I FIND MYSELF deliberately telling apprentices the wrong thing. Misinformation. Stuff ‘em! Gen-Y cry babies need a few scars and the occasional hair fire to harden them up.
I consider myself a man of science. So I feel a need to correct the imbalance in the modern workshop.
The imbalance may be due to complacency, rules, regulations and software. They are choking up the natural selection process that sends the welders of fuel tanks and trusters of cheap rigging gear to an early meeting with the so-called keeper of the pearl paint job gates. The Saint called Peter. Peter who is known as Simon.
With these bad intentions and failed manners I often tell mattress humpers (apprentices) that the grinding of fuel tanks is okay as long as a cordless grinder has a USB charging port or jacking up a Kenworth on its sump is okay if it’s built in the U.S.A. and not a Mexican-built knock-off.
The continental rift between myself and the learners of our trade continues. Hydraulic-electronic innovation continues to the point that a first-year mattress humper can generally outsmart me with laptop diagnoses or software updates.
The only weapon I have is some street smarts. I usually send the humper to find a truck I know does not exist (normally fleet number 05 or 1979) and while he’s gone I eat every mouthful of his lunch…