"Low-skilled" workers

[Trainee neophyte]

I deal with a lot of city bankers and traders, all of them are super bright and switched on in my opinion.

That's just the drugs - it takes a phenomenal amount of pharmaceutical assistance to keep a banker functional and upright.

 

[Bm101]

I'm a low skilled worker. Can you clean a window?
Course you can.
My six your old daughter can.
Want to come to work with me and see if you can?
I'm as good as it gets as a rope access window cleaner gets. Literally. My boss cant compete on pricing timing and completion rates. Left for dust. My understanding of industry hse and irata regulation is practically faultless. I can rescue a man trapped on a tight rope by his harness under a bridge without breaking a mental sweat. I know this for real. While everyone panicked on the ground I didn't and a man went home safe that day.
After. In the endless meetings afterward I explained to office workers with qualifications what to write down in their reports.
They looked a bit surprised at points.

Years ago I was landscaping a garden in Snowdonia. We'd dry stone walled it, decked parts for the guys motorbike and the boss turned up. Man was a half a moron tbh. But I was 21 . Proceeded to lay into me for splitting thick slate blocks with a club hammer and bolster.. grabs the club hammer and it's Look! Like this! Hurry up! Batters this slate as it slowly disintegrates from one end.
'Now you try!'
He hands the hammer back. I pick up my bolster give 3 sharp taps and it's done.
The man has a (laughable) fit. Apoplectic. 8)
He was the boss. So here's a question. In all the years I worked for incompetent wan*ers and they made money from me who was the true fool? Me or me?
Answers on a postcard.

 

[doctor Bob]

I deal with a lot of city bankers and traders, all of them are super bright and switched on in my opinion.

That's just the drugs - it takes a phenomenal amount of pharmaceutical assistance to keep a banker functional and upright.

you're talking out of your ar$*eho!e..............

 

[Trevanion]

I wonder sometimes whether my work is actually skilled or not.

Not to blow my trumpet or anything but by this stage, I've made hundreds of windows and doors of all shapes and sizes and I can't really say anything of great skill so to speak actually went into most if not all of them. A door, for example... You pull timber off the rack, measure it up and cut to rough sizes, push timber through four-sided planer, cut rails to exact length and tenon the ends, mark and mortice the stiles on a permanently set morticer for door mortices, run everything through a moulder that's permanently set up for mould and rebate on doors, cut the haunches back on the tenons and glue the door together. On a good day and with no one to get in my way, I can have a standard pattern 10 door go from rough timber (especially with Accoya standard sizes) to glued up in the clamps in less than an hour.

It certainly takes knowledge to perform the job as efficiently as a robot, just not so sure about actual skill since you could pretty much show anyone with hands how to shove something through the machines without much thought and end up with a door or window. I guess it all comes down to how you define skill, I'd personally say someone like an excellent stone carver or even welder would be classed as a skilled worker but perhaps they would also say their work isn't skilled because of X,Y and Z...

Does knowledge equal skill? I haven't a clue.

He was the boss. So here's a question. In all the years I worked for incompetent wan*ers and they made money from me who was the true fool? Me or me?

Funnily enough, I was thinking about something I was told during my first apprenticeship when I was eighteen where I worked under a pretty hard but fairish fellow. He said once out of the blue "If I'm not making money, you're not making money" and at the time I didn't really think much more of it than some kind of strange threat of some kind bearing in mind this is the same man who also said such classic lines as "Don't bleed on my machines, you'll make them rust" and "If you snap that screw, I'll snap you too". I think with age and a bit more maturity I kind of see where he was coming from with the first one in that it's a bit of a team effort, trickle-up with the work, trickle-down with the cash... In the end, he wasn't making (enough) money and the other boys weren't too keen working so he shut down the business, which meant I wasn't making money and had to go elsewhere. Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much and it was just a strange threat :lol:

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I deal with a lot of city bankers and traders, all of them are super bright and switched on in my opinion.

That's just the drugs - it takes a phenomenal amount of pharmaceutical assistance to keep a banker functional and upright.

you're talking out of your ar$*eho!e..............

It was supposed to be a joke - apologies if it was in poor taste.

That being said, https://theconversation.com/drugs-and-t ... ting-21713
https://www.theguardian.com/business/sh ... ial-crisis
https://www.barrons.com/articles/wall-s ... 1489083342

(It helps that I am related to a few - insider knowledge and all that).

 

[Trainee neophyte]

It certainly takes knowledge to perform the job as efficiently as a robot, just not so sure about actual skill since you could pretty much show anyone with hands how to shove something through the machines without much thought and end up with a door or window. I guess it all comes down to how you define skill, I'd personally say someone like an excellent stone carver or even welder would be classed as a skilled worker but perhaps they would also say their work isn't skilled because of X,Y and Z...

Does knowledge equal skill? I haven't a clue.

The skill is in setting up the tools so a monkey could pull the handle. There is also skill in doing the job efficiently enough to earn a living by it. I could probably make a door, if necessary, but I could never make a profit making a door. That's the tricky part. In the same way any monkey can plant a seed and get it to grow - but doing it efficiently enough to earn a living is quite a challenge.

Your next trick is to employ a low-skilled, low-wage handle-puller which would allow you to spend more time doing skilled work. Probably not in the current environment, though.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had changed jobs, still working in the same place. One day my ex oppo came to me and asked if I could find the cause of a problem that he couldn't. I went with him, found it and returned to where I was. The chap I was working with, a very easy going but extremely clever guy, looked at me for a minute and said find it? Yes, I said ......... Did you have any qualifications to do the job you did before? No, other than being extremely good at it. Why? Because ******'s just come to you for advice. What's so odd about that? Well ....... you are unqualified, and he's an NVQ Assessor.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Your next trick is to employ a low-skilled, low-wage handle-puller which would allow you to spend more time doing skilled work...

That reminded me of my father many years ago. He was on the verge of joining the Rotary Club, and their first commitment was chopping firewood for local OAPs for Xmas. (This irritated me, incidentally, as I was in the scouts at the time and we had to drag the telegraph poles off the lorry and saw them by hand into little rounds that were easily split. The Round Tablers then delivered them to the needy (their relatives and neighbours) and got their photos in the local rag for their benevolence, without a mention of our hard work.) My father said he'd send a man to do the work. They said he was supposed to do it, it was the thought that counted. Well here's a thought, said my father - I earn ten times what the chap I'm sending earns, so I'll send him for ten hours - I've got too much to do. That's not the spirit, Mr. P. was the reply. He never did chop the wood or join the club.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Selling is a particular skill set which involves the sales person convincing you to buy something you ordinarily wouldn't. It's not like manning a till in a supermarket (which is another skill), because it is not just taking an order. It is actively pushing the purchasor into making the purchase. Selling is a specialised, complicated and difficult skill, and actually involves the opposite of good manners. To be good at selling you need to have good empathy, yet at the same time absolutely no regard for the purchasor. It's an odd, difficult, and morally reprehensible skill to have. Most people can't do it, because it makes them too uncomfortable.

I think that selling property lies outside the normal scope of the salesman. That is because the potential customers are self-selecting i.e. if they walk through your door, the largest part of your work is already done. It's then just a matter of getting their requirements from them - which they will readily provide - and making the best match between them and the properties you have in your portfolio.

I suggest that that is fairly self evident. FWIW I had it confirmed years ago by my mate's dad who was a very successful and well to do estate agent operating in the Virginia Water area of Surrey. He certainly didn't have to go down the unpleasant road which you describe.

I agree with you that selling can become morally reprehensible when salesmen get to the point where they are selling a product by essentially lying about it or are knowingly persuading a customer to buy something they do not need or which does not meet their needs. In my current job I occasionally meet refugees from the banking industry. They all report that when they leave they have to sign non-disclosure agreements and one of the reasons for that is that they are routinely required to sell financial products whether or not it is in the interests of the customers to buy them. One of the worst cases which has come to light in recent years was when a bank in Düsseldorf sold a savings scheme to a lady in her eighties. The scheme stipulated that her plan would reach maturity after 25 years. This attracted so much publicity that the bank had to redress the matter. How can individuals and institutions live with themselves when they do that kind of thing? And how many such crimes - for they are surely crimes - go undetected or unremedied?

 

[Andy Kev.]

I deal with a lot of city bankers and traders, all of them are super bright and switched on in my opinion.

But how are they on the ethical front?

There's many a professional criminal who is super bright and switched on. Just think of internet con men.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... In my current job I occasionally meet refugees from the banking industry. They all report that when they leave they have to sign non-disclosure agreements and one of the reasons for that is that they are routinely required to sell financial products whether or not it is in the interests of the customers to buy them ...

My grandfather, who worked for the M.O.D. had signed under the Official Secrets Act - he said the only reason why it was necessary in his case that he could see was they didn't want people to know how much money they wasted.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I've had bit of fun poking at estate agents and bankers - both easy targets. Estate agents have the fun of not only selling a house, but also keeping the tottering chain in order, chivvy recalcitrant solicitors, bully banks, and generally keep things moving. I would dispute the idea that they don't sell - the customer may want a house, but why that house in particular? The agent acts for the seller, but has to be best friends with the buyer. A very schizophrenic job.

As for bankers, it depends what we actually mean. I tend to use the term as a disparaging shorthand for the caricature risk-taking, cocaine-fueled lunatic who only exists in Hollywood. And the City, and Wall St. obviously.

[youtube]rCz3BnLmjtk[/youtube]

 

[doctor Bob]

I deal with a lot of city bankers and traders, all of them are super bright and switched on in my opinion.

But how are they on the ethical front?

There's many a professional criminal who is super bright and switched on. Just think of internet con men.

Maybe but that wasn't the question. Personnally I'm of the opinion that all professions have wrong un's, but the majority of people are good un's.

 

[lurker]

... In my current job I occasionally meet refugees from the banking industry. They all report that when they leave they have to sign non-disclosure agreements and one of the reasons for that is that they are routinely required to sell financial products whether or not it is in the interests of the customers to buy them ...

My grandfather, who worked for the M.O.D. had signed under the Official Secrets Act - he said the only reason why it was necessary in his case that he could see was they didn't want people to know how much money they wasted.

If it wasn’t for the NDA I signed, I would comment on your grandfather’s insight .

 

[Just4Fun]

My grandfather, who worked for the M.O.D. had signed under the Official Secrets Act - he said the only reason why it was necessary in his case that he could see was they didn't want people to know how much money they wasted.

I have signed the official secrets act but I can't imagine any secrets I could divulge. Perhaps the identification of the secrets is itself secret and that needs a higher level security clearance than I had. The only valuable information I was privy to was the location of the coffee machine.

 

[Droogs]

I signed the Official Secrets Act and had above TS clearance, which only ran out a couple of years ago/ But the only thing I ever knew that was a proper secret was where all the Teabags and Rich Tea biscuits for after armaggedon were stored, but that location in now a Top tourist attraction (been on telly and everything). So no idea what the plan is now. I must stress that in order to keep things compartmentalised I DID NOT know where the kettles were being kept

 

[lurker]

This is typical of the poor planning!
If the custodian of the kettles “didn’t make it”, we would have had to surrender within days!