What was your worst punishment as a apprentice trainee ?

[Joe Newton]

We drove to a job once (only across town) to find that nobody had put the chipper chute on... Luckily the boss saw the funny side!

[Johny Walker]

splitting dead elm with a 7lb ellwell, while old fella went on the piss

[Mortimer Firewood]

Tied to the bull bar of Toyota hilux and driven up the a49 for 25 miles soon sobered me up but did not teach me. Strop put round my ankles left at 25ft for 30 mins. Bundled in a picker left up 100ft in the pissing rain for two hours for putting a an m20 bolt through the crane drivers window I had warned him about his chains on my basket.

[Stephen Blair]

Not getting sacked!

[mike1987]

mine seem pretty tame by comparison used to regularly turn up having had no sleep whatsoever sometimes with a bottle still in hand usually worse for wear.

we once got a load of sandwiches given to us from an event that was taking place next door unbeknown to me on of the ones they had plated up for me in my absence (spewing last nights dodgy kebab) had been filled with horse crap and reassembled.

didn't learn my lesson from that a few weeks later had my coffee filled with Viagra and was sent out with a strimmer.

young and naive aged 16 there was a worker there in her 40's and weighed about 40 stone aswell decided to try take away my non existent innocence the image of that still haunts me to this day.

was regularly set upon with the pressure washer and hoses and disinfectant buckets.

took me a long time to realize that if i layed off the drink and kept my mouth shut i was left alone

[TGB]

Not me because I never worked there but the then biggest local employer had a number of rituals for new recruits, depending on the trade. A young boiler maker would be sealed in a pressure vessel and rolled up & down the shop floor or sealed inside and anyone passing by, would be given a hammer and invited to pound on the vessel. Engineers would be bound and totally submerged in a 50gal drum of heavy oil. Crane operators were winched upside-down by the tallest available crane and left there until they needed the crane. Painters would be sent to paint the inside of a high voltage box with the electricity still running, etc., etc.

[64treefrog]

On 2 occasions ,in the distant past, I have carried out the same henious crime; Take the chain off a saw when servicing it and put it back together without chain, check repeatedly that it has no chain, Start the saw and go for the youngest guy! Really really wrong.

No. 1, (left to joln the marines) fell backwards, screaming, very funny at the time !

No 2, (laziest d--khead ever) stood completely still and shat himself!!! had to take him home.

NOT TO BE DONE

[Peasgood]

Just wondering if you lot ever killed anyone?

Damned miracle if you didn't.

[gensetsteve]

After my experiences my business tends to nurture youngsters too much which can be a bad thing as well. I think the men I worked with worked out which youngsters were robust and needed their egos controlling. If you were timid and behaved you were left alone. The ultimate humiliation ( which I am glad to say I never endured) was to be stripped naked your privates greased and saw dust and then gaffer taped to a lamp post in the centre of town right opposite the tsb head quarters when dozens of dolls were going to lunch

[fagus]

Not clever to do these things, tomfoolery causes accidents.