Apprentices and wind ups

[parsfan]

A story about spanners on another thread got me thinking of this. We would often send apprentices for things like a bucket of steam, a long stand or skyhooks. One of the best I remember though involved us sending an apprentice on a real errand. We asked him to go to the store to get an adjustable spanner, as short time later he appeared. The storeman had told him to see if it was a metric or imperial one we wanted. The poor lad could'nt understand why we were alughing so much.

[dkightley]

When I started my apprenticeship with the then CEGB, a family friend was one of the head storemen in the stores at Nottingham Power Station. He'd briefed me about the "errands" that new apprentices were sent on...the favorite being "Fetch a bucket of steam from Stores.", and was wanting to get his own back on one particular member of the Operations staff.

With me starting, he hatched a counter-plan where he made up a metal bucket full of what I think was synthetic wool fibre as a "bucket of steam" and briefed me to be in the right place at the right time to be sent to Stores. The plan was that I would ask for "a bucket of steam", he would hand over the prepared bucket...and I'd present it to the "joker" by tipping the bucket of fibres (sorry, steam!) on his head. At least....that was the plan!

All went well...I got collared and sent to Stores for "a bucket of steam", but when I got there, unknown to both me and the storeman who was in on the counter-joke, the station's Training Manager happened to be in the Stores back office, saw me (in my shiny new green overalls) and came out the office to ask me what I was doing just at the moment I was doing the "Can I have a bucket of steam, please?" line.....and I got told off for being a fool for falling for a stupid trick, and was sent back to where I should have been!

It took about three months to live that one down..

[batling]

Hi Doug,

Love it! Though my own personal favourite is going to buy a can of Tartan paint!

Kind Regards
Ant

[oldrocker]

When I worked for a well known high street bank in the 60s/70s, one prank was to ask a new junior to pop over to a rival bank and ask to borrow their general ledger (usually an 18" x 24" tome) which was maintained by hand.

They usually got a mouthful and a cyber clip round the ear.

Until that is one day when we sent our new lad off on his mission and he asked the new junior at the other bank !

The rest, as they say, is the stuff of legend !

We took it back tho . . . after a couple of hours !

[oldrocker]

Hi Doug,

Love it! Though my own personal favourite is going to buy a can of Tartan paint!

Kind Regards
Ant

And now you can get it over the internet !

http://www.aboutaberdeen.com/tartanpaint.php

Now that's progress !

[codrivermike]

When i worked in the stores I used to get asked for a box of assorted tappet clearances. On occasions i'd be asked for an adjustable spanner and I always sent the lad away to ask wether he needed metric or imperial.

We did send one lad out to the shop for....................................

Nah. It's a family forum. can't tell you that one

[rlmathers]

Arrived back in the workshop with apprentice in tow, when I realised I hadn`t got the details of the machine we had been working on.
Sent the apprentice to `Get the details off the machine.`
He`d been gone a heck of a time, when suddenly he appeared, with, in one hand a hammer a chisel and in the other the brass nameplate off the machine.
He wasn`t able to sit down for a fortnight.

[Pyromaniac]

Well you did tell him to get the details of the machine you had been working on, and the whole point in this thread is the gullible-ity of apprentices .

I say well done to him for ingenuity which is good for a new worker .

Cheers

PT

[parsfan]

Arrived back in the workshop with apprentice in tow, when I realised I hadn`t got the details of the machine we had been working on.
Sent the apprentice to `Get the details off the machine.`
He`d been gone a heck of a time, when suddenly he appeared, with, in one hand a hammer a chisel and in the other the brass nameplate off the machine.
He wasn`t able to sit down for a fortnight.

LOL, you wonder how some apprentices were able to learn a trade. We used to look after the gardens at registary offices in Kirkcaldy. We sent one apprentice round to weed a rockery at the back. When we went round he'd pulled all the weeds out AND all the plants that were meant to be there as well. He wasn't a mallicious lad, just not the brightest.

[Lad491]

When we went round he'd pulled all the weeds out AND all the plants that were meant to be there as well.

My gardener was like that I asked him to weed a flower bed along my neighbours wall and cut down all the dead stuff so the new shoots could grow back, and he dug the lot out. he said they all looked like weeds to him. He, supposedly, had 5 years experience as a landscape gardener so it makes you wonder about the others he worked on

I never served any type of apprenticeship, but as a junior clerk we were subject to the same round of pranks played on us by others. Two examples were a message to call a client about an order, a telephone number and the name C Lion. In hindsight I should have spotted the joke but in my naivety I dialled the number. Even when the switchboard answered announcing "London Zoo" it didnt immediately click until i said the name

Another I remember was just a message to call Sally and a number. I duly dialled number, was answered by the switchboard - I thought - asked for Sally, was told she was taking another call and invited to wait. So wait i did, and wait, and wait, and wait. Until I spotted the guys at the other end of the office on the direct night line which I had dialled, all rolling around killing themselves laughing.

When I worked for HMC&E we often got new guys on the enquiry desk by ringing up for the duty rates on rabbit skins from Russia, and make them spend ages going through the tariff classification guide. The story could be embroidered by saying it was only cheap skins and they were for a fur coat for my mother because i didnt have enough money for the high grade skins and asking what the duty differential was (there was no such thing), and so on.

We got up to many japes, including attaching a trail of paperclips to rear of someones coat. That poor unfortunate walked all the way to the tube trailing this tail, and was half way down the escalator before someone told him. Another bought a trick lighter which gave the user an electric shock, and then told his target that it was a trick lighter which sprayed water and invited him to try it on someone else. His surprise when he got the shock was classic

We also used to actually work sometimes too

[01pictoa]

Being an apprentice maintenance fitter, i've had all these tried on me with no success! Stories like these were told by the instructors of the training center I went to, so I was prepared for them. Well, apart from being asked to get a glass hammer! I made it half down the workshop thinking; "what the hell do we a glass hammer fo...." before turning around to see the other blokes struggling for breath!

These wind ups will never die!

Andy.

[Easilyconfused]

All the usual ones came out in my apprenticeship. Being sent to the stores for a left handed screwdriver foxed me for a while

Practical jokes were also widespread on the main site where I worked as well as the apprentice school. One of the management's less well thought out ideas was allowing junior staff the ability to define new time booking codes. Since nobody else liked doing the time booking I got saddled with it being the most junior in the department. Thus came to be the time booking code CWOT that got about 5 hours a week booked to it. After about 2 years someone came down from the main office to ask what the task CWOT entailed at which point I told them it stood for "Complete Waste Of Time"

Another pretty silly one was when we had a guy attached to us from the US Marines for a few months. He was told to take a van from Bristol to our site near Coventry to collect some test samples. Since he had little knowledge of the country we provided a strip map for him to follow i.e. step by step instructions with pictures of the junctions.

Unfortunately, he did not tumble onto the fact we had routed him via the M4 to Cardiff, the A470 up through Wales to Bangor (eventually) and then via the A55 to the M6 and eventually trans-Pennine to the M1 and then down to Coventry. When he got there he was a little concerned it had taken all day and into the evening shift so the night shift stores guys (who were in on the game) let him sleep overnight in the ready room whilst they prepared a "better" route home the following day via the M1 South and M25 / M3 to Southampton and then cross country to Bath before regaining the M4 to Bristol. A gross waste of diesel and pretty irresponsible but at the time it was highly amusing. The transport manager went ballistic at the amount of diesel used and the fact the van was missing from his radar for nearly a day since as far as he was concerned Coventry was a 6 hour round trip - not 2 working days.

[stephenjrhodes]

One of the popular ones at Crewe Works was to Ask the Apprentice to go to the stores for a long weight in which the storeman would keep him standing there for half an hour or more before sending him back to us with a Red Face
Did the bucket of steam and the glass hammer one as well

Steve

[JonathonAG]

Currently in my apprenticeship at Haymarket....can't say there's been that many jokes....however, I have been asked to go get left handed screwdrivers on numerous occasions....I think that one is getting old

[dkightley]

Been asked to get a 4BA flogging spanner yet???