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When I went to high school, I got a couple of years of experience
with some stone cutting and a little silversmithing. Upon graduation,
I stumbled into a job that started paying minimum wage for and
apprentice. This place was a trade shop that dealt with about 170-180
accounts. With that many accounts, a person was needed to wash
jewelery full time and that's the job that I got. A little Naive I
was. I thought that if 98% of my work was correct, Theyed be real
proud of me. Took about 36 hours for me to catch on that If I ever
mixed up two pieces of jewelry I'd be looking for another job. Seems
that on one of those mixups the salesman innocently tried to deliver
a two stone blue zircon for a a double center ballerina ring. The
client was in tears. My averages improved instantly. I began to
understand that many folk consider this work as important as brain
surgery. There were three positions for polishers and ten benches.
Somehow I missed major time at the polishing benches. I was moved to
the bench room with the apprentices Some of theses "apprentices"
were very good. They came from all parts of the world, but the boss
just didn't think that they were really up to snuff. I soldered
chains and charms for a couple of years with an occaisional makeup
job thrown in. There was a high enough turnover in employees that it
was not too hard to work up to more advanced benchwork in a
couple/few months. For a couple of years it seemed like I was doing
mostly bangle bracelets and pocket watch repairs. After four years of
repair I was awarded a diploma as a journeyman jewelry repairman and
I started some more advanced diamond setting. I got an opportunity to
learn a lot at this place.
After I left, I worked with a couple of retailers on a much smaller
scale and found that money and respect were sometimes hard won.
A couple of years later, I found myself working with a major retailer
with a few accounts and the respect that I needed to improve services
and new accounts, enough cash to start to grow and was ready to start
training others. I tried to use the business model that I had seen
used successfully where I had trained. Things went pretty well and I
like to believe that I was free with what I had learned in my time.
Relationships change with time, especially with the retail trade.
Once again I found myself bouncing around and finally settled down in
a smaller place doing more high end work. It was an all new
experience, but not a very good place to train people from scratch. I
haven't trained people for quite a while now. The best training that
I have found was in a high activity trade shop and the best place
that I have trained others in was when I operated a trade shop with a
lot of activity.
I would suggest that in you job hunt, you make sure that you check
out the largest trade shops that you can find. In my neck of the
woods, it seems that Spanish as a second language or even a first,
would be helpful. It could be an excellent opportunity to learn a
second language. You can build out a portfolio doing custom orders
and learn a lot.
Bruce Holmgrain
JACMBJ
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