Take a hint in terms of the answers you get with regards to request for help and assistance. If they knew, why wouldn't they help? Throwing more people on a specific problem is like throwing money on the problem to make it go away. (I should think there is a more rational answer.)
In case you have not noticed the people who are truly craftsmen meet and share stories and knowledge. If you have the expectation that your employer will pay for this, even though they should, swallow the harsh pill that they have no interest in paying for anything.
Because training and doing the work specified in the employers contract with your clients reduces the amount in the next quarterly incentive check, it simply aint gonna happen.
My best suggestion is to invest in yourself and get training for you and like minded persons. Just talk to the elevator companies who are taking clients away from your employer and you will see the commonality is that they invested in their own learning and education and are now taking clients away from your employer. These same companies are actually charging more than the big four, who only think it's about price.
Good fortune to you.
Robert L Krieger Jr.
Consultants are basically doing what was once the supers job. Surveying the jobs!!!
It used to be a black mark against a mechanic to have a consultant get called in on your job. Now it's an everyday occurence, with some of these guys getting annual contracts to make sure elevator work is being done..
The reliance on field engineering to fix problems is also a direct result of the loss of the maintenance superintendent. Long gone are the days when the super was the smartest cat in the office, and could come help you fix a problem. You might not like it when the crotchety old SOB showed up, fixed it in about 5 minutes and told all your close friends what you did in the next meeting in the bar....But..They were people locally you could count on to have your back, and teach you.
Now you have people manning that position that have NO field experience, no way to help you except to complain about lack of engineering support, and no way to actually survey a job, except to read a consultant report.
And remember the good old days when a guy retired and was immediately replaced, or you had a roamer that would perform vacation relief, or maintenance helpers, or multi mechanic residental jobs, where a junior mechanic could spend a couple of years seasoning under an old pro, or the maintenance repair crew...Long gone...
And a lot of this stuff is the buildings fault as well. Basically paying the SAME money for a contract that they were paying 30 years ago, and if you try to up the price a dozen others will be there to take if from you..
And in my opinion it's going to become more and more streamlined manpower and financial wise, with the advent of newer controls. There was a reason why you had 4 maintenance hours a week on a gearless car with a mechanical selector. Now that same car has no selector, about 10 relays, usually hooked to some sort of remote monitoring at headquarters, and gives you a pretty good idea what the problem is before you get there.
I fear one day, and in the not too distant future, we will go the way of the local Television repair shop. When's the last time you saw one of those?..
I could go on but that's enough for now..
My 2 cents..
Next..
Just went through the current course catalog. No mention of VVVF drives (Analog or digital) DC Drives (analog or digital). No mention or remote serial communications (LON, CAN, 485)..No mention of Closed Loop systems, operation amplifiers, etc..
The is a pic of a print from and old Otis UCL showing the direction and safety circuit and lots of stuff about OSHA, safety, etc..
You would think in 5 years of study to obtain a mechanics license a guy would know what an AND gate is. You can get a bachelors in the same amount of time.
Doesn't look like much has changed from when I went in the early 80's. We were studying thyratron tubes used in 6 program dispatching that hadn't been put in in 20 years..
Interested in your responses to NEIP. Where they're at, what needs to be improved. I used to teach and enjoyed it for the 5 years I did it, but even back then I felt the material was lagging..
Thoughts??
(Especially since it seems like the companies arent getting training done, you would thing a NEIP graduate would have a lot of basics set down...)...And I talk to mechanics everyday who had no idea they had a capacitance scale on their meter. WHY is this??
No names, No company..But somebody I know who is very close to me, just spent an hour on the phone with a guy who couldn't read a print or a meter well enough to get 5 relay up on a REL.... I'm talking didn't even know where to start...
Seems like NEIP would be well served to have a meter reading class...
Consultants are basically doing what was once the supers job. Surveying the jobs!!!
It used to be a black mark against a mechanic to have a consultant get called in on your job. Now it's an everyday occurence, with some of these guys getting annual contracts to make sure elevator work is being done..
The reliance on field engineering to fix problems is also a direct result of the loss of the maintenance superintendent. Long gone are the days when the super was the smartest cat in the office, and could come help you fix a problem. You might not like it when the crotchety old SOB showed up, fixed it in about 5 minutes and told all your close friends what you did in the next meeting in the bar....But..They were people locally you could count on to have your back, and teach you.
Now you have people manning that position that have NO field experience, no way to help you except to complain about lack of engineering support, and no way to actually survey a job, except to read a consultant report.
And remember the good old days when a guy retired and was immediately replaced, or you had a roamer that would perform vacation relief, or maintenance helpers, or multi mechanic residental jobs, where a junior mechanic could spend a couple of years seasoning under an old pro, or the maintenance repair crew...Long gone...
And a lot of this stuff is the buildings fault as well. Basically paying the SAME money for a contract that they were paying 30 years ago, and if you try to up the price a dozen others will be there to take if from you..
And in my opinion it's going to become more and more streamlined manpower and financial wise, with the advent of newer controls. There was a reason why you had 4 maintenance hours a week on a gearless car with a mechanical selector. Now that same car has no selector, about 10 relays, usually hooked to some sort of remote monitoring at headquarters, and gives you a pretty good idea what the problem is before you get there.
I fear one day, and in the not too distant future, we will go the way of the local Television repair shop. When's the last time you saw one of those?..
I could go on but that's enough for now..
My 2 cents..
Next..
this is very prevelant here. the real reason in my mind is simply that the new lifts tell you whats wrong. these fault codes while they can be erronious makes mechanic's skills dumb down. i laugh when the new guys see an old otis or boral(aussie national brand bought out by otis) lift and look dumbfounded.
The hard part is getting 15 people to commit to and actually attending class. Community colleges offer similar programs but require at least 15 students to attend. A community college in Fort Worth Texas actually offers a class for elevator service persons who service elevators.
"If it is to be, it is up to me" - Unknown
Any NEIEP instructor will be able to recount the number of times students wanted out of class early or felt they should get paid to attend schooling.
I agree, the trade is being "dumbed down" to facilitate a 5 year apprenticeship program and pay scale. Eliminating the talent who knows how to maintain, repair and fix the old stuff plays into the hands of people who sell modernizations. What happened to all the old prints? They have been destroyed by these same companies who no longer pay over scale and dump the talented folks who know about this stuff.
In order to get paid for doing something, you simply have to exchange something of value to the client in exchange for the money. If the client does not value the service, they will not pay for it. If you collect money for services not provided, you will not get paid for it long. Just look at what happened to the former and now gone big names in the elevator industry.
Simply, go to Westlaw.com database and search for the terms "Fraud" and the name of any service provider and you will know with whom not to do business with.
This is why more people are seriously considering "in house maintenance programs".
Respectfully,
Robert L Krieger Jr.
While not to be understressed, I believe NEIEP would be much better served teaching future mechanics basic skills that will enhance their careers like troubleshooting.
And I hear ya about the apprentices getting paid and all the excuses. Same ones I hear 20 years ago when I taught.Same thing goes now as I told them back then.
"You have elected to enter a trade, that if you have the skill set, you will make more money than about 80% of the people in the states. Why would you want to NOT be successful and deny yourself a free education?"
And buildings have always considered the option of in house maintenance. You think we got problems trying to put an educated work force out there, Let the buildings try to put one out...
IMHO opinion it's companies like Oracle, (Non-Union) with a highly educated engineering and work force and who are training in house, who are filling the void that's left behind by the failure of NEIEP to provide a marketable skill set for employees. $140 million of gross sales last year. Already better than Amtech's last year and they've only been in business about 7 years..
NEIP had better wake up..
Associate degree in electronics before even thinking of following my dads footsteps.
That was 26 years ago.
When I got into the trade,I doubled up on training and had my mechanics card in three years.
I had the schooling,but not the experience.
But I was an adjusters helper off in on during that three years.
The problem that will be facing these companies is that in 10 years,I really don't think there will be too many guys around who could fix an elevator.
They will let the equipment run down and get it modded to were you won't have to do any troubleshooting.
You are right,elevator men are going the way of the TV guy.
From this perspective, you can see that in this current epoch, the entire "First World" is being re-programmed by TPTB, (the powers that be).
For all of human history, the distribution of wealth has been sort of a thumbtack- Lots of peasants at the bottom, then the nobility WAY up at the top, (Czars, Pharaohs, Kings, Emperors, etc). This zeitgeist dominated the agricultural age.
Fast forward to the industrial revolution. Wealth no longer came from strong backs tilling the earth for its fruits, but rather came from manufacturing, machining, converting the wealth in the soil into products that elevate the masses, and free them from daily toils. With this emancipation of the people of the earth, comes lofty notions of fair pay, fair working conditions, in short, unionism. Without unionism, mankind is only a serf under a whip. That is not just ancient times, but as recently as the 1800s in the US, where if you cut your arm off in the machine, they would send you out the back door to sink into despair and hunger, and a new rube moved into your place. The distribution of wealth was so stark, so stratified, that unless you were a Rockefeller, reality was that you toiled with your back under horrendous conditions. Without a union, mankind is just serfs to generate wealth for the nobility.
Fast forward again, and now you can see that the cost of manufacturing products in the First World has become so expensive, through lofty notions of fair pay, environmentalism, regulation and taxation, that those who own the infrastructure of manufacturing now feel pressured, between honoring the labor agreements they (or their parents) signed when they were still patriots, to moving manufacturing to the Third World, where labor costs are infinitely cheaper, and there is a whole new crop of workers that will work for pennies, because at least they can have shoes and a refrigerator.
So NAFTA and GATT are passed in "lame duck" sessions of Congress, when only a few politicians (on the take) show up and say "Aye". The "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving this country as foretold by Ross Perot is all but complete.
We didn't need to be part of a global economy. It didn't generate jobs, we lost jobs. Millions of American jobs. We had a thriving internal economy, and protected American business through the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. There was no real reason to grant China �Most favored Nation Trade Status�, (MFNTS for short) Listen carefully- Do you hear of any political candidates, of ANY political party, calling for repeal of MFNTS for China? I won�t answer that for you, listen for yourself. Then realize politics is about money, and NOT about making America strong again. Note that MFNTS was granted to Chinese products by a bribe to one of our presidents from a Chinese national. Cash is like a river. No politician tries to stop the river, they want to dip their cup in it. That�s why there isn�t really a �war on drugs�, like attack choppers blowing up drug cartel bases in Columbia, or defoliant being sprayed over poppy crops (heroin) in Afghanistan. Drug money is a cash river, and no politician wants to get in the way of the river of cash flow. They only make overtures about it, speeches, give faint praise to the efforts of the troops or the border patrol, but you will never hear so much as a peep out of them, (either party), calling for military action to take the control of Mexico away from the drug cartels that run it now, and return it to the Mexican people. Just wouldn�t be prudent. Politicians don�t get in the way of big business, if they want to live long.
Look at JFK- In 1963, he issued Executive Order 11110, essentially repealing the power of that privately held corporation that benefits from controlling the currency of the USA. Three weeks later, he was shot, as the Secret Service agents were recalled from the limo, (unprecedented!), to give the sniper a clear shot.
We didn't need NAFTA. It didn't generate the jobs promised by it's proponents, instead, we lost jobs. Whole towns have disappeared, like the Great Depression, only now lasting longer.
The only people who have profited from these changes they implemented, that they engineered into American life, are the international industrialists, and the international banksters.
This is happening not just in the USA, but all the First World countries. France now has many immigrants from former colonies, of Tunisia, Algeria, England now has a plethora of third world immigrants, it's that way all over. Whatever jobs could not be shipped to the Third World, are being staffed by peasants, who work cheap. I have nothing against any human being of any color, race or creed. Don't misunderstand, this isn't a racial issue, it's a financial/political issue. Follow the money trail, and it explains what has happened to our country. It's not a mystery, it's as plain as day. "All wealth is the product of labor". Then the jobs follow the cheapest labor, if there are no tariffs for goods from China, such as seen now in the HTS, (Harmonized Tariff Schedule)
This pressures the remaining labor at home to take concessions.
America was, or is, a "speed bump" in human history. A time when the greatest percentage of the common man had enough food, shelter, employment, more so than at any other time in human history. Sure, there are and always were poor people, and there are the super-rich, that you always have. But taken as a percentage of the population, there was never a greater time in human history, where so many of the commoners had these blessings we take for granted. America had grown to a uhm, bloated middle class, to where the distribution of wealth was quite bell-shaped. You still have the poor at the bottom, still have the super-rich WAY up at the top, but there in the middle, unprecedented in the halls of time, is the bulge of the middle class, kind of like a Liberty Bell.
Some say unions got complacent, lazy. They say America became under-productive, and crippled by attitudes of entitlement. They say our quality of work slacked off.
Some say the greed of the industrialists caused them to turn their back on their own country of birth, to make more money overseas. Note that these types are not patriots, the way we think of patriots. Sure, they like the espresso they get in Brighton, they like their house on the Crimea, they party in Ibiza, and summer in Newport Beach. They "like" many countries, but swear allegiance to none but themselves. The world is their oyster.
So now what is happening, not just in the USA, but in all of the First World nations, is that the industrialists and banksters look at the people of the earth as wealth-creating beings, and the less they have to pay them, the more money they make. Until the country they currently use for manufacturing becomes too expensive, like Japan (1980s, 1990s), and they move operations to the next place with a sea of cheap labor, like China. (2000-present) Then it's off to India, maybe Africa later...They will cross that bridge when they come to it.
These types of people look at the world this way- Why invade a country with an expensive occupation, when you can put them to work making things? Charge them interest to borrow and buy material goods, thusly collect the efforts of their labors without firing a shot. These people don't see borders, as much as they see opportunities. These people aren't patriots, but they sell patriotism, to urge the workers to compete with other workers of various nations. They will wave the flag of whatever country they find themselves in, as long as it furthers their agenda. It's the New World Order, and the forerunner of the Beast of Revelation.
Their goal, if they were able to complete it, is to restore the earth to the classic distribution of wealth, where there are a whole lot of poor people on the bottom, and WAY up on top, they sit in their Ivory towers, with their offshore accounts.
It's not about bullets anymore, not about conquest, it's about financial power. That is the "war" of this age.
Getting back to the OP comments-
What you see happening to the elevator trade, is only a microcosm of what is happening to our country. The sides of the middle class are being sucked in, the belt is being tightened. All workers are being exposed to the whip of time and production again, that is today�s' zeitgeist. All of our country�s' service sector is being pressured, longer hours, less pay, in short, the "adjustment" of the huge bell-shaped middle class. It's being put on a diet. Now we have morons flipping burgers, dimwits lubricating the machinery of our industrial society, nitwits supervising the dimwits, illegal immigrants doing base labor, putting pressure on those who are leftovers from the time of plenty. Those disenfranchised individuals will either crumble to the lower class of homeless, or bite their lip and perform low class work for measly pay. That is what formerly fat middle class America is being faced with today. The end, or reduction, of lofty ideals like the dignity of man, the worth of the individual, and the return of the workers' gaze once again to the ground below, as they pull their loads like beasts of burden under the whip.
Our country is being reduced in wealth, (not the elite, just those who labor, and lower levels of management). Our country is being reduced in stature. It is being transformed, not by natural forces, but by design, by those who wrote and pushed for GATT and Nafta, by international banksters, and international industrialists. The USA will never be the same again. They have turned this country into 2nd world status.
So its no surprise that Congress (as a show for the people) tell GM that if they want a loan, they have to get the UAW to take concessions. I saw that one coming! And they played their parts badly, like B movie actors.
Its no surprise that our country has so many out of work, so many on the edge, crime rates rising, misplaced hatred for foreigners, (they are not the problem, rather its those who profit from them those who lure them here for gain) Who is that, you ask? You remember the huge food processor Swift, and worlds' largest corporation Walmart, both had scores of illegals, some who were given stolen social security #s? From the largest businesses, down to the mid and smaller ones, each takes profit from cheaper labor, or they soon disappear. It's a torrent now, destroying entire towns, reducing the overall wealth of this once-sovereign nation.
What is happening in our trade is only a fragment, a very small part of what is and has been happening to our country. It's not a republican thing, nor a democrat thing, it's FAR bigger than that. It's about money. No political party takes a stand against Gatt or Nafta. They talk about how many pot holes will be filled if elected, or about who is running for dogcatcher. But no politician of ANY party talks about the macro politics, about Gatt and Nafta, which broke down decades long standing tariffs for foreign goods, (sounding the death knell for American sovereignty), going back over many presidential administrations. Both republicans and democrats, neither talk about what got us into the mess we are in now. Politicians are just the crust that forms around the toilet bowl, just a bathtub ring. There are no patriots worth my vote today, not since Ross Perot. Maybe Ron Paul.
No one talks about OZ behind the curtain. They know better than to do that. Would be the end of their career.
Zoom out, and you can see that TPTB have took control of We the People once again, and put us back under their whip. The USA isn't experiencing a recession, or a depression, it has been undergoing a massive sea change, a redistribution of wealth. It will never be the same again.
Books to read-
None Dare Call it Conspiracy
Atlas Shrugged (skip the anti-faith crap)