I can think of any trade that has mentors in them, because beginners would do an apprenticeship where they would work under the more experienced journeyman before they can become a journeyman themselves. What a nice concept that is being overlooked by Hollywood, where it is more about people going to school to get a good office job rather than the older generation mentoring the younger generation with their careers. Even in sports, there is mentoring where an old veteran would coach a young person everything they know in how to be in the top of their fields in a lot of individual sports like boxing for instance. I know that it is a fictional story, but even the latest rocky movie named “creed” had this concept of an old veteran teaching a young and up and comer boxer everything he knows. So overall, there is maybe coaches in individual sports(like boxing and tennis), teachers and professors from schools(most of the time, it is not the case though), and even the apprenticeships(you have to learn from the mentor who is instructing you for you to develop your craft) where they have some mentoring. But the thing is also is that most of these mentors are men, especially in individual sports(the guys even mentor the girls much of the time) and even in apprenticeships where women do not even bother going to go to as much. I have no question at all for this topic but I just wanted to bring out what is on my mind.
I use to think that way. The simple truth of it is that often times as an apprentice you are a replaceable number. I know it from my own personal experience within the carpenter’s union, and through the experience of my peers.
Most of the time, unless you either are related to someone or are insanely gifted, you are passed between multiple companies and journeymen. Add to the fact that due to industrialization, the skills themselves are simplified enough that in many respects you are “a replaceable cog” in the wheel. I was always for “apprenticeships”, and I fully respect and partially agree with similar opinions, but this mentality I believe worked efficiently only in the beginning half of the 20th century.
Now a days, most unions hire apprentices (and this is just my opinion), as a suitable cheap labor force to compete with non union companies. However if you work non-union, especially as an apprentice, your pay level is pretty low for most fields.
The simple truth is that people are becoming obsolete in many respects, and the skills that required effective apprenticeships are being taken over by machines leaving most apprenticeships programs a union/corporate effort to employ cheap labor so as to compete in the market. Even worse is that the blue collar guys are having it easier to the white collar guys in this respect.
Let’s take a step back here. How much of an apprenticeship is needed to replace a pipe under a sink, build a scaffold, hang drywall, etc that justifies a 50-60% wage gap between apprentice and journeyman when both are doing the same job with equal quality of work? And the truth of it is, with most trades becoming commercialized, none of these “skillsets” are rocket science than cannot be solve through 4-12 weeks of training.
But are apprenticeships/mentorships important? Hell yeah they are, but only in a society and work environment that promotes the dignity of the human person. Lack of morals aside, industrialization has done more damage to the dignity of man’s worth/work/work ethic in the the western world than most other things combine, because it turns man into an irreplaceable cog.
My head is in a fog, I think I will end my rant here.
John Doe 3 years, 9 months ago.
