Barking Mad!

16th August 2010

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I am barking mad today! Can you believe it, we had a couple of guys in recently to resit their practical assessment having failed it at other establishments. One poor guy had lost his job, his confidence, couldn’t pay his mortgage and had problems at home because he had failed. Right at the beginning of his assessment he had picked up a set of service gauges to start his pressure testing and they had a sight glass in them – FAILED! Apparently nobody had pointed out in the training that they shouldn’t be used, for obvious safety reasons! Equally the assessor didn’t question his intent before failing him!! This is certainly not good assessment practice, nor very thorough training!

Incidentally the other chap who failed his practical assessment for entirely different reasons at a different centre used a set of service gauges with a sight glass in for his pressure testing / charging and recovery activities! There was nothing else available! Hardly consistent but seems to chime with recent articles in the trade press.

There shouldn’t be different standards! All Assessments should be carried out to a common standard.

Of course engineers shouldn’t use dangerous or inappropriate gauge sets for pressure testing but since this has been common industry practice, there has to be thorough training and explanation; risk assessment and then safe working practices can be used.

All of us should be assessing people to make sure that they are competent to carry out the tasks required, which means that they have to remove the risks and work safely! All` candidates are entitled to a fair assessment which is consistent across centres.

Although both guys passed their assessment with us, they were both very nervous that everything they were asked to do was genuine and not a “trick” designed to catch them out.

Being assessed is difficult enough without assessors making it traumatic!!

Oh well I guess these are isolated incidents but if not you can always let me know on my blog! I’d love to hear from you.

Bark again later

Ozzy!

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