I own a small manual/cnc machine shop now for going on 10 years. We do everything from repair to light production work with a crew of 3 plus myself. I have hired this young 21 year old fresh out of college from taking manual machinist back last May/22. We have spent time and hour upon hours teaching him the trade since then. We had the usual hurdles of being young and not knowing the trade or how a shop environment is kept. Cell phone was a issue which I had to bring in a written no phone policy into the shop on clocked in time. Got that out of the way great now he will focus more on learning the trade. He is smart by the book on knowledge but seems to to just lazy and not interested in actually working while at work. He seems to be getting slower and slower. I have moved him from learning cnc (because he didnt like that and I didnt trust him to do setups or programming because his attention span was not there amd he coildnt even be teusted to pay attention to the work holdong to ensure a chip was cleared before putting in a blank ) to the simple jobs in the shop. Now he has went to a turtle speed. I stay right at him to push him and work on the shop floor with the guys all day machining cause I love it. Always yawning and leaning on the machines. Work space is cluttered and tools piled on the bench. I have repeatedly told him its not how this shop is to be kept. Clean up after job is complete and that time get billed to that job. Simple as that.
The kid is likable... he showed potential the first 6 months. Now we are going back wards. Im not sure how to approach this situation next... He doesnt even make his wages billable every day at this point. I have stood over him and pushed him and know he actually can work at a speed that is billable hours.... or if a customer is there waiting for a part he flys through it. But the other 95% of the time it takes him 3 times as long to machine something simple such as a shaft with a couple downs and a thread shouldnt take 3 hours to do on a brand new lathe with all the inserted tooling available for the trade.
Eveyone says fire him let him go. Before I do that... whats the suggestions here with experienced guys on here. Im sure other shops deal with this. At this point we cant do anything less in the shop than make pins and bosses or drill holes. Jist did the time sheets for the week and its not possible to bill out the hours to make his wages because of him having a 6-7 hours labour in a job thats 2 hours tops and simple. The worse of it all.. i know he can machine when he wants to but is being lazy and is smart at the trade book wise....Any suggestions before I give him the pink slip?
The kid is likable... he showed potential the first 6 months. Now we are going back wards. Im not sure how to approach this situation next... He doesnt even make his wages billable every day at this point. I have stood over him and pushed him and know he actually can work at a speed that is billable hours.... or if a customer is there waiting for a part he flys through it. But the other 95% of the time it takes him 3 times as long to machine something simple such as a shaft with a couple downs and a thread shouldnt take 3 hours to do on a brand new lathe with all the inserted tooling available for the trade.
Eveyone says fire him let him go. Before I do that... whats the suggestions here with experienced guys on here. Im sure other shops deal with this. At this point we cant do anything less in the shop than make pins and bosses or drill holes. Jist did the time sheets for the week and its not possible to bill out the hours to make his wages because of him having a 6-7 hours labour in a job thats 2 hours tops and simple. The worse of it all.. i know he can machine when he wants to but is being lazy and is smart at the trade book wise....Any suggestions before I give him the pink slip?
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