running through the back box.

it made sense to me, must admit I tend to have used the T box method but not always.