In the spirit of CROSSHIRE


Paddy’s Motorbike thought that recruiting an apprentice would ease his company’s workload, but it hasn’t been that straightforward.


“IT’S ON THE TIP OF MY TOES”


Now normally the phrase goes, “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” but recent events have made me change my mind. Within the last year I have taken on a new apprentice, aka Hercules (who still looks about 6 stone wet through), and there have been a few incidents where he has borne the brunt of my disapproval. On such occasions, I usually try to get some sense out of him with a series of questions, the normal ones including: What are you doing now? Why are you doing that? Who told you to do it that way? And each time his answers tell me Hercules is swinging the lead or, in other words, being bone idle.


And that’s when I see his eyes looking down at the tip of his toes, and I sometimes wonder if he thinks he is going to find the answers to my questions written on them.


So, the challenge for me and the rest of my staff is moulding this teenager into a worker. The team certainly never seem to be short of nicknames for him. Recently he was given a new one, ‘Arthur’, due to the fact that he is only doing ‘half a’ job. I will give you an example. We had him repairing some of our medium size breakers that needed a replacement cable and then a PAT test. We found them all put back into stock, just to find them missing the steels. They won’t break much concrete without those.


Then I caught him looking down the barrel of a propane space heater checking for an ignition spark! This is not the best idea when the fan is going and propane is being injected in the barrel to be lit. I had visions of our apprentice looking a lot like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote with a charcoal hair style.


When it comes to buying tools for himself that he needs for his job, I cannot help but notice his toolbox still looks very light, and I often find my own tools littered around the workshop where he was previously working. Funny that he still manages to find the money for his phone and his smoking habit.


Then we come to him answering the phone and dealing with customers. The other day I was pleased to see him come through to the office from the workshop to answer it - some initiative at last, I thought. As I was already dealing with a call on the other line, I let him get on with it. On finishing my


conversation, I turned to Arthur to enquire what the call was. “It was Dave,” came the reply. “Dave?” I enquired back. “Dave who?” “I don’t know but he’s done with the tower. “Ok,” I said, “what company does Dave work for and does he want us to collect, or is he returning this himself?”


At this I noticed the way Arthur was starting to look down at his boots again. The chances of him knowing the answer seemed slim. “Errrr, I don’t know, he didn’t say.” “Did you ask?” came my reply, but now Arthur was truly looking south and a faint “No” came back. “Did you get an address at all?” My voice was starting to sound more strained now, especially when he answered no again. “We know about four Daves and have 15 aluminium towers out on hire. Any ideas what to do now?”


It’s not that we haven’t taught him how to answer the phone or told him what he needs to be asking customers, but somehow the importance of this training only seems to be realised after the event, and after things have gone wrong.


“You do have caller display,” came a voice that seemed to come from the boots that Arthur was wearing, “so, why don’t we phone him back and ask him for the information we need?” I did not want to knock his confidence just after showing some initiative, and, as it turned out, all was not lost.


There’s more to taking on a trainee than just sending them on training courses. At times I feel like I have adopted a son, giving him advice and tips on how to conduct himself. However, they do represent your company and one day it would be nice if he can still look up to me and some of the members of my staff that he works with, no matter how much he grows beyond his 6 stone frame.


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