Youngsters Employment ?

[LMGruchy]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

When I left university I'd a job to go to. A nasty, ill-paid job, but a job.

That doesn't happen nowadays.

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

I know that feeling, the days of stumbling into a decent job (as my generation did) are over.

I'm not sure. Through my work I have been lucky enough to spend time in a variety of industries over the years, including automotive, rail components, packaging (that's tin cans and food wrappers), food processing, furniture manufacture, yacht and shipbuilding.

When you work inside these industries you quickly realise just how many fascinating jobs there are, and that despite the reported shortage of jobs, many industries have great difficulty finding staff of the right calibre to fill vacancies.

In particular there is a great shortage of engineers and people with an appreciation of engineering in this country, which our schools are failing to fulfil.

Sadly, the school's careers service is next to useless unless you want to work in the armed forces or the NHS. But there are still some fantastic opportunities for those with the right aptitude and qualifications.

I don't think popular television helps either; for what careers do we see portrayed there? Apart from hospital and police dramas, which I doubt do anything to encourage recruitment to either service, television viewers will only see people working in pubs, paper shops, coffee shops and knicker factories. As for engineering they might see the odd bumbling car mechanic always working on the same car.

I believe teenage children somehow need to be given a much greater dose of imagination whilst they still have time to learn. In my experience it is only by having an opportunity to see and perhaps try something that the imagination is sparked, and just once in a while a genius is created.

There again, I learnt a lot by taking things apart and putting them back together again; usually under the watchful eye of my older brother, who also liked taking thinks apart. My mother, whilst completely untrained, had gained an excellent understanding of engineering principles from her father, who was an engineer.

However, it seems the nature of work these days is such the youngsters rarely see what their parents do in their day jobs. And what is there to take apart and fiddle with nowadays anyway?

[al_kaholik]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

There is plenty to take apart. And I agree there are tonnes of interesting jobs, we've had a stream of work experience through this week, most seemed engaged, all got excited once you get them into what we actually do.

[OM USer]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Nigel, congratulations on your son's achievement.

I learnt all my DIY skills from my father and then a bit more from my father-in-law. I'm also pretty good at taking things apart...carefully; not only to see how it works but also to fix things when they go wrong. I can lay a drive and build a log cabin. These skills are not just for old fashioned things; I can build a compter from its parts and program a microprocessor. Youngsters these days seem to have no interest in the mechanical and practical.

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Youngsters these days seem to have no interest in the mechanical and practical.

Others seem to disagree, but I firmly believe this is because it has become so difficult to take things apart and to repair them.

I have completely stripped down and rebuilt several engines and gearboxes over the years in cars, motorcycles and boats, but I wouldn't do it now. I have a very comprehensive tool set, but the job has been made almost impossible for the DIY'er, with so many special tools required.

The head gasket went on our Astra a few years ago. That is a job that I could have easily done over a weekend, but I got as far as the second set of special Torx fastenings, which Halfords didn't have a tool for, so I gave up.

It's a far cry from the days when my dad got us home on the motorbike and sidecar after fixing the burnt out clutch with the corks from some Crown Cork Caps outside a village pub. Mind you, my mum and dad had to drink the beer first, or so they told us.

[Jim Ford]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Youngsters these days seem to have no interest in the mechanical and practical.

What's the point - there's precious few "mechanical and practical" jobs around in the UK!

I've already mentioned that I used to ask 6 formers at the school where I worked what they were going to study at university. If they said engineering I asked them where they intended to work afterwards. Without exception they said 'abroad'.

Jim

[al_kaholik]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Torx is a pretty standard fastening now though. More complex, yes but how much more advanced are engines than they used to be? lt's progress. You can still get at them and do all the things you used to be able to do with carbs and distributors, but now you need to be capable with a laptop as well as a socket set

[Jim Ford]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

It's a far cry from the days when my dad got us home on the motorbike and sidecar after fixing the burnt out clutch with the corks from some Crown Cork Caps outside a village pub.

Great - sounds like it could have been a Triumph. They had a 'wet' clutch with corks. That's what I mean about 'proper' motorcycling, rather than riding tarted up mobile fairground rides. I mean - mirrors, flashing indicators, starter motors - what's that all about?

Jim

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Great - sounds like it could have been a Triumph. They had a 'wet' clutch with corks. That's what I mean about 'proper' motorcycling, rather than riding tarted up mobile fairground rides. I mean - mirrors, flashing indicators, starter motors - what's that all about?

Jim

Do you mean a Gold Wing, or should that be an Esplanade?

My dad's bike was a Panther 650, which had a dry clutch, and rather a lot of torque if I remember. (I'm sure maximum power was delivered at about one stroke every telegraph pole.)

Anyhow, the clutch burnt out on the way home from West Wittering one Saturday evening, so we stopped at a pub, dad took the clutch apart, put some crown corks between the plates, and managed to get it home. Oddly enough, we also managed to get a puncture in the sidecar tyre at the same pub, so there must have been some attraction.

Anyhow, I think the clutch incident might have had something to do with the fact that dad always enjoyed overtaking cars going UP the (then) notorious Duncton Hill (just south of Petworth), which in those days was a first gear crawl for most cars, and was like a battlefield on a hot day, with steaming radiators everywhere.

I remember one gentleman recognising us at the beach, who was very upset, because not only did we overtake him, but dad had the audacity to change up a gear whilst doing so.

(Edit: Mind you, I can remember dad muttering words I'm sure he learnt during his army days when trying to start that bike. It had a decompresser, but could still break an ankle if not treated with respect.)

Happy memories.

[Chevvyf1]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

What's the point - there's precious few "mechanical and practical" jobs around in the UK!

I've already mentioned that I used to ask 6 formers at the school where I worked what they were going to study at university. If they said engineering I asked them where they intended to work afterwards. Without exception they said 'abroad'.

Jim

Jim which SUBJECT did you Teach 6 Formers ?

[Chevvyf1]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

...

Anyhow, I think the clutch incident might have had something to do with the fact that dad always enjoyed overtaking cars going UP the (then) notorious Duncton Hill (just south of Petworth), which in those days was a first gear crawl for most cars, and was like a battlefield on a hot day, with steaming radiators everywhere.


Happy memories.

I remember "Matchbox Hill" as we children called it and Bury Hill and we practically lived at West Wittering in the sume#mer at weekends - I took my children there and my children have taken my grand children there and
NICK and I take the children we care for in the week, to West Wittering to build Castles; go Rockpooling ; picnic ; Surfing (on little Body Boards) and in the vast grass car park, we have Badminton and sack races before loading them all up in the car for their sleep home

[Jim Ford]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

Jim which SUBJECT did you Teach 6 Formers ?

I didn't teach - I was a physics technician. I worked for 35 years on gas turbine engines and when Roll Royce took over and ultimately asset stripped the factory and closed it, I took the job in the school until retirement.

It's one of the reasons why mechanical engineering will have difficulty taking off again. There are no longer the people in industry to train apprentices. There were many skilled workers that went into completely different spheres of employment. A friend of mine was a highly skilled toolmaker and he became a primary school caretaker. There were many others that took similar paths.

Watford used to employ thousands of people in engineering, but the main 'industry' now is 'Pound Shops'!

Jim

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: Youngsters Employment ?

I remember "Matchbox Hill" as we children called it and Bury Hill and we practically lived at West Wittering in the sume#mer at weekends - I took my children there and my children have taken my grand children there and
NICK and I take the children we care for in the week, to West Wittering to build Castles; go Rockpooling ; picnic ; Surfing (on little Body Boards) and in the vast grass car park, we have Badminton and sack races before loading them all up in the car for their sleep home

West Wittering was always a lovely place to go, but always pricey.

Thinking back to the motorbike, there was the stretch of road before Petworth (from North Chapel I think) that dad used to refer to as his 'making up for time' stretch, when he would 'wring the Panther's neck', so to speak.

I don't suppose it was that fast by today's standards, but it was quite a thrill then.