Journeymen Declared Incompetent
How could anyone in possession of a real contractor's license be this ignorant? It's scary.
As of 05/09/12 this text is published on a professional roofing
contractor's website. I reprint it here in hopes that someone can possibly
point out to me what on earth this individual might be "thinking".
"Roof
Reports and Roof Repair Estimates are usually issued on the same day of the
inspection. Our repairs are performed only by license-quality
repairmen, and not by minimum-wage
journeymen, who claim to be experts, but in reality have
little or no roofing experience. "
Now wait a minute.
First of all there is no such thing as a ""license-quality
repairman" this is just one more shell in the shell game. On another of their advertisements the say
they are describing the benefit of having "licensed or license quality
repairmen" on the job. Well are
they licensed or not? And if not (and I'm quite certain they are not) since
the first one is a made up term what does that leave you with?
And has anyone EVER seen a"minimum wage journeyman"? I can say with complete certainty that you
haven't, because there is no such thing. There never has been and never will be, since
minimum wage and journeyman are at opposite ends of the trades food chain. It's like saying
"that white piece of black paper."
Quite obviously anyone with even the slightest actual trade
experience knows that it is not possible to be a journeyman with little or no
experience in the trade, since
journeyman means that you
have achieved the highest level of trade experience possible. As a matter of fact, to be a real journeyman
one is actually required to have completed a much higher level of training than
that required of a contractor.
How could anyone in possession of a real contractor's license be this ignorant? It's scary.
This individual's verbal shell game seems to know no
bounds.
What is a journeyman?
Journeyman Roofer, as defined by CSLB:
A journeyman is a person who has completed an apprenticeship
program or is an experienced worker, not a trainee, and is fully qualified and
able to perform a specific trade without supervision. But, that person
does not have a license and is
not able to contract for jobs that value more than $500 in labor and materials.
Hmmm. That really sounds like a repairman that is
good enough to be licensed but isn't.
I wonder why the powers that be don't just call them license quality repairmen? (Not really, I realize that would be stupid).
I wonder why the powers that be don't just call them license quality repairmen? (Not really, I realize that would be stupid).
Or Wikipedia:
In the United States, employment in the building trades, such as
an electrician or plumber or carpenter, usually requires that a person holds a
state or local (city or county) license as a journeyman
or master.
The journeyman license certifies that the craftsman has met the
requirements of time in the field (usually
a minimum of 8000 hours) and
time in an approved classroom setting (usually 700 hours).
A journeyman has the responsibility of supervising workers
of lesser experience and training them, in addition to having the
qualifications (knowledge and skills) to work unsupervised himself.
A journeyman is commonly expected to have a wide range of
experience, covering most fields of his trade. For example, a non journeyman worker of some 20 or 30 years experience may
have most or all of his
experience in only residential, commercial or
industrial applications. A
journeyman however, has a broad field of experience in residential, commercial,
and industrial applications.
Wow, again that sounds like a craftsman that is good enough
trade wise to be licensed but isn't.
So apparently, according to the definitions accepted
by the entire rest of the world (with the exception of the wisdom in blue
above) it is actually requires a broader range of actual trades experience to
be a journeyman than it does to be a contractor. The main difference being that
a contractor has an actual license that can be held accountable in the event of
a problem.
