Semi OT- Do you carry more respect for a Journeyman that has "journeyed"?

This conversation comes up from time to time and I think it could spark a passionate discussion on here.

Do you consider a person more qualified or respectable if they have been around more places and worked in various shops VS an employee that is "born and raised" in the same shop?

I know there are no rules to any of this and there is a difficulty to quantify that experience. A person could have spent their life at the best machine shop in the world that is always up to date with cutting edge technology or a person may have traveled around and spent time in a lot of low quality shop.

I am more interested in first impressions and general opinions.

Thanks for reading.

What I learned is that every shop has its own tips and tricks. I worked at 5 or 6 different places and learned more things every time.

So yes, you should have a lot of respect for me

Jeff

I've worked in a number of shops, and a variety of different industries. I've worked on everything from aerospace to automotive to medical to Olympic bobsleds. I started out in production machining and screw machines, and then went into plastic injection molds and other tooling work. I learn every place I go- even now, at 64 years old. The longest I spent in one place was building molds for the connector industry- 15 years. They are a very specific type of tooling, and you learn just so much. Despite a lot of talent in very precise machining, I was about the only guy there that could really run a lathe, for example.

When hiring, I like to see a diverse background, but I'm concerned when the applicant has changed jobs very frequently. That can signal an issue.

MushCreek said:

When hiring, I like to see a diverse background, but I'm concerned when the applicant has changed jobs very frequently. That can signal an issue.

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Presenting first and last pay stubs, previous jobs, all of them "upward progression", always cleared that obstacle for me. Could have been an obstacle, too, as I get bored and change industries even more easily than I get bor-ing. If you can believe that.



The real "red flag", once HR responsibility was added to my own plate, was a gap.

Going back for more education, and having the creds to support it was fine. Same with military reserve call-up. Had one as did missionary work. Another a Red Cross tour.

Any hazy explanation that might cover a jail term, drug or alcohol binge, break-down, or early in life burnout was not so easy to accept.

Was once asked by an HR screener:

"You have worked for all these different companies in unrelated industries. What could they possibly have in common with each other, or with OUR company?"

"Oh, they are all alike to a Manager, actually. I do "scare resources". There are never enough staff with the right skills and skill levels, there are never enough capital tools of production, there is never enough space, there is never enough money to correct those, and there is never enough time to compensate for any of that.

I'm paid to get the job done, over goal, under budget, and ahead of deadline, regardless."

Always got the job. Always had to do exactly that to keep it and grow that next exit pay stub.

Why should I be any different than the rest of you? "Gravy jobs" are only in dreams.

"Managing scarce resources" is what we ALL have to do, one-man shop at the head of the list, like it or not.

That "journeyed" individual you are interviewing has picked up firmly on that and can flexibly apply what he's learned of it and cheerfully "shift gears" as-needed for YOUR team's benefit?

(S)He'll be a plus. ELSE NOT.

No matter HOW "technically" skilled at five years, twice repeated, and set in granite, rather than ten years, learning and growing every damned week.

Sure, guys that have been in several shops might have a few good tricks from each. I have found that guys who bounced around from job to job, did so for a reason. Either they will never be happy no matter where they are, or they are asked to leave for other obvious reasons. Any worker that is good will be taken care of by their employer and will likely stay where they are. I am generalizing, but this is what I have seen in my 31 years at the same shop.

5 axis Fidia guy said:

Sure, guys that have been in several shops might have a few good tricks from each. I have found that guys who bounced around from job to job, did so for a reason. Either they will never be happy no matter where they are, or they are asked to leave for other obvious reasons. Any worker that is good will be taken care of by their employer and will likely stay where they are. I am generalizing, but this is what I have seen in my 31 years at the same shop.

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Y'see. .I'd rate you a damned good man on that stability. Not every day was as easy to take as another. Those 31 years were not all alike. There would be a "progression" over the years.

Same time, it has become a seriously dynamic world out there, and a competitive one - more than ever. Time span between major changes has shortened. Speed of response has had to be improved, according. ELSE fossilize, lose-out to a more dynamic competitor, onshore or off.

Folks with a proven ability to adapt, change, change again, are no longer minority luxuries, merely "seeded" amongst the more wooden men.

They have become valuable alternatives to reorganizing that also means re-staffing as well as re-training. Costly exercises. Necessary, but wasteful, those can be.

Not saying a 30+ year, or 20+, or 10+ year veteran cannot do it as well and flexibly as the best of them. Or better. Most actually have done, and more than once.

But it is hard to convey evidence that YOUR shop was learning, growing, changing all along, too.

Harder yet to demonstrate that any one individual within it was an agent and enabler OF that change, rather than a bystander, even a barrier, to it.

2CW

I've moved around a bit over the years. I used to think that you'd learn more in the first year at a new job than you would in the next five years in your old job and I still think that.

The top guys that I worked with had all moved around after serving their time. From a fitting point of view in order of ability there are the guys who are good in the shop, guys that are good working away from home in their own country, and top of the tree, guys who can work abroad.

People who've never done it ( my wife ) seem to think that working abroad is like going on holiday. It isn't, it can be really tough especially if there is a language barrier.

Guys like Joe Michaels who posts on the antique site are the men I take my hat off too.

Regards Tyrone.

Don`t forget the social aspect
Every shop has its own social envirement
The guys who have been around have dealed with that aspect too and have experience handling different social envirements

IMHO given a man / woman is qualified at what they do, experience is everything, ...yes a guy could have been at one plant for eons, and know the job inside out, .....but a change of direction at his firm or he has to find another job, in short the poor sods sunk.

Tyrone Shoelaces said:

... and top of the tree, guys who can work abroad.

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The late, and for a 130 years also "mostly great", Eastern Telegraph -> Imperial Cables & Communications -> Cable & Wireless / Able & Tireless / Carefree and Wifeless / Cable-shipless and Witless / just plain "gone", "F1" foreign staff included quite few of those flexible all-round experts who had entered the training at Porthcorno, age fifteen, [1] retired after service in 20 plus overseas C&W cable stations the world around, had never again worked a day in their native UK after departing PK.

They also had the option of retirement at 55, not 65.

We could manage the stress and the rate of change. It was the massive increase in exposure to dodgy foodstuffs, known-bad water, worse beer and spirits, suspected unhealthy blanket-sharers, parasites, and disease that took an earlier toll on the average tool.

Even so, being still spry and sharp of mind well past 90 was not unusual. Nor is it yet, today. Tough crowd. Much in common with the "engineering spaces" of Royal Navy, Royal Merchant Navy, or RME.

"Working" travel surely is NOT "tourism".

It tends to broaden the mind rather more than the arse.


[1]One of the first F1 I met proudly said "A supply ship might come to a remote island but twice a year. We were taught to make our own screwdrivers with nothing but a piece of steel and a file!"

Bemused, I replied, "I'm simply from Pittsburgh, mate. I make files whenever I need to do, and was taught to make the damned steel if I need that, too."

I bounce around like a freakin' wak-a-mole. In 20 years, I think I have worked in 12 shops. Some for years and one or two for less than 6 months. Some of it had to do with moving (not for work BTW), some of it had to do with Divorce, some of it had to do with wanting to learn more, to better my prospects in the future. So I know a lot, and have a very diverse background, there are few things that happen in a Machine shop that I am not comfortable taking the lead on and dealing with. There are few parts, machines, softwares, processes and shit I haven't used and implemented.

ALL that said, if you are a new guy reading this, DO NOT take that path, in the end it's a huge pain in the ass. People like Termite aren't going to hire you, because you don't stick to one place. If it's decent, just stick to it. I mean if people shit in your mouth-stick to it, if you are underpaid after 2 years of promises-stick to it, if your boss fucks you wife-stick to it, if it's a safety hazard- stick to it. If you want health insurance and they say haha this isn't Citibank-stick to it anyway. Just suck it up and do whatever anyone ever tells you to do and smile about it.

I hate this business BTW Robert

Retire at 65 with a gold watch after 25 years service means you were 40 when you started there

I think having a variety of experiences is vital, and while it can happen at a single job, that would be an exceedingly rare job

I might have posted this before, but I worked a contract job when I first started my business.

Bunch of manual bridgeports 'squeak squeak squeak' milling away at tool steel.

I couldn't take it. Went home and brought my indexable end mill in. Sounds like a wood chipper sprayed a six foot stream of sparks across the shop.

Bunch of guys standing with jaws agape.

yeah, you need to move a around a little.

BSCustoms said:

I think it could spark a passionate discussion on here.

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No, just the start of another pissing contest.

I go by the sq. inches of "body art", and peircings.

Because you see, in the end, that's all that matters eh ?

I saw a tattoo repair programme were there was a girl who'd had her tongue surgically divided. That trumps body art for me.

Regards Tyrone

digger doug said:

I go by the sq. inches of "body art", and peircings.

Because you see, in the end, that's all that matters eh ?

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Also puts a helluva life-long stress on the immune system, can shorten life, make for longer years of borderline illness.

Go and look up how it is that a tat endures, rather than sloughing off as skin makes its life-cyle journey from bloody newly-minted to our outer protective temporary, and constantly renewing "leathers" of a galaxy-class integumentary system's dead, but EVER so useful remains.

Hint: It is the immune system as has to "float" a tat, much as if containing a TB infection it cannot simply kill outright and recycle for its protein.

Two candidates for one job, second best is tat-less? He'll be he who has that job.

Healthcare costs are on my budget. Not fair to wiser folk to burden them with the bad decisions of careless fools. I was never one to inject bad judgment into a good team to begin with. Self-identifying with Tats just made the sorting task easier.

In Canada we have formal apprenticeships. The alternate is to work an extra year, show your documentation and challenge the Trades Qualification test. I have been in two shops that insisted that candidates had served a 4 year apprenticeship. In steel fabrication jobs come and go. A shop will have 5 people then get a contract for a large building. Suddenly they need 20 more men and an extra shift. When the contract is completed unless they win another bid everyone is gone except the 5 guys.
The Steady Eddies doing long term employment often are walking dead. They have difficulty thinking of alternates. Machining is a more steady kind of business where small jobs come in the door regularly and that allows long term employment. Things like construction was worlds apart. If I was an employer I would look for the temporary guys when I needed extra people with no bad feelings when they are let go. Often they are innovators and free thinkers that can build ideas in the shop but are not serious long term people.

thermite said:

Healthcare costs are on my budget. Not fair to wiser folk to burden them with the bad decisions of careless fools. I was never one to inject bad judgment into a good team to begin with. Self-identifying with Tats just made the sorting task easier.

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Eyelid piercings are gonna lead to "later in life" medical expenses for sure.

digger doug said:

Eyelid piercings are gonna lead to "later in life" medical expenses for sure.

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No piecing involved. Just Hong Kong's notorious airborne filth.

Chalazion cyst dug out of the inside of a peeled-back, nailed-back eyelid.

Could have used a soup spoon, size it had got to, what with the damned thing having ignored all prior attempts with heat and medications.

Also felt as if he had done, what with me genetically indifferent to damned near any anesthetic then known.

Showed up for the operation with a bottle of Bushmill's Green label.

Doc sez "You don't real believe that will actually stop the pain, do you?"

"Not for a minute", sez I.

"But it will go a very long way toward my not actually giving a damn about it!"

Piercers? Your future calls...

Peter from Holland said:

Don`t forget the social aspect
Every shop has its own social envirement
The guys who have been around have dealed with that aspect too and have experience handling different social envirements

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I’ve had that aspect indicate the opposite. For some it means they can’t fit in or tolerate social situations and keep looking.
Joe