Thread: 5 Hours To Tighten A Nut

Well.... I didn’t think that big tough ol ,deep north, cog swapping, league loving,black sorrow loving,hippies, would know what a butter knife was.😇

I met an old bloke the other day who is a retired fitter and turner who now keeps busy around the yard at his son's interstate trucking business, which specialises in caravans and is taking our former camper trailer to Sydney.
He mentioned he had been driving forklifts for over 30 years, but recently had to stop because an inspector said his certificate was not current.
He took a test, but failed because some of the questions seemed to have strange answers.
He said the inspector said a trainer would have to come from Canberra would you believe to recertify him.
As a retired trainer myself, not in forklifts, I know the aim should be, not to trick people with smartarse questions, but to ask questions which allow the person to demonstrate their competency e.g.
'Show me you can safely move that load from A to B.'
It's called Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
There's some old tradies working in Bunnings although they have skills because some young trainer didn't understand how RPL is supposed to work.

I was working in a place where you had to do retraining each 12 months to confirm competency. This was a 60 question quiz. Each question with 5 potential answers and 60 minutes to complete

Not really that difficult if you knew what you were doing. When the results came back there was one question where I was marked as wrong. Went back to the questions to see why I had not got this one right.

Rereading the question and answers was sure I was right. Happened to know the person in the company that set the questions so rang them to see what I was not getting. Seems I was right and it was an error that had been in the test for a couple of years. I was the first person to point this out to them

No real harm to me but what if you had failed the test due to that question? Or operated based on the answer that the exam said was right?

Fortunately people who do this test do not take it very seriously seeing it as a box ticking exercise which may go a long way to explaining why no one had spotted or reported the error. Sad thing is someone somewhere is paying for the test and the database to record the results and who did the exam

Or should the above be in grumpy thread

Originally Posted by 3toes

I was working in a place where you had to do retraining each 12 months to confirm competency. This was a 60 question quiz. Each question with 5 potential answers and 60 minutes to complete

Not really that difficult if you knew what you were doing. When the results came back there was one question where I was marked as wrong. Went back to the questions to see why I had not got this one right.

Rereading the question and answers was sure I was right. Happened to know the person in the company that set the questions so rang them to see what I was not getting. Seems I was right and it was an error that had been in the test for a couple of years. I was the first person to point this out to them

No real harm to me but what if you had failed the test due to that question? Or operated based on the answer that the exam said was right?

Fortunately people who do this test do not take it very seriously seeing it as a box ticking exercise which may go a long way to explaining why no one had spotted or reported the error. Sad thing is someone somewhere is paying for the test and the database to record the results and who did the exam

Or should the above be in grumpy thread

Had the same thing when I was 16 at Motor Register dept.

Sat the theory part of my test. Handed it up and was told I had one wrong, even though I still passed I asked which one (back then they marked by placing a template over it).

Reread the question, and pointed out my answer was in fact correct. There was an awkward silence as my test was corrected.

Wonder how many people failed by one question over the years…..

Had a similar situation, at three different sites of a multinational fuel company. They used same induction, for every Australian terminal. When I pointed out the error, they refused to admit it, claiming everyone knows what they mean.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

The opera singer?

He only performed solos once a week, on Friday.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

I'm surprised you don't have a small, basic handful of tools, Dave. An 8" shifter, pair of slip joint pliers and a Toyota changeable handle screwdriver will cover most minor emergencies.

I carry a basic tool kit in my 80" seat box all the time , but have never had to use it in 35+ years.091.jpg "O" i tell a lie once leading the grand parade at the Malany Show with the director of the show standing in the back, some Lucas smoke started leaking from behind the dash & needed the screwdriver . Found I had pinched a wire between the dash panel & bulkhead housing some 25 years earlier. With the dash hanging out I continued the parade.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

I met an old bloke the other day who is a retired fitter and turner who now keeps busy around the yard at his son's interstate trucking business, which specialises in caravans and is taking our former camper trailer to Sydney.
He mentioned he had been driving forklifts for over 30 years, but recently had to stop because an inspector said his certificate was not current.
He took a test, but failed because some of the questions seemed to have strange answers.
He said the inspector said a trainer would have to come from Canberra would you believe to recertify him.
As a retired trainer myself, not in forklifts, I know the aim should be, not to trick people with smartarse questions, but to ask questions which allow the person to demonstrate their competency e.g.
'Show me you can safely move that load from A to B.'
It's called Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
There's some old tradies working in Bunnings although they have skills because some young trainer didn't understand how RPL is supposed to work.

A well know freight company where I was doing some work a couple of years back had a driver who had his forklift ticket for 30+ years and when a new manger started told him it wasn’t valid anymore and he had to renew to the current ticket at his own cost and till he did he could no longer drive forklifts.

We were doing supermarket deliveries and very often you would drive the forklift to help unload and when returning to the depot you would unload your backloading if the yard was busy.
Well he refused to re-sit his forklift ticket , and his productivity became half of what any other driver was , and he would sometimes wait at a supermarket for several hours longer than usual because he couldn’t help.

My simple brain tells me that the company could have put him thru the course , along with a few others and things would have tracked along nicely , but no they must have lost thousands $$ in paying him to sit around waiting to get loaded/unloaded and he is still working there to this day. And that manager is now the territory manager and they are wondering why they are loosing work and workers

Bulletman