[6876] in APO Printshop
Re: training question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard H Tower Jr.)
Thu Sep 24 16:04:00 2015
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:03:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Leonard H Tower Jr." <tower@alum.mit.edu>
To: Benazeer Noorani <benazeer@gmail.com>
cc: apo-president@mit.edu, apo-printshop-journeyman@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <CAPkrFhcke3h=FGqbn0FUZV5-eOekm_+Poh8XWwGn_+WZOSVpMw@mail.gmail.com>
[I Cc:ed the apo-president mailing list as Maggie asked the question.]
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:43:10 -0400
From: Benazeer Noorani <benazeer@gmail.com>
Hi all,
Maggie (the current chapter president) just asked me if it is possible to
train two people on the press at the same time. I've never heard of such a
thing, and my instinct is to say no, because so much of the learning is
hands-on, and there's little space and, obviously, only one press. However,
I thought I'd ask you folks if there's any precedence for this?
YiS
Benazeer
I welcome other feedback on this.
This is one of those ideas, that seem like a good idea, but didn't
work out. (At his suggestion, Mitch and I tried this as an experiment
in the past.) I don't recommend repeating it:
* Benazeer points all turned out valid in practice.
* We found when some of them went on to be qualified, that they all
had learned significantly less during the training run, including
safety of people, and taking care of the equipment. Enough less
that we almost didn't qualify them, and was on-hand for their first
few runs as new press-ops.
The focus brought on just one trainee is important to each trainee
becoming trained & qualified to use the shop safely, etc.
* The entire training run takes longer, as both trainees have to do
each of the hands on parts separately. (One press, one lock-up
table, etc.) Which consume more of each active's time. (Yes,
doing it one trainee at a time mean more journeyman time, which has
been worth it to me to increase safe use of the shop.)
* The shop is crowded with just two people in it. Even more so
when two trainees are typesetting two different jobs.
Also, Benazeer & Keshlam are just starting out as journeymen doing
training runs, and it seems wise to me to not have them training more
than one person at a time.
I don't see any reason why they can't teach training runs together,
though I don't remember this being done in the past. (Yes, we have
had new journeymen observe training runs in the past-a good idea.) I
look forward to feedback on how two-teacher training runs work out.)
I also recommend that:
* new press ops print in teams. This has worked out well in the
past.
* a journeyman try to be present for the first few runs, until the
new press ops have gained experience. I've done this often over
the years. Definitely for the two decades (not contiguous) I was
lead journeyman. I distributed type, and sometimes read (and in
recent decades: email and Internet).
I found it best to hot "hover" over the new press-op, and wait for
them to ask a question.
I note that some trainees/qualifiers have done business or calling
cards for themselves. We have in the past not charged them for stock
or press use fees for either a training or qualifying run.
yiLFS -len
