ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Experience?

Can you afford to cut a little slack for a female apprentice, Trumpy? If so, I think you ought to.

On the other hand, I'd feel perfectly justified in *doubting* any kid or female or anyone for that matter, based on age/sex/anything. Maybe she really just wants to mix with the guys. Does she want to *do* electrical work, or *be* an electrician? That's a critical distinction. You can ask her that directly and - because she's female - she'll likely give you a straight answer, like she gave you a straight answer about spiders.

Apart from motive, I believe the main traits of a good electrician are: methodical, and even dogmatic. These are hard to gauge in a phone conversation. Have her follow you out of a room, to see if she turns the light off.

I remember working on a jobsite where we had a female apprentice... She refused to use the porta sh*tters & would drive about a mile away to a fast food joint.... I don't blame her on one side... But on the other, on constuction sites, you don't really have a choice! She might've made it in the service industry though.. But most apprentices dont enter the trade that way

-Randy

No, you guys are quite right.
Everyone has thier own fears, male or female, I've never liked to discriminate on any grounds.
I took this person on, on the idea that she wanted to learn the Trade, no matter what that entails!.
The concept here is, would you ask an Apprentice to do work that you would normally refuse to do?.
To put a name to her, Stacey starts on Monday at my workplace and I will be giving her a Safety Induction Course.
But she is on the Payroll though and we will send her down to the St Johns Ambulance station to be trained as a CPR/First-Aider.
That is standard here!.

It's just nice to see someone that doesn't want to leave school and go to University and become a Lawyer.
Yuck!!!

No... except arrive before starting time with donuts and coffee!

Joking aside, look at the question in another light...

Would your "rabbi" (mentor, first journeyman, dad - whoever kept their eye on you as a budding spark) ask me to do such a task?

Would you ask a non-app to do such a task?

Lugging 10 bundles of stick up three flights? Sure... cuz if they don't, I'll have to anyway, and it's a normal part of the work.

Hauling cases of 500' wire spools? Yep.

Bust all day behind a hammer drill on your knees mounting 30 1900 boxes in a basement? Uh huh.

Pull a few hundred feet of fish tape and wire through raceways. Of course.

Wallow face first in a drain ditch chasing an imaginary UF cable? Probably not, unless they were being a real PITA.

I don't think it's out of line to have your apprentice (obviously, once they develop the skillset) do all your "menial / grunt" work - especially if you're the one who's got to read the plans, plot your runs, you know, journeyman / master level work.

Other than the occasional "one of the boys" prank (no lasting scars, no workman's comp-worth claims), I'd keep the work steady, the expected results known, and the feedback honest.

Trumpy,

What happened with Stacey? How did it turn out. Any problems with customers or other guys on a job? Was she doing the the grunt work like carring wire, pipe, drilling, and digging? Is she still with you?

Tom

We had a female apprentice a few years ago.She looked more like a guy with long hair. She got into the apprenticeship and was next on the list to be hired.
She decided to quit after digging her first splice pit.3' + 3' + 3' .
She thought it was all sitting on a bar stool in front of a panelboard hooking up circuits.
I heard she became a gold digger.

A few years back I had an interesting situation. A female JW (well endowed) would come to the job sites in a "T" shirt w/o bra. Several of the guys called in to complain that she was a safety hazard. Not wanting to open my company up for a lawsuit, I contacted OSHA and an inspector visited the job and issued a ciation to the company. That was enough to pre-empt a lawsuit. She quit and was hired by another company. Don't know after that.
Rowdy

I had one employee that was afraid of heights and afraid of crawl spaces. (He also stuttered) but he was the nicest guy you could want to work with. I use to kid with him by saying, "You don't want to work in high places. Plus you don't want to work in crawl spaces." (Plus he too was afraid of snakes.) I asked him, "What do you want to do? Work in the middle section? That is where the foreman gets to do the work". Time has passed and he got his own license and now he has 4-5 guys working for him. These guys will climb up high and go into crawl spaces, but my old helper still won't.

As always it depends on the individual, mle or female. If I were hiring anyone and they brought up their concerns about spiders, I would comment that if the area were to have poisoness spiders we would of course have a pest control company take care of the problem before we begin work. But for the most part common house spiders are not a safety issue and are just as afraid of us as we are of them. Being afraid is a good thing, and learning to overcome your fear by developing an educated respect for dangerous conditions is one of the things that make you a professional. If your fears become irrational then they can take control of your thought process and the ability to reason effectively and that can become a danger to you or those around you. In the electrical buisness there are many other dangers that are not as obvious as spiders. Unless you are willing to work to understand the hazards involved in the occupation and how to avoid them then you should consider carfully before you accept employment in the electrical field.
Male or female I would not discriminate, some people are better at tasks and some are better at others...I have worked with women that could run rigid as well as the best men