I was in a boiler spares shop on thursday afternoon there was a guy from eastern Europe in there asking for a job.
He was waving around some forms from college. Apparently the college have told him and his mates they have to each get 20 job sheets filled in before they will be allowed to go on a gas fitting course + exams.
Each form has to be countersign by a registered fitter.
He was virtually offering to do my work for me if I would fill out the form. I pointed out that the idea was that the employer had to actively supervise the work, and I already have a assistant.
This makes a change from the usually manner of being accosted in the street and asked for a job with the phrase "Please mister, you have job? I can do the gyps."
were being given corgi registration if they worked as gas operative back home. I challenged my local inspector and he said it wasn't so But there is reputedly a team of four in the area banging in heating i a day and a half for about £150 quid profit. I've lost a few landlor jobs to them and been left high and dry with a crap boiler I wouldn' fit for my worst enemy, but when ladlords want a cheap job they deserv crap and get it. In Leeds a landlord asked me for best price, I said g to ****, he'll save about £50 and get a boiler taht's worse than you worst nightmares (but with a 2 year manufacturers guarantee so that' all right then) and incorrectly sized single convector rads, actuall one size fits all, with nice little floppy grey pipe's eventuall meandering their way into the correct hole
You refuse to quote and then complain when he goes elsewhere.
Of course he's going to ask for best price, what else do you expect a buisnessman to do?
I can't believe that someone would accept this for a 50 quid saving on what, a 3K job? There must be more to it (or you have moved the decimal point).
Round my way, I'd glady have the East Europeans come and work for me and I'll pay their fare for them (fortunately my plumbing is water only). Why? Cos I can't get any other bugger to come round and even give me a quote, let alone actually turn up to do the job.
It is clear what Paul was meaning, quality suffers.
Eastern Europeans? In my experinece they are useless at gas, water and electrics. They have different standards than us, and find it difficult to work to our levels. hey also have ignornace of our regs too, so don't work to them. They probably would work to them if they knew them, but you need to kread English for that. If you do employ them for these trades heavily supervise them. They are good at basic building trades: brickwork, plastering, carpentry, but their experience of working with some modern day materials is absent, such as MDF. I saw some who were doing a great job with a rip saw when a circular saw was near by. They didn't know how to use it.
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It is clear what Paul was meaning, quality suffers.
Eastern Europeans? In my experience they are useless at gas, water and electrics. They have different safety standards than us, and find it difficult to work to our levels. They also have ignorance of our regs too, so don't work to them. They probably would work to them if they knew them, but you need to read English for that. If you do employ them for these trades heavily supervise them.
They are good at basic building trades: brickwork, plastering, carpentry, but their experience of working with some modern day materials is absent, such as MDF. I saw some who were doing a great job with a rip saw when a circular saw was near by. They didn't know how to use it. I saw others cutting copper pipe with hacksaws with not a wheel cutter in sight.
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Whilst sympathising with you and i know myself that it is hard to get tradesmen to come and look at jobs, this is no reason to support Tony Blairs master plan for a poorly skilled low wage economy of tradesmen. I wonder what line of work you are in Tim? whatever it is ,"Eastern Europeans" may be plumbers/builders today and YOUR work tomorrow..we WILL all suffer joe
Ugh wake up tim, these guys will supply and fit a full heating syste for £1,500.
I refuse to quote because I refuse to compete in that market plac where the customer gets a product that will be not worth repairing, ha incorrectly sized radiators and is not fitted to correct energ efficiency standards in the sense that pipework outside the heate space is not insulated to at least the diameter of the pipe and als quite likely a room stat isn't fitted, though they may have discovere thatis now required
Dr Evil has it right, I used a bunch of Slovakians (not sure o
spelling) to help me do up a buy to sell house in Leeds.
They start work late, fool around all day and finish at 4pm. (Well i fact they'll stay much later but from 4pm on they just stand with arm folded looking at you) Anything skilled you have to do yourself and yo will get really anoyed as you'll have an army of people you are payin standing watching you in amaisement. Anything you leave them to do o their own, you get an insight into why their houses on telly look s middle ages.
Not to say I'm prejudiced, if they realised we work long and hard al day and evening, and learned our methods they'd be fine
Many large companies go through phases of outsourcing to other companies and then pull it all back in house.
THeoretically on a P&L or balance sheet, outsourcing looks attractive. That is until you look at all the issues and discover that what you get is not as good as you thought. THen there are less tangible things such as customers not being happy about talking to a call centre in Mumbai.
This isn't to say that we should kid ourselves, but it isn't totally bleak.
Ultimately you have to look out for yourself. Nobody else will do it for you.
A principle that I have always had is to make sure that I am constantly acquiring marketable skills, ability and knowledge. I review this at least twice a year. It doesn't always work out and sometimes one backs losers in terms of skills, technologies or companies. However, on average to better than average, I've found that it does work.....
Hmm. It'd be easier to sustain the "I'm not prejudiced" claim had the first sentence quoted read "They startED work late, foolED around all day and finishED at 4pm". That form relates a particular experience with one bunch of East European workers - and a highly relevant experience at that. The phrasing actually used invites us to conclude that this would be a typical experience...
For a different PoV on the experience of the dumb foreigner, I immodestly point at
I'm sure that early abopters of outsourced manafacturing suffered this problem too. How much manufacturing do we have left now? A few iterations down the line they will catch up.
If you hadn't said this, I would have done. I don't need to be as diplomatic about these things as perhaps you feel is appropriate....
Having spent quite a bit of time in the "accession states" in the last six months, I've come to appreciate some of the issues, although I wouldn't pretend for one moment to have seen more than a scrape of the surface. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and so on are case in point. This is no claim to understand *all&* the issues but a snapshot gives a respectable appreciation....
It is a very long way from the "dumb foreigner" situation and if I were on the butt end of that I would feel short changed to insulted.
I've been incredibly impressed by the hard work and commitment that I've seen in these countries, to the point that it puts what goes on in north west Europe to shame.
There is a lot of silly nonsense around, and frankly people should grow up. This certainly doesn't imply a culture of laziness or lack of interest at all. I travel around Europe (all of it) extensively and I've come to realise and value a huge cultural and economic diversity.
There is absolutely no point in trying to apply a NW Europe mind set to Mediterranean countries or a Nordic perspective in Latin language/culture countries. It simply doesn't work so it's best to take that on board and move on.
Does this mean that I'm naive to the point of thinking that all this can lead to a Brussels superwank? Absolutely not. There is huge cultural and aconomic diversity, and the value is immense if we did but see it. I would much rather look on this as a set of challenges and learning opportunities than to pull up the drawbridge and see a threat.
I saw and read recently about the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. It's a nice concept I suppose and I am sure there is some value. Stefek, I am sure you have seen this.
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I have also seen the curled lips and the comments about it being a Stalin Wedding Cake building.
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a bigger picture never hurts.........
So rather than seeing all this as a threat, we should look for the opportunities.
Cocooning and attempting to pretend that this kind of "competition" doesn't exist is a failed strategy from the outset. It might work for a bit, but in reality it has a lifetime measured in a small number of years at best.
A far more effective and sustainable approach is to understand what is happening and then to adjust the product offering to work with that.
So for example this might mean offering high quality training to gas fitters from Bratislava rather than pulling down the quality of their work. It might mean offering an even higher level of service for those who would like to buy high end service.
It takes me back to a point that I have made a few times. In NW Europe, we simply won't compete on price. It's a fundamentally flawed strategy and there are too many ways that competition happens whether you rate the involvement of Brussels or not.
Having appreciated that point, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination. We live in a fast changing world. Either we can look for the opportunities and go after them, or we can piss around and go down the toilet.
Sorry, but it really is pretty much as simple as that. We can seek to isolate ourselves from the international scene for a while. That might be entertaining for a time. It's about as exciting as Norway believing that it is a major economic force once the oil runs out.
We need to wake up and realise that life is changing and has changed.
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