Learning curve
The house I've been working on has got awfully busy lately as the proper builders turned up to start erecting the balcony. I concentrated on keeping put of their way while at the same time making sure that there was enough parking space for everybody, and that one team's delivery of raw materials didn't get on the way of another team's working area. I found paintbrushes for those who needed them, gave the use of my ladders to another group who needed to work ten feet off the ground but hadn't remembered that human beings don't float or hover on the breeze, and in between all of the fluffing around, found some peace and solitude on top of the twenty foot tower from which I was painting the fascia boards and gable ends.
From my lofty perch I heard a sharp fusillade of words, something along the lines of "You never ever touch that with your fingers, do you understand?" One of the 'lads' had been cutting up wood on the table saw, and the carpenter had spotted him using his hands to lift the blade guard up out of the way of the wood as it met the blade.
Having a 'lad' as an assistant is a heavy responsibility. You find that you have to think for two, look out for two, and explain everything, including the simplest and apparently most obvious things. I've been in that position in the past, and hated it. It's like being weighed down with a rucksack full of stones and sent out to try and do the same time for a cross-country run.
The apprentice scheme is one of the things that we seem to have lost in this country, and as you'll have gathered from the last paragraph, I'm not about to start wailing and claiming it's the beginning of the end. The worst sort of pupil is a reluctant one, and from what I remember of apprentices, many of them wished they were doing something else. My worst apprentice certainly did.
I was tasked with calibrating some high-voltage test equipment that could deliver lashings of voltage and current for brief periods of time, four hundred kilovolts of it. The job involved attaching test leads to the points from which the lightnings streamers would erupt, attaching the other ends of the leads to a controlled spark gap, and then recording the distance between the spark gaps at which the arc just began to jump.
It was very important to make sure that there was no residual voltage on the spheres before walking in to attach the test leads to them, because even a residual charge of twenty thousand volts left in the giant capacitor banks would be lethal, so the first job would be to go carefully into the walkways between the spheres with a long wooden pole to which was attached a metal hook and a wire, which would first of all be attached to a known earthing point. The hook would be slipped over the discharge point, and after a few seconds irt would be safe to reach up and attach the test lead clip.
I didn't want the apprentice, but I was told I had to show him what I was doing and why I was doing it. So I explained as best I could that the most important thing about any job was to be able to go home at night with the same number of fingers and toes. I explained about lightning, invisible stored charge, and how joining a strong wire between a cable and the ground meant that you wouldn't get a shock from the cable, because it was effectively all part of the ground while the wire was attached.
I put him by the earth attachment point, clipped the cable on, and told him to stay there and watch me. I didn't want him anywhere near the metal spheres and there invisible lurking menace until I myself knew they were safe. I walked through the safety gates, up to the first sphere, and was about to left the rod when I stopped and turned around. The apprentice was standing right behind me, holding in his hand the other end of the earthing wire that was running to the tip of my wooden pole.
He said he couldn't see what I was doing from where I had left him, and he thought that he ought to bring the end of the wire with him, because I had told him to stay beside it.
I took him back to the office and declined to be a mentor on this particular task. I had enough to do looking after myself as it was. The sort of knowledge I was being asked to impart should be taught in a classroom, not in the workplace.
From my lofty perch I heard a sharp fusillade of words, something along the lines of "You never ever touch that with your fingers, do you understand?" One of the 'lads' had been cutting up wood on the table saw, and the carpenter had spotted him using his hands to lift the blade guard up out of the way of the wood as it met the blade.
Having a 'lad' as an assistant is a heavy responsibility. You find that you have to think for two, look out for two, and explain everything, including the simplest and apparently most obvious things. I've been in that position in the past, and hated it. It's like being weighed down with a rucksack full of stones and sent out to try and do the same time for a cross-country run.
The apprentice scheme is one of the things that we seem to have lost in this country, and as you'll have gathered from the last paragraph, I'm not about to start wailing and claiming it's the beginning of the end. The worst sort of pupil is a reluctant one, and from what I remember of apprentices, many of them wished they were doing something else. My worst apprentice certainly did.
I was tasked with calibrating some high-voltage test equipment that could deliver lashings of voltage and current for brief periods of time, four hundred kilovolts of it. The job involved attaching test leads to the points from which the lightnings streamers would erupt, attaching the other ends of the leads to a controlled spark gap, and then recording the distance between the spark gaps at which the arc just began to jump.
It was very important to make sure that there was no residual voltage on the spheres before walking in to attach the test leads to them, because even a residual charge of twenty thousand volts left in the giant capacitor banks would be lethal, so the first job would be to go carefully into the walkways between the spheres with a long wooden pole to which was attached a metal hook and a wire, which would first of all be attached to a known earthing point. The hook would be slipped over the discharge point, and after a few seconds irt would be safe to reach up and attach the test lead clip.
I didn't want the apprentice, but I was told I had to show him what I was doing and why I was doing it. So I explained as best I could that the most important thing about any job was to be able to go home at night with the same number of fingers and toes. I explained about lightning, invisible stored charge, and how joining a strong wire between a cable and the ground meant that you wouldn't get a shock from the cable, because it was effectively all part of the ground while the wire was attached.
I put him by the earth attachment point, clipped the cable on, and told him to stay there and watch me. I didn't want him anywhere near the metal spheres and there invisible lurking menace until I myself knew they were safe. I walked through the safety gates, up to the first sphere, and was about to left the rod when I stopped and turned around. The apprentice was standing right behind me, holding in his hand the other end of the earthing wire that was running to the tip of my wooden pole.
He said he couldn't see what I was doing from where I had left him, and he thought that he ought to bring the end of the wire with him, because I had told him to stay beside it.
I took him back to the office and declined to be a mentor on this particular task. I had enough to do looking after myself as it was. The sort of knowledge I was being asked to impart should be taught in a classroom, not in the workplace.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 7:33 pm
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