Learning from your Elders

[benjamin1945 16,160]

I was lucky with all my family........mam,dad,grandparents,Aunts,Uncles,.........they all made me happy...it seemed to be their mission in life.......i suppose i was sheltered to a certain extent,....even Teachers were great people..........then into the world of work at 15........again consider myself lucky...had some great Bosses.....who's words still resonate with me after all these years..........and still working, i find myself repeating to younger colleagues the things said to me.........''keep calm'' bide your time'' ''don't react'' ''you'll get it right'' keep ya gob shut'' take the rough with the smooth''..''don't get carried away'' tomorrow is another day''.etc,......like to think i'm helping them with my experience,.........i think more people should go out of their way to help youngsters at work.......instead of jumping on their mistakes,..........i'm working with a young bloke at the moment..........who knows his job inside out.......but only works 16 hours a week,he lives with his partner and young child..and claims certain benefits.......trying to get him to work full time, but he's scared of losing certain benefits.........all he needs is confidence and he could go a long way.....but he's let certain Bosses bring him down............nowt worse than a bad Boss............

[catfan 14,793]

I loved working with older people when younger, the amount of knowledge passed on was tremendous, you wouldn't find it in a text book. My old boss used to say to me "I'll tell you once & only once" a good way to learn !

[loppylugs 8,429]

First electrician I ever worked with as a brand new apprentice was 60 years old.   (Younger than I am now aaargh!)  Great guy and a hard worker.  Most of the lads didn't like working with him because he never took his full lunch break.  Just ate a sandwich and back to work.  He was an ex navy guy and wouldn't take any nonsense from the likes of me or anyone else.  I learned a lot from him and always respected him.  Salvation army guy.  Never heard him cuss like the rest.  Usually singing hymns on Monday a.m.

[catfan 14,793]

I learned a lot from old trolley bus drivers ! 

[plantfit 7,597]

Similar here,worked with an old chap during and after my apprenticeship (well he seemed old at the time) knew his stuff though and passed on a shed full of knowledge most of which sunk in,if I did owt wrong or got too big for me boots it was a clip in the earhole or a swipe across the butt with his steel rule,soon learned to behave and it stood me in good stead for the rest of me working life,boy could he tell a tale or two though

 

Rog

[benjamin1945 16,160]

Like to name some of my great Bosses at Marsdens/Farrands.........from the early 60s......more than likely all passed on now........but would be nice if any of their relatives see this now or in the future.........to see what lovely people they are descended from.............Bob Vaughan big yorkshire fella,his son was one the group 'Paper Lace'........Bob Scriven...another Yorkie,great bloke,wife Sylvia and son Chris.......lived above Marsdens on Andover road for a while then Canal side Beeston,.Tommy Lindsay down to earth chain smoking Scotsman lived on Hayden lane Hucknall,his bark was better than his bite, Jock Brown manager of Marsdens Andover road member and his wife of Bulwell common Golf club,also managed Farrands Mansfield road,taught me such a lot about the Wine trade,he was from Fife which he always insisted was the 'Kingdom of Fife'

                             Ike Richards another Manager of Marsdens Andover road,lived on Mandalay street Basford and always employed lads off Bestwood Estate including two of my older cousins,.....his wife was cashier at the Adelphi Bulwell,.............then there was some great workmates at Marsdens/Farrands...........Pete Kingsland,..saw him in Bulwell about a year ago Mick Patman sadly passed on a real ladies man,Sid Clifford last seen in Mablethorpe 30 years since,Alan Hayes,Big Malc both lived Broxtowe,Keith Attenborough, best man at my first wedding also now passed on..............i could go on,but i won't........enjoyed relating..............

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Plantfit, when I was at Clifton Colliery learning my trade, one electrician, Tommy Shaw, told me one thing that stayed with me until I  said goodbye to the pits. Most of our time was spent walking to a breakdown. Tom told me to find out everything I could via the telephone, try and see if I could get the job running via the phone, remember half an hour downtime costs big money!! Then if all else fails and we had to set off to the breakdown THINK!! Evaluate everything the person on the site told you, and by the time we arrived on site we had a good idea what was wrong and only took a few minutes to get the job running. Worked most of the time. Tommy was old school, but a good electrician and good teacher.

[DJ360 6,730]

To be honest, either I wasn't listening, or very few of my bosses said anything memorable..  I'll let you decide...

 

The best advice I had was from my Grandfather.. before I started work...

 

'If a job's worth doing.. it's worth doing well.'

Covers a lot of bases does that..

 

Grandad Jack was good at that stuff.  He'd been a bit of a war hero in WW1, but he never employed the usual 'man up', 'get a grip' type cobblers.  He was much more thoughtful.  He'd ask me to think about things I was doing wrong and ask me to consider the consequences, not just for me, but for everybody around me.  I asked him if he was scared in WW1. He told me he was. but that it was equally scary going forward as back.. so might as well go forward.  An allegory of life I suppose..

 

John Foster was my boss through most of my Careers Service times.  He didn't give advice. He just led by example... doing stuff instead of thinking about it.

 

Another good one from a boss who was half my age just before I retired:  'I can't tell you how to do the job.. but I can tell you... .don't sweat the small stuff'.

 

Col

 

[Jill Sparrow 10,306]

My father gave me advice only once when I was 12 years old. "I don't mind what you do, as long as you're happy and you don't follow the herd."  

 

As I grew older, I found that the former resulted naturally from the latter and I become more aware every day how like him I actually am! 

[plantfit 7,597]

I agree John,find out as much history of the item of plant that has broke down,should give you a good idea of how to fix the problem,I always kept a small book with information about breakdowns/servicing of each individual machine, history of the machinery was invaluble when someone shouted on the two way from the other end of the quarry about a mechanical problem you could call back with all sorts of info and checks they could carry out, 9 times out of 10 they could get the machine going it's just a process of elimination,

 

Rog

[Cliff Ton 10,466]

10 hours ago, Ayupmeducks said:

 Tom told me to find out everything I could via the telephone, try and see if I could get the job running via the phone, 

 

Ironically, that is more relevant today than it was back then.  These days people immediately turn to their phone to find the answer to anything and everything via the internet, which obviously hadn't been invented back then.  Many people today would struggle to know how to deal with any problem if they weren't able to go online.

[DJ360 6,730]

That's an interesting point Kev.

Part of the Govt's excuse for doing away with my job was that 'Careers Information is all available online'.  And of course much of it is.  But then if all that was needed was the information.. we wouldn't need schools or colleges either.  Teach them to read and log on.  then leave them to it.  It doesn't bear thinking about does it?

 

People, especially young people, need advice and guidance too.  They need to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, and cwhat is and isn't relevant, for e.g. Those things aren't so easily digitised.

 

I spent half of my working life being paid to give out advice.  Whether mine was 'good' is for others to judge, but I didn't have any complaints.  And of course the other side of advice, good or otherwise, is whether people act on it.

 

In my experience, young people in particular would often far sooner listen to their peers, than to adults, teachers, advisers etc.

 

Col

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I somehow don't think you'd find answers on the internet to the equipment I worked on or today's modern equipment, other than the manufacturer.

Intermittent faults were the curse of our lives, didn't stay on long enough to diagnose, but long enough to  lose production, one such fault eluded not just myself, but my Foreman, and the other three shift elecs who worked in the same district as myself. It was only a quirk that eventually gave me a clue of what in could be. We went through everything with a fine tooth comb on Saturday maintenance shift and still never found anything. Real headache stuff!!

I pinned it down to an electronic module playing up, in the conveyor brake system, seems I was right as after changing the module, the fault never showed it's ugly head again.