A little background. I'm the foreman of a small machine shop. Business has been picking up greatly and we are in need of machinists. We are having very little luck in finding qualified people and when we find someone that seems promising, it generally turns out that they are no more than a machine operator. Able to set up and operate a CNC (usually a vertical mill) but no more, nor do they want to do more. We have gotten to the point of training people into the position. We have gone through a number of them. Many, when they find out that it is real work and they can't just stop thinking and show up to work on autopilot after a month or two, either quit or become worthless to the point that they get fired. We have two trainees in the shop right now. One is female (extremely rare in this trade). She never made it through high school but has a GED. I'm finding that she has a great learning ability and enthusiasm. It is quite obvious that her problems in school were due to boredom. To get her math skills up to par, I have been giving her homework. She has been doing quite well now that she sees a need. To bad someone couldn't have instilled a real world need in her in school. She'd be that much further ahead. The other trainee, a male, just out of high school, made a comment the other day that really struck me. He said "I took trigonometry for two years and thought it would never be good for anything. Then, the first job I get, I need it".
"Morris Dovey" wrote in message news:44d4dd32$0$6438$ snipped-for-privacy@news.qwest.net...