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Things You No Longer See At Work

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by deleteduser211220, Aug 14, 2020.

  1. Enthusiasm
     
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  2. The chemicals!
     
  3. probably
     
  4. weekly voluntary donation on payday to the miners hardship fund!
     
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  5. When I first started a Rolls-Royce there was some dispute going on with hourly-paid staff. So, RR shut the whole Filton plant down. About 4 of us had been taken on from Swindon College. All we had to do was to drive down every Thursday and go to one of the canteens to collect our pay (this was in the days of cash). On the way out hourly-paid union reps would be collecting money in a bucket for striking staff.

    They always got about 40/50 quid from us with a "keep it up lads!". The deal was to be helped to do an HND at Swindon College whilst working for RR for 6 weeks in the Summer (minimum, you could do more) and then you would get four weeks paid holiday per year! So, in the first Summer, I think I worked for one or two weeks and still got all the benefits!

    And you used to get paid throughout the year for bank holidays and the day after! I was a rich student on a Ducati!

    After a year of doing an HND, I decided that I would do a degree in Mechanical Engineering instead of an HND. Rolls even agreed to sponsor me for that on the same terms! Madness!
     
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  6. Aye in the good old days of " Coffers " , companies don't have them these days do they ?
     
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  7. Couple of blokes outside the plant selling The Socialist Worker
     
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  8. This... just bloody this...

    It would solve so much if that value alone was to become a thing again.

    We've so many people who have an engineering degree that aren't actually or don't want to be engineers, they're just spreadsheet surfers hiding behind their Msc and Imeche letters, yet couldn't design a bloody cardboard box if you templated it and cut it out for them.

    There was a time when the man making the thing could go up to the D.O. and throw the drawing back because it's unmakeable and it would be the so called design engineer who got the bollocking not the floor minion.

    The amount of shite design I see now, and terrible drawings or hiding behind 3d annotation and GD&T, with shop floor staff scratching their heads about how it's supposed to fit because it fitted on cad.

    to add...

    Thick skin and workshop banter and mirth.
    One of our project engineers was bopped over the head with a peice of sponge... the individual who did the bopping was "spoken to" as the "victim" "didn't feel it was appropriate and was intimidated by the action" ffs.
     
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  9. Couldn't agree more! Kids coming out of Uni with nothing better than icon-clicking skills....
    As for the IMechE thing....give me strength! It's seen as just a follow-on to a degree - seemingly nothing to do with ability & experience. Grrrrr.
     
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  10. The (questionable) man who runs our drawing office is one such bloke.
    He came from quality inspection manager to design office manager but has never designed anything and only just done a catia basics course. He also is one of those blokes that when you ask him to take ownership of anything he turns white and runs away. In two years he has never put his name to anything but will take the credit as being the driving force behind every success.

    When he burn't a piece of toast one morning he argued, and still does to this day that it was not his fault and a shared responsibility as there was another fella around who should have seen it burning and taken it out of the toaster.

    It says alot about the character of a man if he can't admit to burning a piece of toast... and he dares to call himself a yorkshireman!! (well he does steal toilet rolls and condiments so... )

    He hides behind all his titles and his ImechE is his favourite. He recruits based on academia and one of us being made redundant was told the reason he was going was because he doesn't have a degree (despite having ten years work experience in a machining company).

    He got the DO to write down their academic qualifications a few months ago - looking back as he had prior knowledge of what was to come. The staff he has recruited under his watch sadly really don't want to design, they just want to progress into other areas and manage things.

    And now the next big bespoke programme they had planned they're outsourcing to a coventry mess who will make them pay through the nose as in house the department "doesn't have the design experience necessary to complete a project of that scope".

    grrrr indeed.

    OUTSOURCING... thats another one, as for all the piss and importance, it says everything when you are unwilling to have a go yourself.
     
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  11. Dunno what it's like now but as a graduate/undergrad trainee you had to go round various departments to qualify as an "Engineering Technologists". One placement that I remember was in a machine shop. I was tasked with making a perfect 1" cube from a bit of mild steel - no way would they let us work on real engine parts. I made it and a supervisor came to check it it. He declared it shit and threw it on the floor and kicked it under the bench. Upset, I went to retrieve it from under the bench to finish it. I got down on my knees to look for it. Under the bench was crammed with freshly milled cubes!

    I may of mentioned this one before. On a stint on the engine test beds, I was delegated to go an buy a chicken from Carrefour to fire at the engine for one of its airworthiness test. I bought a frozen chicken rather that a fresh one! That got me another bollocking as well!
     
    #91 PerryL, Aug 15, 2020
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2020
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  12. And pretending not to run. Everywhere at RR - like many other places, I guess - running was strictly prohibited on site. So, at going home time everybody would walk as fast as poss without breaking into a run. Then once outside, it was the Olympics!
     
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  13. Rolls Royce Derby? I was there too. 1970 - 1978. DO Apprentice, then the last 41/2 years on Moor Lane in the Detail Office (D.O. on E2).

    Edit:...just seen not Derby.
     
  14. Nah, military engines at Filton, Bristol. I think that I only went to Derby once but visited Leavesden (helicopter engines) many times. I think that Leavesden has closed down and is now a Harry Potter experience or summit! Dunno where helicopter engines are made now - if they still make any.
     
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  15. @PerryL RR was Patchway.
    BAe/Airbus is Filton (where I started my career).
     
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  16. Double time Sundays on print machine & treble on bank holidays (weeks wages on 3 day shift)
     
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  17. Page 3
     
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  18. Less popular apprentices had their enamel tea mugs araldited to their benches over night, and one particularly tight one had a couple of 50p pieces araldited to the floor around his workspace, endless amusement as we watched him trying to pick them up
     
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  19. Our apprentice ( my oppo and i ) initiation day had arrived, Colin dived into the bogs and was captured, bastards used swarfega/ sawdust and head down the bog........ i managed to shin up a steel girder and cross onto a steel roof truss and sat what seemed to be for an eternity. Lucky for me the Manager (aka the "Bloke") entered the Machine shop saw what was going on and got me a reprieve. I still got Faux duffed up by the two Tag Wrestlers who used to go through the Rag bins and dress up in what seemed suitable at the time and would somehow avoid the chargehand and reek havoc on the shopfloor.
     
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