When you started the apprenticeship last year, it was something you seemed to be really enjoying. Was it just money that prompted the change of direction?
I was enjoying it, but then employer started ripping me off by not paying me for college time. Made it completely financially unviable. Ironically all the guys who worked for the company were complete doyles who either didn't know what they were doing or were uninterested in the apprentices' learning, but the agency workers on there were gold dust.
I learned a lot from just making sure i was working with the most experienced guy on there. Four or us going up in two MEWP's? Bagsy i'm getting in his one.
I was basically doing the improvers job on site along with the improvers and when i found out they were on 50% more money than me i thought why not just do that.
Then i ended up doing mostly solar for good money and now i'm on some pharmaceutical build earning silly money. Take home pay is 4 figures a week - i'm literally 6 figures better off over the course of an apprenticeship by not doing an apprenticeship. I'm still learning every day and wanted to do an apprenticeship but at the end of the day i'm not doing it for passion, i go to work to make money and i make much more of it this way and can still get properly qualified.
Funnily enough the guy who took me on my first solar project is the project manager at a prominent solar company out of Salford and Durham. He called me up begging me to go help him on a job. What had he done? Took the main earth out of a board and tried to use it as a draw wire to pull a cable from the underneath of the stairs (where the CU was) up into the first floor floor space, and it had come off and gotten lost under the floor and he couldn't get it back to the board. Kiddies running round in a completely unearthed home.
He then proceeded to drill a hole straight through a joist into the clients kitchen ceiling, leaving a massive 30mm hole. The week before he drilled through a main incomer and knocked 3 houses out for like 6 hours.
Guy threatened to walk because he wanted 75 grand a year.
Absolute muppet. Unqualified muppet i may add. Think he got his 18th edition out a packet of cornflakes since he didn't know basic regs and only had some mickey mouse testing cert. I was talking to him and making a joke about 'at least they didn't put something really dangerous in with that sized (1.5mm) cable, like....' and i was about to say '63A breaker' when he chimed in with '6A breaker, he'd have burnt the place down'.