So......when I Was An Apprentice I Had To.....................

[Evans Electric]

Had a fight with one sparks once .   He was a right ogre who hated apprentices and was always sending them back to the office as useless.      I was an 18yr yr old apprentice on a new hospital build , sparks sends me down to the stores shed for something, opened the door and theres a rat with his head in the sparks teacup , I reach for the pliers hooked in my back pocket and hurl them at said rat .    The rat fled at the speed of light and had long gone while pliers are still in the air .

Pliers hit cup , cup shatters .  I return to top floor with the stuff and relate the tale which the sparks doesn't believe ,  tries to smack me round the head , calls me a lying toad , we end up grappling , handbags at dawn really ,  he grabs my hands , I bend his wrists back and realise ( unlike most sparks)  he's as weak as pi$$  so he ends up in some sort of headlock on the ground with my knee in his neck , turning blue.  

Other sparks break it up ,  he shakes hands and says I was the only apprentii to stand up to him and we end up being mates . (still had to buy a new mug though) 

He was ex Army and spoke like the old Sergeant Majors ,    sort of ;   " Matey matey matey I want all this trunking lid fitted before we go home or I'll have you screwing nipples  for a week ...you 'orrible little man "   ( Joking)  

A few years later I'd moved on ,  I'd worked for a number of firms  and was jointing a cable down a 1mtr hole on a railway station platform ,  I heard a train pull in , then the dreaded voice again ..." Matey Matey matey ...what the pluck are you doing down that hole ,,,you 'orrible little man ?   Get yourself out of there and buy me a pint or I'll have you spud bashing for a week"     

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

That rat story reminded me.............  Me and a spark were in the foremans site  office on a huge London office block and he takes a gulp of tea from his favorite mug. He is quizzically staring  back and forth between us and the mug contents, he gingerly pours out  a little bit of tea and with an almighty rage stands up and throws the mug over our heads and it smashes on the wall behind. He shouts at us 'you f*cking dare laugh  or tell anyone about this and your sacked', he storms out the room. I looked at the other spark , we both looked round and there was a drowned mouse amongst the broken crockery.

An hour earlier that mouse was being thrown around the sparks tea hut and i guessed  who had put it there so i was really biting my tongue trying not to smile.

 

[ProDave]

Not a rat, but in the apprentice school in our first year, someone gently lowered a reel of solder into one of the instructors half full cups of tea.  the tea level came up just above the top of the solder reel.  He drank part of it until the solder was exposed.

 

[Evans Electric]

Oh memories coming thick n fast now .   

Back to the same firm I was an apprentice at.     They had a huge team onsite at the now defunct, Longbridge car Plant , doing the new Mini lines,  rumoured to be 100 pair.   Anyway  an obnoxious forman was to transfer to another huge contract they had where the CV joints were made at the other side of the city.  

His tools & stuff went on the van Friday night and were dropped there on Monday morning.   I didn't witness this and it was't me wot did it but on opening his toolbox he found someone had ...erm ..um... defecated in it .

 

[Manator]

I remember having to terminate loads and loads of piro, the gang I worked with ran it all out and left myself to do the terminations and testing (only continuity at this stage) I did hundreds of them. After about 12 months our company had a contest around Christmas time, the contest was to cut terminate and test a 3 core piro cable in the shortest time. Of course everyone had a go and then it was my turn :slap

I had done all the terminations for months and could do them with lightening speed.

The prize, a weekend for two at Butlins. I was only 17 so gave the prize away to the guy I was apprenticed to. I became his best mate and often had Sunday dinner with him and his wife thereafter.

 

[ProDave]

Oh memories coming thick n fast now .   

Back to the same firm I was an apprentice at.     They had a huge team onsite at the now defunct, Longbridge car Plant , doing the new Mini lines,  rumoured to be 100 pair.   Anyway  an obnoxious forman was to transfer to another huge contract they had where the CV joints were made at the other side of the city.  

His tools & stuff went on the van Friday night and were dropped there on Monday morning.   I didn't witness this and it was't me wot did it but on opening his toolbox he found someone had ...erm ..um... defecated in it .

They do better than that up here http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/d8/95/d89592_4828886.jpg

 

[OnOff]

I used to get sent away to act as a mate all over the country to work with the test and commissioning guys or to do surveys for jobs that would never come off that none of the guys who were married with kids wanted to do. (I thought they were being good to me). Most of the time I'd be picked up in a van but occassionally I'd have to travel by train be it Norwich, Cardiff or Bradford, or wherever. More than anything I think it was done as a confidence builder.

First time I did it I was told to "Go and see Doreen and get a float". "How much is your fare?" said Doreen. Say it was £30 and she'd say "Well, best take £150 then". I was scared as carrying what was for me then 2 or 3 weeks wages. I came back presented my duly completed expenses form with "Train Fare £30" written on it and the £120 change to return. My governor looked at me, shook his head & took me to one side. He then explained how things "worked". The conversation went something like:

Him: "You drove your own car to the station then?"

Me: "Erm....yes!

Him "Well, best put a fiver down for petrol, and then of course there's your parking"

Me: "But I parked in the street........"

Him: "No you didn't. And then you had breakfast on the train and obviously bought a newspaper"

Me: "My mum gave me sandwiches..........."

It just went on and on. There was the fictional taxi fare from the station to the site. then I apparently bought the site agent lunch. Coming home, a meal on the train and a couple of beers. The train was late and I had to buy the girfriend some flowers.............the dry cleaning as I'd gotten my own clothes dirty!

I would go back to Doreen with a beautifully presented piece of creative writing tallying up about £200 and come away with £50 in my pocket!

I was even instructed on which cafes to use where I would be given books of blank receipts to take back to the old hands at the firm.

That gravy train has long since stopped running! :lol:

 

[ProDave]

We won't go into the fact I claimed expenses to drive from Oxford to Reading for college on Mondays and Tuesdays, but stayed overnight with a mate near Reading :coat

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

They do better than that up here http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/d8/95/d89592_4828886.jpg

Even better,  turned up early on site on a Tuesday after a bank holiday and met the foreman at the site gate. He invited me into his office for a cuppa (Now that was a privilege) as it was early. As he opened his door this unbelievably obnoxious smell  hit us, which we shortly found came from where someone had shat in his top draw, and it was a runny one and must have been fermenting the whole weekend. I never found out who did it or how they got in.

 

[OnOff]

Not an apprenticeship story per se but in keeping with the way the thread is going..............when I was at college it transpired that two of the older lads who were mature students knew the lecturer from years before. There was a bit of ribbing when they met up at the first lesson.

The story was that years before they had all been working on a huge housing estate. The lecturer had been doing first fix and was working on his own expecting a lift home later on. These couple of other lads left site to get some food but would have to come back past the estate. The lecturer decided he'd carry on working and wait for his lift but asked them to grab him some grub and drop it off on the way back. A short while later they returned in the van, tooted outside. Freeezing cold and famished he ran out and grabbed the Kentucky bag off of them and they scarpered.

We were falling about as he told us plouged his way through the fries then opened the other box in the bottom of the bag.............lets just there were 3 pieces and they were still warm!

:lol:

 

[Pete10001]

Getting sent for the following: bucket of steam,  long weight, 3/4" holes, smooth files, a box of amps, putlock holes for scaffolding, sky hooks, 

 

[OnOff]

Getting sent for the following: bucket of steam,  long weight, 3/4" holes, smooth files, a box of amps, putlock holes for scaffolding, sky hooks, 

"Holes" and "slots" were, at least in our factory genuine items. For example an "18x36 slot" was a punching size and they used to keep a few back in case the hole/slot was in the wrong place on the crane or rails and they needed to weld it back up. One story was a previous apprentice got told to "go and get a handful of holes" and got sacked for refusing to do so. A company myth probably but you'll get the idea.

I actually just had some "slots" made for a job where a motor was fitted in slotted plates and I needed to pack them out to stop it moving and make it mate better with the driven slewing ring. Took me back it did!

 

[kerching]

A "box of dial tones"

A "long stare"

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Have Skyhooks been mentioned yet  ?

 

[Manator]

Have Skyhooks been mentioned yet  ?

Yes :slap

 

[Evans Electric]

Skyhooks .....you can't get them these days.

 

[Manator]

Skyhooks .....you can't get them these days.

http://www.e-shopfittings.co.uk/poster_hanging_fittings/sky_hooks/5924_p.html

 

[Technician]

I thought it might have been one of these.

Cessna CH-1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[misssweden]

So far I haven't got any good stories to tell about my apprenticeship. Most exciting/dangerous occurence so far was a transformer nearly blowing up. Oh, and I accidentally out sugar in an old, grumpy jointers coffee. My life flashed before my eyes... So pretty much a walk in the park compared to your stories.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

So far I haven't got any good stories to tell about my apprenticeship. Most exciting/dangerous occurence so far was a transformer nearly blowing up. Oh, and I accidentally out sugar in an old, grumpy jointers coffee. My life flashed before my eyes... So pretty much a walk in the park compared to your stories.

Has it been asked, what are your other skills ?  :innocent :huh:

PS, i clicked on this  

  but then though it may be misconstrued & i dont want to be put in the Saville camp   :lol: