Okay, I've taken some hits for what some have called an unreasonable
flame regarding Robert Wanta's post here soliciting an apprentice, with
a $5000 forfeiture bond price tag for the benefit of working with Bob.
For the record, whether they appreciated my language or not, the folks
in agreement with me were five, the ones against, two. But agreement
doesn't count.
The issue is the appropriateness and legality of Bob's post, which was
why I responded as I did in the first place. I was of the opinion (I
stress that choice of words) that someone relatively unknown to this
list (I have no recollection of Mr. Wanta ever posting comments or
replies here, or advice to those who sought it) who posted a message,
out of the blue, soliciting an apprentice or apprentices with a
stipulation of a $5000 cash forfeiture bond, could very well be looking
for an opportunity to scam a young, naive, enthusiastic kid of his cash.
The Internet is full of scam artists, and so is the real world. In
younger years, I've found myself working for such types. When I got out
of the Army in 1970, after a few months without a job, a neighbor of my
parents wanted me to sell insurance for him. Before I committed, I was
told that leads were free, and the commissions were such and such. After
a couple of months preparation for the state exams, I passed, and
started to work; then I was told the leads were $3 each, and the
commissions were 1/3 as previously stated (the fellow running the agency
later lost his license and his franchise and disappeared). A couple of
months wasted.
And there was the time, with a wife and kid and no job, that I sold auto
buying guides, business to business, door-to-door--and one day, after a
month's work without payment, the boss introduced me to his printer as
his partner, and left me to explain why none of the printing bills had
been paid.
And I doubt that I will forget when, working for an independent, I ended
up with a steel splinter in the pupil in my eye due to a foreign car
repair shop owner's defective equipment. I waited a day for it to work
its way out, and finally, with my eye swollen shut, said I couldn't
stand the pain, couldn't work, said I had to go to the hospital. The
owner shouted after me, "what are doing going to the hospital on my
time???!!!"
The time when I was forced to volunteer my services to a young car
salesman in Florida to act as his crew chief on his recently purchased
stock car when I worked as a line mechanic at a Toyota dealership. He
drank, smoked dope, showed up late, expected me to install stolen parts
on his car. When he cut three-quarters of the Petty bar out to make a
set of 180 deg. headers fit, I told him I'd had enough and quit. The car
was unsafe. He had me fired. (Well, yeah, after calling me a liar and a
cheat and a thief in front of thirty customers and mechanics, and after
I walked away from him five times, and he followed me, continuing the
abuse, I picked him up and threw him--that might have had something to
do with it). <g>
There are hordes of people out there looking to take advantage of naive
and/or desperate people. The stipulation of a cash forfeiture bond to me
smacked of fraud. I reacted on the basis of my experience, as one person
said, violently. Perhaps that adverb is accurate, I admit.
Look at the posts in the last few weeks and months of people being
defrauded by the owners of foreign car repair shops. Such owners are not
high on Demosthenes' list of honest men. Suddenly, an unknown appears
soliciting apprentices on steep and difficult terms. I applied my prior
experience to that message and reacted.
Those people who wrote to me personally, saying that I had treated Mr.
Wanta unfairly, I responded to personally, and explained my reasons to
them, rationally and, hopefully, cogently. One was a young man who had
taken Mr. Wanta's proposal seriously and said to me that he hadn't
thought of the possibilities of disaster I raised. I asked him to wait
to speak to Mr. Wanta until I'd received some message from Connecticut's
wage and hour division on the legality of Mr. Wanta's proposed
contractual arrangement.
Another, who described me as "The flamer (obviously NOT a business
owner or any type of entreprenuer [sic]) thought the idea of the bond a
sort of
indentured servitude. I guess the flamer thinks that eduacation [sic] in
private
colleges shoud be FREE, too. In my opinion, that's the kind of thinking
that
only come [sic] from a breast-fed, corporate no-body, who never had an
original
thought in his life," I responded to privately, outlining my concerns
for the arrangement, and the other educational avenues available to a
young enthusiast at far less possibility of financial loss. And,
perhaps, I did not make clear enough to the respondent that such
arrangements as existed in the past regarding apprentices are no longer
legal because of the abuses which were common in such arrangements
earlier in our country's history.
Finally, I wish to say to all, and to Mr. Wanta, that, despite the fact
that my experience with machines of all types is at least equal to Mr.
Wanta's, and my education at a higher level than his, my manners have
not been to an equal standard. I reacted, rather than acted. I assumed
rather than researched. I still believe that Mr. Wanta should re-think
his terms for apprenticeship, because it has strong suggestions of
potential abuse, but that is no excuse for the treatment. My experience
with con artists is to turn them away quickly and nastily, since they
have no sense of propriety and will use simple decency to their
advantage. I sensed something in Mr. Wanta's message which suggested a
con which may only be a mistake in judgment on his part.
Cheers.
--
My other Triumph doesn't run, either....
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