Signs of a chancer

[Bri963]

Chancers Revisited 2.

had a crusher on site last month. After two days breaking concrete and brick rammell that we’d already gone through with a breaker, the crusher threw a very large piece of itself out onto the belt. After four days of being promised a fitter, one turned up, security sent him on-site then let me know he was here.

I nip over to see him, and when I get there, there’s a lad no more than twelve, overalls longer than his boots, with a battery gun (Milwaukee, some of you will be pleased to know) taking panels off while Dad watches. Dad says, “He isn’t as quick as his brother, he’d have had it in bits by now, he’s 14”. I said the lad needed to get back in the van and stay there, and Dad replied “It’s better than him being at home with his mum, I’ve got five kids by her and she’s a crackhead”. School didn’t seem to be an option.

I don’t know which bit had me shaking my head the most. I did have some severe words with the hire company, just before putting the machine off hire.

 

[Lancs Lad]

Chancers Revisited 2.

had a crusher on site last month. After two days breaking concrete and brick rammell that we’d already gone through with a breaker, the crusher threw a very large piece of itself out onto the belt. After four days of being promised a fitter, one turned up, security sent him on-site then let me know he was here.

I nip over to see him, and when I get there, there’s a lad no more than twelve, overalls longer than his boots, with a battery gun (Milwaukee, some of you will be pleased to know) taking panels off while Dad watches. Dad says, “He isn’t as quick as his brother, he’d have had it in bits by now, he’s 14”. I said the lad needed to get back in the van and stay there, and Dad replied “It’s better than him being at home with his mum, I’ve got five kids by her and she’s a crackhead”. School didn’t seem to be an option.

I don’t know which bit had me shaking my head the most. I did have some severe words with the hire company, just before putting the machine off hire.

But did they get the job done 🫣
He sounds better than the other chancer...

 

[JD450A]

Chancers Revisited 2.

had a crusher on site last month. After two days breaking concrete and brick rammell that we’d already gone through with a breaker, the crusher threw a very large piece of itself out onto the belt. After four days of being promised a fitter, one turned up, security sent him on-site then let me know he was here.

I nip over to see him, and when I get there, there’s a lad no more than twelve, overalls longer than his boots, with a battery gun (Milwaukee, some of you will be pleased to know) taking panels off while Dad watches. Dad says, “He isn’t as quick as his brother, he’d have had it in bits by now, he’s 14”. I said the lad needed to get back in the van and stay there, and Dad replied “It’s better than him being at home with his mum, I’ve got five kids by her and she’s a crackhead”. School didn’t seem to be an option.

I don’t know which bit had me shaking my head the most. I did have some severe words with the hire company, just before putting the machine off hire.

Mixed feelings on it.... I grew up doing that s**t as did many of the other lads I know coming into the industry atm. Lets face it, 12,14,16..... most sites frown on anyone under 18 these days, by which time the oppertunity to learn the required motorskills is waining.

The reason we only have f****ng retards with no interest but the coin left is it's no longer nurtured.

 

[Bri963]

But did they get the job done 🫣
He sounds better than the other chancer...

No, they didn’t.

 

[Lancs Lad]

Mixed feelings on it.... I grew up doing that s**t as did many of the other lads I know coming into the industry atm. Lets face it, 12,14,16..... most sites frown on anyone under 18 these days, by which time the oppertunity to learn the required motorskills is waining.

The reason we only have f****ng retards with no interest but the coin left is it's no longer nurtured.

Similar.
Weird it sounds but I've a theory if a kid can run a drill and sockets etc by 8 he's set up .. I've seen 40 year old blokes who can't use a cordless drill ..pathetic. motor skills is a very valid point.

 

[Lancs Lad]

No, they didn’t.

How did they pass site induction out of interest?

 

[Bri963]

Mixed feelings on it.... I grew up doing that s**t as did many of the other lads I know coming into the industry atm. Lets face it, 12,14,16..... most sites frown on anyone under 18 these days, by which time the oppertunity to learn the required motorskills is waining.

The reason we only have f****ng retards with no interest but the coin left is it's no longer nurtured.

Try that one in court if there’s an accident.

 

[Bri963]

How did they pass site induction out of interest?

Security didn’t see junior when they came on site. Think he might have been hid up in the back the same as when they left.

 

[JD450A]

Try that one in court if there’s an accident.

Oh I quite agree, hence mixed feelings.

When you think that less than a century ago it was commonplace for boys as young as 14 to be signed up for the royal navy. And it was also commonplace for 14 year old lads to start apprenticeships. Now they HAVE to be in education till 18 and many consider it a right to be doing nothing but "learning" until into there 20's.

Personally I think the world needs to wobble it's head and let kids like that leave school earlier to enter the workplace under supervision. With notable strings attached including day release to college to learn key skills.

 

[Bri963]

Similar.
Weird it sounds but I've a theory if a kid can run a drill and sockets etc by 8 he's set up .. I've seen 40 year old blokes who can't use a cordless drill ..pathetic. motor skills is a very valid point.

One of the best I’ve worked with was doing just that, working in his Dad’s business. But by heck he had some awful habits when he came with us at 17, including some dangerous ones that he’d inherited from dad. You can’t say hard and fast that everyone who starts young is going to be brilliant and everyone who starts older isn’t going to get it, it depends on willingness to learn more than anything, and who’s doing the training.

 

[Bri963]

Oh I quite agree, hence mixed feelings.

When you think that less than a century ago it was commonplace for boys as young as 14 to be signed up for the royal navy. And it was also commonplace for 14 year old lads to start apprenticeships. Now they HAVE to be in education till 18 and many consider it a right to be doing nothing but "learning" until into there 20's.

Personally I think the world needs to wobble it's head and let kids like that leave school earlier to enter the workplace under supervision. With notable strings attached including day release to college to learn key skills.

100%. X2

 

[JD450A]

100%. X2

IMHO IF I had the resources and the money I'd be looking at setting up some regional residential colleges to take the "Dross" that schools can't teach and give them the oppertunity to act with respect and learn.... I'm convinced that if most of these rejects where pulled out of the system at 14, put into a situation where they either stayed, or left and "worked" 10 hour days with time spent doing theoretical, practical, individual and team projects on STEM subjects that could be related to the real world they would come out as far better people than they ever get the chance to be.

Three weeks on, a Week Off, Repeat - with weekend time allowed to be time for there own projects in the workshops should they choose.
I've always been convinced that would drastically change peoples outcomes

 

[Bri963]

IMHO IF I had the resources and the money I'd be looking at setting up some regional residential colleges to take the "Dross" that schools can't teach and give them the oppertunity to act with respect and learn.... I'm convinced that if most of these rejects where pulled out of the system at 14, put into a situation where they either stayed, or left and "worked" 10 hour days with time spent doing theoretical, practical, individual and team projects on STEM subjects that could be related to the real world they would come out as far better people than they ever get the chance to be.

Three weeks on, a Week Off, Repeat - with weekend time allowed to be time for there own projects in the workshops should they choose.
I've always been convinced that would drastically change peoples outcomes

There’s thing in Peterborough called UTC which concentrates on STEM Subjects, takes students from 14 or 16 to GCSE and A level or BTEC. It’s not been going many years but it seems to be getting good results. The big problem is schools dropping metalwork, woodwork etc. because of insurance and health and safety, or having teachers with no industry background in what they’re teaching.

Why don’t you round up some 14 year olds and give them Druid’s shed for a project?

 

[Smiffy]

I think the problem is that even then a learning environment won't 100% grab the attention of most of these. They really need apprenticeships so they have some kind of monetary reward. I know money has certainly been the only thing to properly motivate me. Well that and chasing the opposite sex. But somehow I think that would be hard to instigate legally.

The idea that we can sit everyone in a classroom and end up with a good outcome is utterly ridiculous.

On the subject of chancers a bloke on a machine a few weeks ago making a right pigs earhole of the job. I asked if offsetting the boom would help and he looked puzzled. I lent in the cab and hit the foot pedal to swing it round. He didn't realise you could do it. I understand that everyone doesn't know everything straight away. But he had don a morning walk round check 3 times. And hadn't noticed a ram. Then sat in the machine for 3 days and hadn't once fiddled with the pedal or looked at the sticker even. And then asked.how can anyone with so little mechanical aptitude ever drive a machine well.
He somehow managed to hang around for a year before finding a job on a 13t on a tip site. On the last day I was still having to talk him through climbing a fairly small and insignificant bank safely.

Another bloke quit when I asked him to track across a bank with a ditch at the bottom. Been operating machines for 30 years apparently. Said I could do it myself thinking I couldn't operate and was just a supervisor and got even more upset when I did it and showed him up.

 

[Lancs Lad]

I think the problem is that even then a learning environment won't 100% grab the attention of most of these. They really need apprenticeships so they have some kind of monetary reward. I know money has certainly been the only thing to properly motivate me. Well that and chasing the opposite sex. But somehow I think that would be hard to instigate legally.

The idea that we can sit everyone in a classroom and end up with a good outcome is utterly ridiculous.

On the subject of chancers a bloke on a machine a few weeks ago making a right pigs earhole of the job. I asked if offsetting the boom would help and he looked puzzled. I lent in the cab and hit the foot pedal to swing it round. He didn't realise you could do it. I understand that everyone doesn't know everything straight away. But he had don a morning walk round check 3 times. And hadn't noticed a ram. Then sat in the machine for 3 days and hadn't once fiddled with the pedal or looked at the sticker even. And then asked.how can anyone with so little mechanical aptitude ever drive a machine well.
He somehow managed to hang around for a year before finding a job on a 13t on a tip site. On the last day I was still having to talk him through climbing a fairly small and insignificant bank safely.

Another bloke quit when I asked him to track across a bank with a ditch at the bottom. Been operating machines for 30 years apparently. Said I could do it myself thinking I couldn't operate and was just a supervisor and got even more upset when I did it and showed him up.

Once was watching a bloke on a site when shopping...after a bit this little voice next to me said dad why doesn't he slew the boom ..7 year old

 

[Lancs Lad]

Security didn’t see junior when they came on site. Think he might have been hid up in the back the same as when they left.

Quality...gnome stuff that


Gotta admit it's better than sat on an iPad learning how peter who is now Jane can marry Fred who was Frieda before he was Freddy can have two babies whilst saving the planet from global warming by driving a milk float though....

 

[GazCro]

Kinda fits and kinda part of the problem these days

 

[Bri963]

I think the problem is that even then a learning environment won't 100% grab the attention of most of these. They really need apprenticeships so they have some kind of monetary reward. I know money has certainly been the only thing to properly motivate me. Well that and chasing the opposite sex. But somehow I think that would be hard to instigate legally.

The idea that we can sit everyone in a classroom and end up with a good outcome is utterly ridiculous.

On the subject of chancers a bloke on a machine a few weeks ago making a right pigs earhole of the job. I asked if offsetting the boom would help and he looked puzzled. I lent in the cab and hit the foot pedal to swing it round. He didn't realise you could do it. I understand that everyone doesn't know everything straight away. But he had don a morning walk round check 3 times. And hadn't noticed a ram. Then sat in the machine for 3 days and hadn't once fiddled with the pedal or looked at the sticker even. And then asked.how can anyone with so little mechanical aptitude ever drive a machine well.
He somehow managed to hang around for a year before finding a job on a 13t on a tip site. On the last day I was still having to talk him through climbing a fairly small and insignificant bank safely.

Another bloke quit when I asked him to track across a bank with a ditch at the bottom. Been operating machines for 30 years apparently. Said I could do it myself thinking I couldn't operate and was just a supervisor and got even more upset when I did it and showed him up.

It took monetary considerations to help me overcome my fear of heights.

Afew years back we had an operator (not a chancer this time, a bloody good op on most machines) spend a few weeks with us between other work. He’d grown up round his dad’s dozers and had been operating before he was 10. Give him a dozer and a side slope and he was fearless. I was given a test to run that involved running a 963 on a 25 degree side slope and thought he’d be the man for the job but he wouldn’t do it, said it wasn’t safe.

I got on and did it right in front of him, so he had a go. The minute the machine twitched he stopped, got out the uphill side and wouldn’t get back in, reckoned the track had lifted completely off the ground. I did the same thing again, with him watching, going flat out (which the test didn’t require) and he was still adamant he’d seen one track lift right off the ground, despite two unbroken track marks on the bank. Ended up doing the test myself. Funny thing was the same bloke would have driven a D6 along a wall if you’d asked him.

 

[V8Druid]

IMHO IF I had the resources and the money I'd be looking at setting up some regional residential colleges to take the "Dross" that schools can't teach and give them the oppertunity to act with respect and learn.... I'm convinced that if most of these rejects where pulled out of the system at 14, put into a situation where they either stayed, or left and "worked" 10 hour days with time spent doing theoretical, practical, individual and team projects on STEM subjects that could be related to the real world they would come out as far better people than they ever get the chance to be.

Three weeks on, a Week Off, Repeat - with weekend time allowed to be time for there own projects in the workshops should they choose.
I've always been convinced that would drastically change peoples outcomes

sadly these sorts do not want to know .....
even if you monetised the incentives, you'd need some reward to get 90%'s attention ...
they're 3rd/4th generation dossers, most of them, with the discipline of a herd of wildebeest and the manners of wild boar at a feeding frenzy.

I have (all be it a long time ago), experience of trying to teach 2nd/3rd gen.s ...
90% were feral with the odd 10% slightly interested if you could even vaguely motivate them ...
a good lesson was when most didn't turn up, other than the odd 10%ers, who you could then spend your hard stretched time on, between maintaining control of the rest of the pack of delinquents and stop them destroying the workshop, or nicking everything that was pocketable.
At 14 they're mostly beyond help, with as I say, the odd exceptions who were worth the effort.
God only knows what the situation is like today, 40 years on, with zero discipline, zero sanctions impose-able and parents who'll come in and deck you for daring to look at their little angels bas**ds the wrong way.
I used to say that stupidity bred stupidity (and it held very true)
you could now add to that, that dossers breed dossers - end of, 99% of the time

 

[V8Druid]

just to add to the above ...... quite a few of the 10%ers went on to become decent human beings, some successfully self employed and several of which I still see about, doing well ... a few I count as good friends and one who calls to see me regularly - went to his wedding too
so it is 'sort of' possible, but it's a very small minority