Nice people thread part 8 - worth the wait

chewmylegoff

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

It wouldn't ever have occured to me to use kitchen scissors to cut carpet - not that we've got any!

I use ours for cutting herbs, opening packets, that kind of thing.

I use ours for cutting my toenails.

PasturesNew

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I use ours for cutting my toenails.

I've got a robust set of chunky toenail clippers for that - which I always have with me as I use those for my nails. They're brilliant and cost about £3.

GDB2222

This morning, I am spitting mad! Really cross! With Islington Council's borough magazine and the lies they are telling our young people. Well, you decide:

Young Islington
The chance to progress
Twins Ryan and Rhys Wenzel, 21, both completed apprenticeships with Islington
Council, and are now employed by the Angel Business Improvement District team.
They spoke to IslingtonLife about their roles and why they think apprenticeships can
be a great opportunity…
Ryan described a typical day’s work. “Our main job in the morning is to collect the
recycling from businesses in the area. The really nice thing about this is that the
businesses have built up good relationships with us and know our faces, so they
stop to talk to us in the mornings. After we’ve done all the recycling we have a more
pro-active afternoon – we go around looking for graffiti to be cleaned or incidents
of fly-tipping. We also remove any flyposting. There are certain hot spots that we
know to look out for. We also respond to any calls from the public regarding flytipping or graffiti. So we’re out and about all day really. The only downside can be
the weather!”
As well as working together, the brothers live together too. “Luckily we get along
really well and always have done,” said Rhys. “And when we get home we can have a
grumble about anything that may have annoyed us that day!”
He added that one of the most important things about the job is to be good
with people. “You need to have good people skills, and be professional. We often
get stopped by members of the public who see our uniforms and stop to ask us
questions, so we have to make sure we respond to their queries in a professional
way.”
Ryan speaks really highly of apprenticeships, and would recommend them to other
young people in the borough. “Apprenticeships are a really great way to learn new
skills, and I would always recommend them to people because it gives you good
experience and opportunities. After doing an apprenticeship with the council you’re
in a much better position – you meet lots of people so you have good contacts, and
this gives you the chance to progress.”
To find out more about apprenticeships with the council, go to https://www.islington.
gov.uk/apprentices, or for more on apprenticeships in general, go to www.
apprenticeships.org.uk

What sort of government spin doctor could possibly be cynical enough to equate an apprenticeship with becoming a rubbish collector?

vivatifosi

GDB2222 wrote: »

What sort of government spin doctor could possibly be cynical enough to equate an apprenticeship with becoming a rubbish collector?

As the old saying goes, "where there's muck there's brass". Good luck to them. There should be no shame in any job that earns an honest day's wage.

Sorry GDB, can't tell whether you are genuinely upset or whether this is tongue in cheek. That's what a frazzled, hot, sleep-deprived brain does for you.

GDB2222

vivatifosi wrote: »

As the old saying goes, "where there's muck there's brass". Good luck to them. There should be no shame in any job that earns an honest day's wage.

Sorry GDB, can't tell whether you are genuinely upset or whether this is tongue in cheek. That's what a frazzled, hot, sleep-deprived brain does for you.

There's nothing wrong with earning a living piling up the rubbish. But I imagine that the training takes a day or two, maybe even a week or two. How can that possibly equate to an apprenticeship over a period of years learning a skilled trade?

As someone else put it more eloquently than me: "The lie is that they have not undergone an apprenticeship, have not learned any kind of trade or craft from a master. Compare with apprentices to plumbers, electricians, carpenters, metalworkers, blacksmiths and so on, they are simply unskilled manual labourers with no recognised trade. "

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

What sort of government spin doctor could possibly be cynical enough to equate an apprenticeship with becoming a rubbish collector?

It's an important apprenticeship in what will become a vital future way to support yourself: picking over junk piles for scraps to live on.... like in other countries.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

...can't tell whether you are genuinely upset ....

I read it that he's annoyed that the word "Apprenticeship", which used to be the cornerstone of gaining worthwhile trade experience and skills, is now simply a byword for "employing people on the cheap to not learn any real skills of use".

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with earning a living piling up the rubbish. But I imagine that the training takes a day or two, maybe even a week or two. How can that possibly equate to an apprenticeship over a period of years learning a skilled trade?

As someone else put it more eloquently than me: "The lie is that they have not undergone an apprenticeship, have not learned any kind of trade or craft from a master. Compare with apprentices to plumbers, electricians, carpenters, metalworkers, blacksmiths and so on, they are simply unskilled manual labourers with no recognised trade. "

Ah, that was putting it better than I did

zagubov

I rmember reading about the Depression in the US and how they overcame it. They employed huge numbers of unskilled workers on infrastructure projects, taking them to work camps to construct highways and dams etc.

They issued food stamps (that still exist) that could only be spent on American produce.

They even had armies of people manually picking moths off trees in conservation projects in the woods.

This apprenticeship sounds like a fancy equivalent of that very thing. I'm not against it; it seems monstrous for people to be idle when there's work that could be done; but GDB's right, masquerading it as an "apprenticeship" is grotesque.

neverdespairgirl

vivatifosi wrote: »

As the old saying goes, "where there's muck there's brass". Good luck to them. There should be no shame in any job that earns an honest day's wage.

Sorry GDB, can't tell whether you are genuinely upset or whether this is tongue in cheek. That's what a frazzled, hot, sleep-deprived brain does for you.

The shame isn't in doing an honest day's work - the shame is the council using the word "apprenticeship" to cover this particular work. An apprenticeship is a careful, long process by which a person goes from unskilled to skilled in a particular trade or craft.

A carpenter does an apprenticeship. So did a fletcher, or a bowyer, or a wheelwright.