OT Mechanics

I've been reading alot about the discussion about the unions and it reminded me of my career.

I've been a mechanic on industrial equipment and over the road equipment for 30+ years and I am suprised of the mechanics that work on these machines did not finish high school for what ever reason. They really seem to drag the other co workers down with out kowing they are doing so. They have to have so many things their way to protect their ignorance of the trade they are in.

Is it only in the mechanic trade that have these uneducated workers or are there other trades where they work next to educated employees?

I know this is going to raise a stink with a lot of folks who didn't finish high school. It just seems like if a perston can't do well in school they become mechanics!!

That's not the reason I became a mechanic though. I have invented items and received United States patents on them.

I have worked with mechanics who were dyslexic...they had reading difficulties, but they knew diagnostics and wrenching, even if they struggled with tests in school. And I've worked with guys who didn't understand physics and basic science, and who couldn't explain the whys of what they were allegedly doing.

Years ago, illiterate mechanics could still be good mechanics. Today, with all the drive-by-wire stuff and all the other electronics, you really have to understand basics of electronics if you're doing much more than changing tires and oil...and with the tire-pressure monitoring system, the apes may have to take the tire-changing off their "skills" lists as well.

When I was younger....under 30, I am now 40. I used to think that if anyone that was in the job market with any skills and or professional type of job wasnt worth anything unless they had a college degree. There is almost no excuse for finishing high school, unless you are thrown into the work force at 17 so that you can make money to eat.

Well I got educated through life and experience and I have learned that the colleges have abundant idiots that teach the courses---for the most part. And that many guys that are good with a wrench and have common sense dont need a degree to be good at what they do. (I think that college is valuable to anyone) but it is not an absolute need. BTW--I have a 2 year associate degree in a technical study.

It is unfortunate that society puts education so high on the list but Morals/decency/common sense and doing the right thing comes second with most of the younger generation.

My current boss is a great electrician and electonics technician, and machine builder. He has Zero college under his belt but is very good at what he does and is the operations manager.

I finished high school along with 3 years of tech school. I'm saddened everyday to hear of kids dropping out of high school, but agree there are a few valid reasons for doing so. I'm a shift supervisor that certainly does not have a college degree as a back up. I've seen literally dozens of "college educateds" come and go, many being "too good" for that kind of work, some being very good and moving up, and the rest you must wonder "how do they function"?
I entered my current job with 14 years of shift management experience, that was after a half dozen job interveiws where I was told ' man we could really use your skills but without a degree we cannot use you'. My current plant manager hired me based on the 'hit the floor running' skills I had. He stated that a degree would be nice but somebody that can come on line in days rather than months or years is considerably more valuable. As far as mechanicin' I've seen a lot of wrench benders that didn't have the 'education' and $20,000 Snap-on tool box that I'd stake my life on. On the otherhand I've seen the opposite. I've had a new hired industrial electrican in a non-union shop stand there and tell me that lugging wires together in a motor box was a millright's responsability. You may wonder what an old school shift boss has to say to him right after said shift boss just helped muscle the 200 horse motor in to place and tie it down. I agree you have meatheads at all education levels, but I've seen just as many "educated mechanics" stand there and hammer a wheel on a car with a thundergun so tight it will never come off (or run true again) as I have dropouts. Most interveiwers toss out applications that don't have at least a GED listed on them these days.

I used to work in a factory. Management decided to make a change on the machine that I had operated for 15 years. They decided to hire an outside engineer that was well known in the community. He told me how he was going to redesign it. I told him it couldn't work the way he wanted to do it. We argued for a few minutes and he went on his way. Next day while I was at lunch, he came out and found me. He grabbed my hand and shook it and said "thanks Dan". He then told me that he had gone back to his shop that night and laid it out full scale and saw exactly what I was trying to tell him. This was (he's dead now) an engineer with some common sense, which I find is quite rare. If more of these educated idiots would listen to the people on the front line, things would get done a lot more efficiently.

Buzzman said what I was gonna.

Gene

My last formal grade was the ninth grade. Due to local politics at school I quit. I don't do well on test. But show me what you need fixed and I will fix it. I understand electronics and control systems. I was fired because of my lack of a degree and told guys like me were out of date and useless. I have learned since my firing that they have hired eight smarter techs since firing me. All have quit are been fired and they have lost some customers because of it.I try to learn something new everyday.I have seen guys with degrees that could not change a light bulb without screwing it up. AS and old man once told me. Degrees only make bad crap paper,it is what you can do that counts. I am no expert and don't know it all. But I am on several sites helping people out with problems the smarter guys can't understand.

a degree may get you the job, but it wont keep it for you.
every profession has people who know what thier doing and those that dont.

Not sure what exactly your point is. I've met many morons with multiple MAs, MSs, MBAs, PhDs, and also met some geniuses who were high school drop-outs. Not all grease-monkeys are idiots, and not all degreed people have IQs over 80.

Some highly skilled (and intelligent) people skip higher academics simply because it does not appeal to them. And, some inept and unskilled people get all the degrees they can, so they can get hired and paid according to what they are "theoretically" capable of instead of what they can actually do.

I'm one of those people who got thrown out of high school and went to work as a gas station grease monkey in the 60s. Most of my useful education came from working in various trades, not reading books.

That being said, when I got into my 40s, I DID go to college and got several degrees. I did so mainly because I had a huge chip on my shoulder. If anything, the "higher education" clouded my mind and made me a bit dumber. I think better, and work worse.

What the heck does any of this have to do with unions? Unions are basically people who try to get their way by joining large groups, since many of the individuals seem to feel life is too difficult when they take it on, on their own.

By the way, I'm a proud ex-Teamster and ex-IBEW member. Proud of NOT staying in. I quit both jobs since membership was mandatory.

I agree with Billy. I've seen it both ways. There are the ones that seem too dumb to procreate and then there are the educated idiots that don't have enough common sense to come in out of the rain.
Some days I think there's too much emphasis placed on having a degree. My thoughts are yes a degree is good, but can you actually do the job well? Common sense goes a long way.
I've seen guys that when asked to count all of the parts in a bin on a shelf, they can't understand that when there are 3 unopened packages of 5 and an opened one of 3, they have to open all of them and count each one individually.

This reminds me of a true story told by my friend Joe. He was working at a factory job on maintainance when the foreman brought him a drawing of a jig for bending iron and asked if he could build it. Joe said ,sure I can build it but it won't work. He asked why it won't work & Joe said you figure it out. He later came back & said the engineers looked it over & said it will work if you build it according to the drawings. So Joe built it on company time & when he was done they all agreed it was what they wanted. They put a length of iron in it & pulled the levers & it bent up the iron just the way they wanted, but after it was all bent there was no way to get it out of the jig!

Just like the class you started out in school with there are all different kinds of people.Everybody is different as to their ability to do different things.Then there are people that struggle with everything and the authority of people over them.Some of them finally quit in High School because they just feel like they cant go on any more,or they are hungry and need a job,or most of the ones I saw that quit school got their girlfriend pregnant and got a job to support a family or tried to.
If you are unemployed and there is a mechanic job available,if you want a job you try and be a mechanic.Since most people that go to college dont want to get their hands dirty a high school drop out maybe can get a job doing that.Also just because somebody drops out of high school does not make them dumb,or only capable of doing bottom of the barrel jobs.The man who built the Golden Gate bridge had an 8th grade education.Where you went in school should not always mean that much in what job you do.Going to school is a hoop you have to jump through more than making a person capable of doing a job.Most of the trouble I have run into on a job has been with a college educated mangers that knew nothing about the job they got because they knew somebody.

Some of the best mechanics that I ever worked with
never finished high school. Some were mechanics and a machinist. One of them I went to school with and I think he dropped out in the 9th grade and he had worked in his dad's garage since he was toddler. His dad was a mechanic and a machinist.

He left his dad's garage and worked at a Ford dealership in DE for a few years then he was drafted and then opened his own shop about 50 years ago and he's still in business plus he has a school bus contract with about 20 buses. He's probably a millionaire by now. The Army thought he was so good he was made an instructor teaching all those soldiers how to become mechanics at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Hal

I grew up working on cars and pickups and overhauling them. When they went to electronic ignition and all this EPA crap, I can't hardly touch them. And if I did want to touch them, they are so jam packed with stuff, my fingers aren't long enough or slim enough.

I just don't see the kids working on cars in the driveway and backyard like we used to. Ask a kid/mechanic of today how to adjust the points and you will likely get a blank stare.

Your comment about kids and points is not too valid anymore...since by 1980, ALL of the US car manufacturers had gone to electronic ignition. That was 30 years ago, closer to 35 in most cases [GM had HEI in '74, and Ford had Duraspark about the same time].

So asking kids today about setting points is akin to asking someone born in the 1950's how to time the valves on a sleeve-valve Willys-Knight engine...or asking someone your age how to make a buggy whip. Most don't know because they're not likely to run into that technology unless they choose to service antiques.

I answer some tech questions on an old truck discussion board, and there are a lot of younger folks who could probably teach computer stuff but have no idea how a carburetor works--primarily because by 1990 even the low-line imports had gone to fuel injection. And 1990 is nearly 20 years in the past. The kids who are getting into these old trucks are open to learning about carbs and points and such, but for the most part they just haven't been exposed to what is antique technology nowadays.

So unless they choose to own an antique car, truck, or tractor, why should these kids learn something that won't help them with their own cars? I'm pretty sure that's how the younger generation looks at this [my kids are 29 and 25, so electronic ignition is older than either of them].

As previous posters have stated. Many have dropped out due to pregnant girlfriends or politics getting them a literal beating.
There are also those students who had problems with drugs/booze or with authority figures.
Now there are many recognized learning disabilities that were in the past considered to be laziness. stupid etc. ADD, ADHD, depression, dyslexia to name a few.
It's one thing where somebody learns a task by rote. They imitate what they have seen and perform a set task rather well. However they have no real idea why what they are doing "works". It's a dangerous situation.
A tradesman with some theory can foresee problems and avoid them. And take on new tasks without being stumped.

Here is a scary quote from Wikipedia which jives with other data I've seen. Have a look at how many illiterate and functionally illiterate persons there are in the western world.
No wonder so many old time tradesmen and labours who have gotten along fine in the past. They now regard the written word and computers with terror in their work.

Prevalence

In the United States, according to Business magazine, an estimated 15 million functionally illiterate adults held jobs at the beginning of the 21st century. The American Council of Life Insurers reported that 75% of the Fortune 500 companies provide some level of remedial training for their workers. All over the U.S.A. 30 million (14% of adults) are unable to perform simple and everyday literacy activities. [1]

The National Center for Education Statistics provides more detail. Literacy is broken down into three parameters: prose, document, and quantitative literacy. Each parameter has four levels: below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient. For prose literacy, for example, a below basic level of literacy means that a person can look at a short piece of text to get a small piece of uncomplicated information; while a person who is below basic in quantitative literacy would be able to do simple addition. In the US, 14% of the adult population is at the "below basic" level for prose literacy; 12% are at the "below basic" level for document literacy; and 22% are at that level for quantitative literacy. Only 13% of the population is proficient in these three areas—able to compare viewpoints in two editorials; interpret a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity; or compute and compare the cost per ounce of food items.

In the UK, according to the Daily Telegraph (14 June 2006) "one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year-old". The UK government's Department for Education reported in 2006 that 47 percent of school children left school at age 16 without having achieved a basic level in functional mathematics, and 42 percent fail to achieve a basic level of functional English. Every year 100,000 pupils leave school functionally illiterate in the UK.[2]

I have somewhat of a unique view of the situation. I teach high school tech ed. I myself have a college degree but many of my students do not pursue one for themselves.

No matter how many stories you hear of people who dropped out in the 8th grade and now make millions etc. you have to remember those people are the exception to the rule. For every one of them there are 100 or more dropouts either in prison, dead end jobs or worse.

You also need to realize that todays working world is changing. Many times discussions on this very board are about how we don't manufacture anything in this country anymore. With the lack of low skill, learn on the job manufacturing the competition for those jobs is getting more and more fierce. Top that off with incoming guys with less living expenses and your buddy who has no formal training and dropped out of high school is SOL if he ever gets laid off as there are 20 guys who look better on paper standing in line for the same job hje is applying for. In this day and age of employment in most cases you need the company more than they need you. You need to be as marketable as possible. If that means spending 4 years of your life to get a piece of paper that says you are qualified (even though your actual skills may not have changed much) then so be it.

Finally, you need to realize to a company that a diploma, degree etc is not entirely about the skill set you should have to go along with that certification. It is a litmus test. The average company spends in the neightborhood of $5000-$8000 to train an employee. Companies need to make sure the employee is stable. A diploma or degree is a good indicator of that. The company needs to do their best to make sure that training investment is not wasted. If a guy cannot finish high school like the other 93% of the world that is not saying much about his ability to follow directives, gut things out if needed etc.

Likewise a diploma or degree shows the ability of the applicant to set a goal and achieve it. Don't think for a minute that a company won't do the math and figure out it took you 5 years to get your diploma or 6 years to get your degree. Companies demand efficiency, motivation, productivity and skills People who cannot complete degree programs or do so very slowly generally are lacking in these categories.

Do I have a degree, yes. Do I need it every day to do what I do, maybe. Do all my students need to get a 4 year degree, absolutely not. Should all of them at a minimum get their diploma, absolutely.

mrs 730 is a retired school teacher.
she has had the experience of teachers that can't teach and won't correct their mistakes when asked about them.
one such person didn't correct misspelled words on black board she said spelling doesn't matter as long as they get the idea.
this person has masters degree and didn't know that ax is not the same word as ask.

It happens in other fields too. The stories I could tell......

While I don't feel it's company wide (you can't become the largest protein producer in the world and work this way) but the Tyson foods here rewards incompatance worse that any place you could ever imagine.

City goverment ain't much better.


Dave

Yeah , Yeah....I know all about those worthless patents...I flat refused to pay a "Maintenance Fee" they requested to keep the patent "On the books"...What a rip off....Not only did it cost over 3 grand for the patent, but they wanted $1600.00 for the maintenance fee.....FOR WHAT?? Are you gonna mow the grass, repair the roof , or pick-up the rubbish ?? There I feel much better now....

I have a daughter who started college several times and quit. I said never again. She went to work in bank and later accounting department in Hospital and did very good. In fact an opening came up requiring a bachelors which she didn't have. Her supervisor got job title and education changed so she could have it. Time passes and she said Daddy, one more time, will you pay for college courses. I said yes semester to semester, you goof once and that is it. She did well this time and got Degree in accounting. Once while she was in school her mother ask her if what she was learning in school was helping her in her job at work. She looked kinda funny and hesitated and then said NO it is the other way around. I am making these good grades in school because of what I what I learned at work.

I know many excellent mechanics and craftsmen who had limited education.My 200 year old house was built by men who couldnt read or write.The job was directed by a boss carpenter who used a story pole to make all measurments.Public schools were rare.Trades were learned by the apprentice method.My dad had limited schooling and was an excellent mechanic and carpenter.One of my best friends had trouble reading but turned out to be a top notch mechanic,carpenter and heavy equipment operator.Skills are inherited from our ancestors.My grandaughter has a strong interest in poultry.At nine she has hens sitting on eggs.Her sister and brother have zero interest.My daughters children have very high marks in school and both have strong musical ability.My daughter teaches school.I worked in electronics and mechanics for many years.A lot of my working life has been in farming.My father in law was a mechanic and his son is a mechanical engineer.My wife is a medical secretary and if far smarter than me.I hated school and a amazed that my daughter teaches school.