Quality of apprenticeships!

[Simonslimline]

I have worked for two different companies since i started out on my training route and have to say have been very disappointed with both of them.

The more i have learned has opened my eyes to the more bad practices i am seeing. For instance the other day my now old boss buried some Twin & earth in the floor of a kitchen in a chase in some plastic oval capping!

To me this is a complete bodge and is not acceptable. There have been many other things including not having time to earth the armour of the SWA etc, oh it doesn't matter its only a temp supply.

Needless to say i have had enough of seeing this sort of Carp practice and am now unemployed.

So i suppose my question is, how have you guys found the companies you work for? I feel i have maybe been quite unlucky with the ones i worked for, and should have been looking for much bigger companies i guess.

Cheers.

 

[Pete999]

I have worked for two different companies since i started out on my training route and have to say have been very disappointed with both of them.

The more i have learned has opened my eyes to the more bad practices i am seeing. For instance the other day my now old boss buried some Twin & earth in the floor of a kitchen in a chase in some plastic oval capping!

To me this is a complete bodge and is not acceptable. There have been many other things including not having time to earth the armour of the SWA etc, oh it doesn't matter its only a temp supply.

Needless to say i have had enough of seeing this sort of Carp practice and am now unemployed.

So i suppose my question is, how have you guys found the companies you work for? I feel i have maybe been quite unlucky with the ones i worked for, and should have been looking for much bigger companies i guess.

Cheers.

Sounds like your old boss is a bit of a, dare I say it? cowboy, yes during my time I have seen some right botch jobs, problem is prices are cut so close

 

[Richard Burns]

Unfortunately you will find this in many companies, cash is king, quality is not required, it will work won't it.
It does seem that bigger companies are also in the same boat, what is the minimum we can do to get the result we want and get paid.

Good for you for maintaining standards, it is important and it will pay dividends in the long term.
Poor work means limited repeat business, though there are always new customers coming in and often customers are unaware of the risks they have been exposed to.

Sorry that this all sounds negative, there are good companies out there and they do do good work, the problems for another electrician is that they are rarely called out to do any work on a good installation that works properly and therefore probably get a biased view of the quality of work of others.

People will always take short cuts but it is having the knowledge to know where you can take short cuts and where you cannot (or should not!).

One would hope that training someone would encourage best practice but it seems this is not the case for you.

Best of luck with getting a quality company next time.

 

[Paul.M]

Unfortunately you will find this in many companies, cash is king, quality is not required, it will work won't it.
It does seem that bigger companies are also in the same boat, what is the minimum we can do to get the result we want and get paid.

The above statement is so true on every level. One man bands all the way to the biggest companies in the UK are all under pressure for an end result whilst keeping within the budget.

Not every company cuts corners to save a few quid, I've worked with some of the worst and some of the best small and medium sized companies in the area. It is heart warming when the Electrical Foreman says "I want you to do this..... Take as much time as you need, we want this to be perfect." Others say "just get it in, no one will see it once the wall is put up (etc)."

Every Moderator in the TS has had this problem some time in our working history, I walked off a job/contract last year because of poor design and workmanship. The company owner is a good mate of mine but I still walked from the rubbish site when it got to the stage that the install may have been dangerous if not corrected, it was not going to be corrected and his attitude was "IT WILL BE FINE"!!!! Guess what, it wasn't and he has just spent a week free of charge fixing all the things I pointed out to him before and during the install.


A lot boils down to personal and company attitude.

 

[Simonslimline]

Yes the old "it will be fine" comment. Heard that one a load of times as well.

The thing that annoys me most is that most of the time the client doesn't know what they are looking at anyway, so how are they to see whats wrong with it.
Taking a Zs reading and calculating the (R1+R2) from the result was another frequent one as well, From someone with the 2391 this is quite shocking to be honest.