What to expect from a apprentice

[sparkstu]

Hi all, got an apprentice now since I have taken over from the previous electrician his 3 months in to his time and due to start college in September. What would you expect him to be able to do and what sort of things would you allow him to do. He is my first apprentice so not to sure what to expect thanks stu

 

[Schneker]

I'm glad I wasn't your apprentice then!

When I was an apprentice my mentor did the bulk of the chasing while I got on with the actual electrical work.

How did you know it all, only 3 months into your apprenticeship?

 

[davesparks]

How did you know it all, only 3 months into your apprenticeship?

I didn't, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I didn't mention any specific amount of time for a start.
I was of course supervised and mentored through the whole time as required, but I was never left doing the chasing etc whilst he did the electrical work. I would either be watching him and learning or doing it under his supervision etc.

 

[assegayer]

at the end of the day chasing can be learnt in no time...Apprentices need to be taught electrical work thats why they want to do an ELECTRICAL apprenticeship, then sparks start complaining why people arnt trained properly, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN LEFT TO DIG OUT WALLS ALL DAY LONG. :biggrin5:

 

[Brightspark2]

.
I was of course supervised and mentored through the whole time as required, but I was never left doing the chasing etc whilst he did the electrical work. I would either be watching him and learning or doing it under his supervision etc.

Must of been boring!, watching your mentor just chasing out or even worse having him breathing over your shoulder while your doing it. I hate that!. You say the whole time too?!, your whole apprenticeship was either just watching someone or being watched yourself?. Ok early on but 3rd, 4th, 5th year? (How ever long your apprenticeship was) Never left a little task to do?.

After the initial year or so as a shadow I like to show my apprentices a task, explain it to them, watch them a bit then leave them to it. That way there kept interested because there kept busy and they also start to learn initiative. Starting with simple tasks and progressing as there apprenticeship and knowledge does.

What is going on in this thread, people jumping on there high horse because a 3 month apprentice is being asked to chase a wall. He never said that's all he was doing!.

They start from the bottom, there not too good to chase out, there learning to chase out. There not too good to sweep up, there learning to tidy up after thereselves. Starting with the basics as it's always been!.

 

[Leesparkykent]

Capping and boxing followed by more capping and boxing on new builds for about the 1st 4 months of my apprenticeship :cry_smile:

 

[sparkstu]

Capping and boxing followed by more capping and boxing on new builds for about the 1st 4 months of my apprenticeship :cry_smile:

i had the same maybe longer as my teacher lost his old apprentice when he qualified and he had me to starting from scratch so just seemed to take it out on me by making me do all the chasing out would go to help start capping to then get told to go chase out another plot!

 

[sparkstu]

at the end of the day chasing can be learnt in no time...Apprentices need to be taught electrical work thats why they want to do an ELECTRICAL apprenticeship, then sparks start complaining why people arnt trained properly, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN LEFT TO DIG OUT WALLS ALL DAY LONG. :biggrin5:

i agree chasing can be learnt in no time and sparks do complain people are not trained properly but until he learns to get them boxes perfect then he still needs time to get to grips with it. like i said I've had him for 3 weeks and i think the person who had him before couldn't be bothered with him he even got taught that switches went at 1400 to the bottom of the box

 

[Kamikaze]

at the end of the day chasing can be learnt in no time...Apprentices need to be taught electrical work thats why they want to do an ELECTRICAL apprenticeship, then sparks start complaining why people arnt trained properly, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN LEFT TO DIG OUT WALLS ALL DAY LONG. :biggrin5:

Reminds me of a little story when some of us were working in this property and all the walls were build of engineering brick. So to spread the load, everyone picked a room to chase out. The 1[SUP]st[/SUP] year apprentice came to see me after a couple of hours asking if I could accompany him as there might be a problem. When I got upstairs, I found the dividing wall between the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] bedroom missing. Calmly told him to tidy his mess up, tell the brickies to rebuild the wall and make sure the back box went in while they were rebuilding it…lol.
And the moral of the story is, chasing and drilling etc. are not menial tasks. There is a lot of skill and technique involved in chasing differed materials, which can only be learned by experience.
During my apprenticeship, there were no such things like battery drills, and we had to drill the holes through joists with a 4ft long hand held auger. That taught you two things:
1: To drill them as horizontally as possible. This allowed you to pull the cable through several joists at the time later.
2: By keeping the cables flat with no twists in them. This would allow you to pull more cables through the holes.
And the moral of that story is, if you run out of space within the holes, you had to drill another set. But I’m glad them days are gone!

 

[Dave OCD]

My youngest son who just turned 16 two weeks ago will be starting his apprenticeship with me next month, he's been out with me the last couple of days to start getting him up and running and the enthusiasm is very refreshing, already he's fitted a couple of surface boxes including carefully cutting out knock outs and done a little bit of surface clipping, he has the knack of dressing the cable sussed already which is great, very slow going but that's absolutely fine at this stage.
And customers have remarked that it's so nice to speak to a teenager who is pleasant with manners and doesn't converse in grunts.

 

[shanky887614]

3 years of chasing done me the world of good I'm sure. He ain't got it as bad as what I had it like I said I do chase with him.

Thankfully my mentor took the attitude that I was being paid to learn the trade, not be his bitch

i agree he needs to learn to chase properly and not rely on powertools.

the new apprentice is quite anoying, i get the feeling the lads will be getting him to make nipples or we will start using 25mm conduit XD for a while at least.

he is lucky my temperament is better than the guy that mostly trained me, he would have burn marks on his hands etc from cables being yanked out of his hands by now.


he is a very slow learner, was trying to explain how to feed the cables (on basket around loads of sets) but he was as quite as a mouse and kept holding the cable?

if he is holding it how am i supposed to pull it. after the 3rd time at that point i yelled at him from across the site to drop the cable and it was a lot easier XD


im happy to teach but when it goes in one ear and out the other it anoys me, the other lad is fine.

not the smartest by any stretch but he applies himself and i would happily leave him unsupervised to do things this other lad i wouldnt trust him to dress a single sy on 200mm basket unsupervised