3/28/2008
9:33:38 AM 

Where I worked, our master installer would come on our jobs once in a while, especially when we first started, to gauge if we were worth the time to teach us. If not, we were let go immedfiately, but he was the one to gauge--even working for another mechanic.

He would come on our jobs and if anything was out of place, he'd mess with us, not too hard, but hard enough to learn that lesson, especially with ouir friends around. He'd point something out and ask if we had a particularly bad case of "butchers elbo" that day.

Now I was recommended as a helper by a friend of mine and I recommended another friend of mine to another installer there, so we were three friends all learning this method and checking each others work out from time to time. It also happened that once we learned, we all went to another co. in need of new mechanics, which was D'Maggio and sons. We even worked together for as long as we could stand each other and we were constantly on each other for the smallest of mistakes, calling each other butchers and hacks. Little did we know, that we were pretty good or why.We were just being young, competitive guys.

Competition can be a very good thing.