Brian Crossman writes about hiring young people in the oilpatch. There’s different expectations today. But really, this applies to all sectors, methinks.
A while back he wrote this column about work ethic, which is the best I’ve seen. I frequently quote it to my own kids, one of whom is in the trades and one will be going into the trades.
Lombardi Time.
I’ve been retired for eleven years. The job’s entrance requirement was grade 12. In the last few years of my employment, the employer raised the requirement to a university degree. The quality of young people hired for casual and seasonal work plummeted. The actual work needed from these people was busy in spurts but not onerously difficult. Those of us in charge of some of these young people were told to allow them to use their phones when they were not real busy. Before that we would have them get the office in order, sweep and do little make work tasks and things that go by the wayside when you are busy. You could barely get them to do anything. One of them told me, “A trained monkey could do this job.” I answered, “Maybe but, unfortunately, we have you.” I can’t imagine what it’s like when the work is actually hard.
Well, my 19 year old daughter is a first year heavy duty mechanic apprentice working on yellow iron for an oilfield services company. She does NOT pull out her phone during the work day, and she works hard. She learned a lot from Brian’s column on work ethic. And when there was a round of layoffs at her company, I asked her why she thought certain people got laid off, and to learn to not repeat their behaviours. Very instructive, it was.
There are hard-working kids. But there is absolutely a generational work ethic issue for many of them, and it has everything to do with smartphones and living in the cyber world instead of the real world, in the present, now.
Didn’t mean to imply there were none. Good for her and you. Someone raised her right.
Until as a female she gets hurt.
Yes there are hard working kids but like your daughter they were taught something important at home.
I let the management know year before last kids are accommodated at home at school and now at the workplace before they have even earned it.
I guess their parents should have did the hard work. Myself I only help the ones that at least try.
My Canadian oil patch story 6x removed. My Canadian son-in-Law’s very best friend growing up in Vernon, BC works on rigs. I met him at my daughter’s wedding and immediately liked him as he is simply a fun, friendly, engaging guy to be around. A real life of the party kind of guy. Well, I learned this past Christmas that he had been fired from his very well paying oil field job. What happened?
There was an accident on a rig. An accident that this man had nothing to do with, nor was he anywhere near it. But … when any accident happens on the rig … everyone is drug tested. Everyone. Well, he tested + for THC … yes, marijuana. He immediately lost the job that feeds his wife and toddler daughter. I’m not a doper, and don’t really understand those who are … but he’s also a smart guy, hard worker, and has done quite well. But he should have known this could happen at any time. Perhaps he got lulled to sleep by that sign that read: 672 days without an accident? But his poor judgement (or drug addiction, I’ll let you be the judge may have permanently ended his career.
well kenji,
A. pot legal N of the 49th and
B. THC residue lasts more than a month unlike Ms Ethyl.
lm sorry to hear about this but realistically he had to know.
its still damnedable. and will continue whilst the pucker faced moralistic gang call the shots. lm just glad l dont have to sally up to the boss anymore.
p.s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSfMDUKfylo
cannabis assuredly provides benefit to some.
so when l see some opinionated tw*t like Babs Bush cluck away
to the contrary its infuriating.
this is NOT rationale to legalize it for recreational use.
but a condemnation of all who demand it be treated like any of the popular ‘crystalline substances’ and 100% permanently banned.
And BTW … I also know (am somewhat related to) an 18 yo Canadian kid in Vernon who went to welders school after high school … somewhat hand-picked by his HS Shop Teacher for this further education. He is now a certified welder who works all across Canada … flown from Job to job across the Prairies and beyond. He does some really hairy jobs … hundreds of feet above the ground hanging upside down … but it pays soooooo well that the kid is buying a nice pickup truck and various toys.
Now all he needs is some basic personal finance classes … hahaha ha ha ha ha … no, I’m serious. But he is a GOOD kid, and hard, diligent, worker … he’ll sort it out. Probably soon after his girlfriend gets pregnant …
While I agree that he shouldn’t have used, knowing the requirements, that’s unfair as far as I’m concerned. It’s legal for recreational purposes in Canada and a pee in a bottle (which it likely was) drug test may reveal that one had used cannabis on a weekend maybe weeks ago but it doesn’t show that one is actually under the influence. Is there any way to fight the decision?
I know he was working on it, I’ll check with my son-in-law as to how that is progressing. All I know is that his marriage is in jeopardy as a result as his wife was none too happy about her suddenly unemployed hubby. But he’s a great guy and I am sure will come out alright.
Yeah, I’m far from a weed user, and am actually quite hostile about it’s use … esp. in kids under the age of 18 when their brains are still developing … not to mention that today’s marijuana isn’t anything remotely like that “contact high” marijuana everyone was smoking at Winterland in 1972. It is a serious psychotropic drug now … and should be controlled IMHO.
but
Just like pulling someone over for a broken taillight and breathalyzing them … I don’t believe that someone who is showing NO SIGNS of impairment on the job should be FIRED just because a test gave a “positive” result. Impairment is the issue. Should be the ONLY issue. I’ve also NEVER been in favor of “zero tolerance” policies. I find them weak-minded and capricious – not taking each PERSON and their entire conduct into consideration. It’s a LAZY policy.
I’m with you there.
‘wake the f up’
ah jeez. lm having flashbacks. 7 a.m. waiting for the bus early, to clock in at 8.
fall asleep standing up in the phone booth out of the wind miss the bus.
twice.
giggling at myself, ‘glad l got out here early’
that was >50 years ago. ITS WHY IM SITTING AT MY DESK IN MY OWN HOME.
because l ‘stuck it out’ at that very complex ‘high tech’ job that led to a BSc computer science etc etc. starting wage: $1.80 a pop. joke was ‘no money left after they pay the lease on the big Digital Equipment DEC PDP-10 mainframe’
The main difference between N. America and most other places in the world is that previously, workers gave a sh1t how the job turned out.
Other places, no. They don’t care. That’s how you get tofu construction in China. Top to bottom, nobody cares about the -job-. If the building literally falls down because there’s no rebar in it, they already got paid so they do not care.
Who do we import? A million guys who don’t care about Canada, or the job they get, or anything at all, really. And you can tell by looking at the construction that’s gone up in the last 20 years. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, and don’t row. These are the new rules of work in Canada.
“Who do we import? A million guys who don’t care about Canada,”
As a “Post National State” that cannot distinguish between a man & a woman, does anyone care about a multicultural laboratory that was once called Canada?
In the railroad industry, there seems to be a lot of attrition in the apprenticeship process with the younger crowd, as a lot of them don’t want to travel/be away from home, or find the hours too difficult, since it’s a lot of nights and weekends when you are first starting out.
Having grown up on a farm and having worked my entire life I can’t help but notice that it is not simply the employees that lack the get up and go to get the job done but the employer is equally if not more guilty of holding its people back from doing the job. If you go onto an industrial site the amount of safety and bureaucracy one has to follow simply takes the will to ‘git ‘er done” simply disappears. I was on a job with little or no safety oversight and we accomplished the job in 8 hours. I was on a job a week later with huge oversight and the same size job took us 24 hours. The industrial site had better equipment and fancier tools but it took 3 times as long.
Yes, absolutely. Any company that says ISO-#### Compliant! at the front gate, guys are shuffling around the place like they were in leg shackles.
Like Boeing, fer instance.
At one time we were 15 guys left working out of a company of 250 at the peak. Working 12’s, two weeks in, one week out, on rotation.
We sorta figured out amongst ourselves all 15 of us were farm kids…
Pretty sure that was not a coincidence
An observation. My 20 year old works as a solar installer, up on roofs in all weather except snow. Gets up, goes to work, puts in a day. When he comes home I will usually ask how his day has gone.
“It was great, got the whole roof panelled,” or “Not fantastic, we did not have enough x to finish the job.” How his day has gone is all about how well or badly the work went. He likes to “get’er done” a lot.
Which means, along with significant experience, he is pretty certain to be bumped up to crew lead after all of a year on the job. All about the attitude.