BioNerd hit on one very important item:
Giving a "Thank You" or telling an Apprentice "that was a great job in doing that" goes a very long ways. The biggest thing....it gives the Apprentice some confidence in what he/she is doing. Many times when we had an ******* of a boss, he would take credit for what one of the machinist had worked on. I won't go in to details, but the boss always took credit for someone else's work to build himself up. It a long explanation which I won't go into, but I told the Apprentice's that I was training, to never let the boss deliver a part to Engineering. Take the part to the Engineer their self, so the Engineer would be familiar with who actually did the work. Once they started doing that, then the Engineers knew who to go to when they had a rush project that had to get out, and had to go within a day or less.
Myself, I was never big on the credit thing, and all of the bosses I had over the years, knew exactly what I was capable of doing. And if I had to deliver parts to Engineering for some reason, I always made sure to tell them who made the parts. This was back when I was working closely with Engineering and making prototypes. And a lot of those prototypes were for the F-117 Stealth. There were a few times when we were having our yearly reviews, that I told my boss to cut my raise, and give the percentage to a certain employee. Most of the time, and where our Toolroom was ( a basement), we may have seen our boss come down once a month and see what was actually going on. It was up to me to relay the info to the boss. And a lot of things hinged on me telling my boss how certain individuals were doing. And just to let you know, our boss was one that played the favoritism game with individuals.
Myself, I would rather a person that shows he is really trying but may not be very fast, get a raise, than a person that thinks he knows what he is doing and sucking up to the boss, getting a raise.
At times I miss it, but then on the other hand, I don't miss the ******** that went with things, and it seems that companies and most of the bosses thrive on ********. Over the years I have witnessed people go up the ladder because they can kiss ***, but don't have the sense to tie their shoes. Anyone that I ever taught machining to while they were an Apprentice, I told them straight up.....Put your heart into every job that you do. The ones that kiss ***, they may move up, but they also come down real fast.
And when teaching an Apprentice something, always teach them EVERYTHING that you know. Don't NOT teach them because you are afraid that if you do, you may lose your job when it comes to a layoff. We had a lot of people that did that, and it just made me sick. And even when I confronted some coworkers about it, they were upfront about it and told me that they weren't going to teach someone how to do their job, just so they'd get laid off after they taught them. That is just sad to do that to someone willing to learn.
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And I was told basically the same thing.....this is the way it's always been done so that's the way we do it. But I do say one thing....I'm really glad I listened to he, because he taught me the hardest way to do things. After he retired, things changes, and all of a sudden I had some older guys asking me how I would do something. I'd say the last fifteen years I worked, I became the old guy. I taught quite a few how to machine, but I never held them to "that's the way it's always been done" 