I'm not sure I'll win many friends with this post but what constitutes a "good spark"?I've never really got that,does it mean a good spark is the one who's the neatest?does it mean the one who's the fastest?
I'm looking for a little bit of back up from my industrial control friends here but to me the "best" sparks are the ones who can identify the CAUSE of the problems,repair them a)quickly so no major loss of production etc b)so it doesn't occurr again c) find a good solution to the problem.
Good example.There's a boy that works with me,always puts the bootlace ferrules on,cable ties every x mm etc,proper crimping tools so the ends are on "just so".
I got called at 3.45pm to finish off wiring up a plug motor as he had to get home,it's 2 speed and forward reverse.
Get there to find it's been wired up,but it's going the wrong way,fair enough,so I swap two phases on the contactor.
Him"why are you doing that,it's wired as I took it off??",me "to change direction",him"I'm going home,this is beyond me".
I then found he'd put the slow to fast/fast to slow,this is easy to check beforehand through resistance checks.
I turn to explain this to him and he's running down the road with the apprentice,well done boys.
The managers now standing there asking me why it's not running,being a loyal guy,I try covering for him.the manager then informs me that he's been on this job since 11.30,4+ hrs to wire in a 6 wire motor which is 100% accessible and it doesn't even work!!!but it looks neat though!!!
1/2 way through this the shift spark comes in and I go back to my original job. Now this guys not well thought of round the place,he's seen as lazy,likes sitting down/talking etc.
Like me he's not local so that doesn't help either.
Within 10 minutes he has it running,productions back on and all's well.
The next shift,mr neat is receiving all the plaudits from our maintenance supervisor for the lovely neat job he did,until mr manager puts him straight.
A lot is said on here regarding domestic installers,"5 week wonders" etc,for gods sake someone even put up how backward we are compared to polish/portugese sparks!!!get a grip lads,the older ones amongst you know that what constitutes a "spark" now is not what it was even 15years ago,modular systems now mean that most domestic/installation work is pretty much child's play.
In my nigh on 20years I've seen maybe 2 domestic boys that can make the transition to a more control/faultfinding environment,and they're still way off what probably a 3rd year apprentice who's done a proper faultfinding course is.
So I ask again,what constitutes a "good spark"?
Or should the question be,what constitutes a "good worker"?
The two in my eyes are hugely different.mr neats no use to me at 3am when I can't get a machine to start,but when I find corroded terminals in a junction box,he could be the man to rewire it,provided I mark all the cables up for him first,I'm sure the job will look fantastic,but he could never find why it needed to be done in the first place.
There's a lad working with me now,apprentice 3rd year,bright boy but old before his time.
He spent a day once trying to correct what I was telling him as he'd been told the "correct" way to do things by "good sparks".
I sat him down after 5 hrs of this cr4p and asked him a simple question,do you want to spend the rest of your days connecting up sockets,making sure trunkings level,getting all your cables to bend at the same angles because your told to,or do you want to be the guy who does it because he knows WHY it needed doing in the first place.
Only time will tell.