I worked at a place made automotive parts (aluminum), both the die cast and machining. Predominantly unskilled labor. People were trained as Operators, and while a very few were a cut above, most were people just needing to make a buck, no skills, often times just plain butts to have to deal with.
Not all, and to be fair to all of them is the following, straight off the floor for reals. I was the Floor Inspector. I like to work with people. I don't subscribe to the tribalism between Machinists vs Inspectors thing that sometimes gets in people's heads. I try to take care of the people I'm supposed to take care of.
We had some new hires for CNC Operators.
The got hired. They clocked in. They were put on CNC Machines to run parts. They were supposedly trained by Machining supervisors, standard protocol.
I make the rounds for inspections. First guy: Talky-talk, how you doing, I'm your Inspector, etc. He then says, "Hey, I had something really weird happen earlier, check this out!", and out from under his bench he pulls a casting the CLEARLY went through a Misload. Browwwwwrrrrr! the bit had to have gone as it chewed through, hmm, 3/4" of the part it wasn't supposed to. About.
I jump, tell him "wait, that's from a misload!" . . . "What's a misload?" . . . "Ummm, not clamped/seated properly in the fixture and the bit "crashed" it's way through the casting improperly. Didn't the person you reported this to explain that, and how to keep it from happening again?" . . ."I didn't tell anyone. I just kept running parts".. . . "No one trained you on what a misload or crash is, and what you are supposed to do when that happens?" "Nope".
I checked his fixture, his machine, double checked his last 10-ish parts, he was lucky. Not his fault.
Second person: A young lady named "Diamond". Didn't know what the big, red, emergency stop button was. No one told her. No one trained her on safety protocols and what to do in a runaway/crash situation. I filled that gap and made sure she knew how to handle herself in the event the unexpected happened. Not her fault.
Third person: Running an expensive, relatively complex and larger bracket. He's complaining his parts are failing all the time now. He's got a dang BIN full of fails and they keep happening. I'm finding this out as I'm at his station for an Inspection. I stop him and stick my head in his machine and go through the basic 1, 2, 3's. Right away I see a thick layer of aluminum chips stamped to the clamping surfaces because he wasn't blowing those clean each part. So, part by part, layers of chips were being smashed to the clamping surface.
"Aren't you blowing chips off each time?" . . . "Wut? No." . . . "Ummm, your parts are scrapping out because they are all shimmed up out of position now." . . ."Oh, really? No one told me". I spend 5 minutes with a tool helping him clear the clamping surfaces back to clean steel". Not his fault.
I made some waves over all this of course. But sometimes dealing with "problematic employees not knowing what they are doing" isn't the new hires, but the people already there who just don't give a crap, but given the responsiblilty to "teach" new hires who want to learn, and can.
