Apprentice Vs Qualified Politics

[Kris]

As it is, i’m a 3rd year apprentice in small dealership service centre in Aus. We’ve recently had our long time service manager move up within the company and a service advisor has moved up to fill in the spot as of roughly a week ago. The workshop has been in shambles in this ” transition ” phase, poor RO time management/missing forgotten parts etc, but as a team we always managed to pull through.

However cracks are starting to appear in our work colleague relationships, just wanting to share and experience from this afternoon and get your opinions on how to handle it.

We’ve all begun to notice this one qualified tech ( tech x ) has started going on a bit of a power trip, spending a lot of time in the office chatting to office staff ( service advisor/manager + receptionist who belong in the office ) when there’s still plenty of RO’s still sitting in the pile, avoiding work towards the end of the day or just sitting in the office doing nothing getting paid overtime in the mornings, and during the day on normal time. He’s always the first person to call you out on any faults or mooching around. A fellow tech/workshop foreman and i have discussed this with the now service manager as it puts extra pressure on us all to get the work out on time.

So this afternoon there we all were in the office apart from one apprentice who was working on a engine swap 20 minutes before knock off just chatting, like usual, tech x has his shoes on ready to go home about 20 minutes before closing and then asks us what were doing in the office and orders us ( the two left over apprentices ) to go and help the 2nd year do the engine, i laughed it off which then resulted in a don’t laugh, i’m the qualified i get to order you around go help with the engine. So while tech x sat in the customer waiting area chatting to the office staff we both ( apprentices ) went to mooch around the top hoist for 20 minutes and chatted with the other apprentice but as you know a engine is predominately a one person job, if someone else messes with your connectors, piping components/bolt layout you don’t know what up down or sideways. But we ended up just helping with where things go and working it out anyway.

Then 10 minutes before knock off tech x walks by, and says shit helping guys in a really condescending attitude and goes to walk by one the way to his car. Straight up i said to tech x ” you can be a real C*%^ sometimes which i don’t think he appreciated as he said ” carefull ” and left 10 minutes early.

This isn’t a isolated incident there’s been other exchanges between tech x and other staff, and i’m not the type of person that minds being asked to do something. Being the small workshop that we are generally get along and the workplace is not at all Autocratic as some other workshops and as apprentices in a trade qualified’s are generally considered above us but everyone expects a certain courtesy in communication and equal workload.

I’m just going to chalk it up as another flex of muscle by tech x but what are your suggestions for any other future exchanges and how to deal with the situation.

Over reaction?

If it doesn’t make sense sorry i’m writing very early in the morning

Cheers guys

Topic

[Kris]

I certainly can understand that everyone has good and bad days and gets salty every now and again, but tech x seems to be hating his job at the moment and takes it out on all of us. And yeah exactly right, everyone’s sort of equal within reason and i understand giving apprentices the crap jobs and cleaning and stuff that’s all part of it.

I suppose i’m not really in a position to make his life any harder at this point but the other techs have been noticing it and giving him shit.

And its the opposite actually, he’s the junior qualified tech, least experienced qualified and has 2 techs above him in experience/seniority.

As i said the workshop foreman and i have had a chat to the service manager but nothings been done.

And that’s my bad, the land down under Australia

[Nick Warner]

So he isn’t top dog in the shop, he has no title of authority which makes him your supervisor, and he feels he can order you and others around? Get the others together with you and tell him in no uncertain terms to go fuck himself. Make sure all three of you are participating in this together. If he chooses to escalate it then the manager will be involved, and with three of you there he can’t single one man out. He will have to confront the issue. Maybe this will deflate the air out of the guy and he will realize he cannot bully you. Make no mistake, he is doing exactly that.

Perhaps you should also keep a notebook in your box and document exact dates and times where you see this guy wander off, being ready to take off early, mooching the timeclock, etc. Get your fellow apprentices in on this with you so there are 3 sets of eyes keeping tabs on the guy. Then you have made a paper trail showing it is a pattern of behavior and not a random incident. If he is going and harassing you guys, document the exact times and what was said each time as soon as is practical to do without being noticed. Take a lesson from the American DEA. Their drug surveillance can go on for several years on one person. They continue to allow the suspect to think nobody is watching, all the while building up a laundry list of charges so when they do make their move its not just one case he is up for it is a lot of them.

If your shop has cameras in it, recording the exact dates and times also will give you the ability to corroborate your claims with the manager. You can create irrefutable proof of his pattern of behavior and with the strength of numbers it isn’t just one person saying something it is a group. Same basic idea of safety in numbers as being a union worker. So get together and stand up for yourselves. You do not have to tolerate being treated in this fashion and tech x is not only detrimental to your work lives he is costing the company money. Seems he is taking advantage of the recent power vacuum during this transition to expose his true nature and he needs to be firmly and fully put in his place.

Its stories like yours that make me glad I am a union worker. Anyone who would dare try this on me or my co-workers would be immediately put in his place without hesitation.

[Author]

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