Latest / The Electrical Show / Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan are joined again by Louise, John & Apprentice Lauren

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Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan are joined again by Louise, John & Apprentice Lauren · The Electrical Show

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The Electrical Show with Thomas Naji sponsored by Bosch Professional Powerful power tools for measuring
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tools and experts accessories. Welcome to the Electrical Show with Bosch Professional. Here
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on Fix Radio. I'm Thomas Naji and with me as always is Paul Mean
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and welcome back. Good mister Mean, and how are you living the dream
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trying to excellent? On last week's show, we spoke to Louise Tarling and
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John Vauxhall about their specialism in smart home installations. Now this week, Louise
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and John are back, but they have brought Lauren along, who is soon
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to be their apprentice. Now we're going to be talking to Lauren about what
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it's been like working with Louise and Johnna. We're gonna find out what it's
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like for Louise and John bringing an apprentice on as part of their team.
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So if I will into lessening produce Lauren. Now, Lauren, welcome to
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the show, Good lady, thank you, Yes, all right, we're
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going to be getting to you shortly. Don't worry. Fix Radio. Time
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to crack on. Thomas Nagie with Paul Meanan on the Electrical Show. On
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today's show, we are chatting again to Louise Tarling and John Vauxhall, and
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we're going to be joined this week by their apprentice, Lauren Very. Keen
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to have a chat with her later. Now, Louise, what was it
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that motivated you to increase your team sides? I know we touched on this
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last week. Well originally we hadn't planned to, but we were so busy.
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And John actually knows Lauren's dad. We got talking to him about Lauren
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and she came and did some work experience for us what three years ago?
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Now, yeah, really that long ago, he was. And then we
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realized quite quickly that actually she was probably too good to that, and suggested
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that she went to electrical engineering at college, which she did, though we
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didn't hear for her for a while. Again, we bumped into his dad,
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Bill, he was doing a job with us and he said, yeah,
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Lauren, Yeah, pass Cordage blitzed it. She's now working for Sky
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and nailing up this year and doesn't like it. So he said, well,
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cry Key, get it to give us a call. Yeah, and
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yeah, we met you like a day later or something and he were like,
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yeah, I hate I hate Sky. I'm watching what you guys do
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on Instagram. It looks amazing. So we're like, great, Yeah,
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we had a really professional job interviewing our local pubs. It's always the way
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excellent, kind of kind of the gaze my name's question. What specific qualities
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were you actually looking for in Lauren? Was there anything specific? Or was
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it actually because you kind of you knew Lauren already, didn't you? So
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yeah, Lauren, Yeah, we knew, we knew Lauren. I mean
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actually the first we were when you realized the other day, didn't we The
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first time we actually met Laura, I think you were thirteen. Yeah,
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we did one of these you know, these dull mud runs where people pay
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to run through the forest and coming in freezing cold hypothermia, and again Lauren
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just turned up, skipped ever everything got to the end looked like, you
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know, she just just finished it went okay, yeah we're done. Yeah,
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we're all dying. So yeah, we knew Lauren anyway. And Lauren
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had been with us, I said for a couple of weeks work experience about
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the previously, so we knew, we knew she was keen cards working,
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asked lots of relevant questions, wanted to get on blessed her. Even asked
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when her phone ring used she could answer her phone while she was at work.
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Did I It doesn't do that anymore. That's slipping somewhat, but it
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just to add today you said what qualities. I really think Lauren's dad been
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a carpenter, but a real perfectionist. Really helped because Lauren came obviously straight
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away understanding why you're doing it, why it needs perfect So we almost didn't
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have to explain that bit. And that's what we do. It's got to
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be perfect, you know, it's I mean, I had a kitchen fitter
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just laughing at me once when I was trying to I was measuring a six
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meter worktop and it was a millimeter out and he was just going, don't
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worry about him, honestly, don't we are night that kind of thing.
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So, yeah, Lauren turned up kind of almost ready to go. I
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haven't ready. Johnny even puts spirit levels on Nuggins in wolves that you're never
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going to see again. So the sounds like my brother carpenter perfectionists. Do
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you guys, do you know when you you'll sometimes come across someone's work that
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you're taking out and it was brilliant, Yes, consume you appreciate this guy
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was perfect. You almost don't want to take it out. He's probably long
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gone now. Yeah, one day someone will be taking my work apart,
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and I want them to go. He was good display. Yeah, we
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said this the old three or three six rewirable boards. Yeah. I've actually
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put on my fuse board at home. In the back of my fuse board
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in permanent marker. I've put your welcome just because i know one day someone's
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going to rip it out. My little signature on the back. Let's talk
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to Lauren next, so about her experiences working with Louise and John The Electrical
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Show with Thomas Naji on Fix Radio, the Builders station. You're listening to
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the Electrical Show A Boss Professional here on Fix Radio on Thomas Naji with Paul
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Meanan here on the right hand side. And we've been talking to Louise and
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John as well as their apprentice Lauren, about their experiences of bringing Lauren into
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work for that with smart home installation. Now, Lauren, what drove you
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to him bark on this moment of craziness. Maybe where it's not sky it's
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not sky Dishes. We know that it's a good stuff on from Sky Dishes.
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Let's put it that way. So how did you go from that into
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because you could have just gone as just a you know, an everyday spark
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sort of something. So what how why smart at home stuff sort of a
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little bit more interesting? You want to keep my horizons as broad as possible,
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keep my options open. And I knew i'd worked with Louise and John
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before got one with them. Really well, yes, it's just decided to
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sort of give it a go. And yeah, I'm enjoying it. And
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you're glad you're not doing dishes anymore, very glad. How old are you
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now? Am I? So you're going to do an apprenticeship now, aren't
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you? Yeah? So I'm twenty two, which is what puts a little
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bit of a spanner in the works when it comes to the apprenticeship side of
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things. Yeah, they love it if you're under nineteen, don't they?
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Ye, eighteen or nineteen? I think it is. Yeah, yeah,
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I know. If I'm doing it properly, which I do want to do,
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it's going to take four years, which is quite a long time to
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sort of. Yeah, I just need to bite the bullet and get started
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with it. Yeah, don't even get me started on the whole apprenticeship scene.
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To me personally, you're already an apprentice. I've senior stuff on Instagram.
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You're learning. The minute you're learning, you're serving what we call your
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tie, the college bit. To be honest with you, I think you've
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done it the right way because you're out there getting experienced. You're going to
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walk into college and everyone's going to scratch you, at you and go.
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You have done that in the huh, and you're going to find it easier
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because you've done that practical experience before you've gone into college. You're doing it
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the right way. A lot of people will do three years in college and
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still not come out of their time a year or two later. Doing a
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year before you go to college only makes college easier. You'll pay much attention
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in college because if you're like me, I wanted to go to the pub.
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But that's just me in the nineties when awaysis we're a thing and everybody
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wanted to go and get drunk. But another story for another day. Just
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to be clear, hit the formal apprenticeship route is not the be all and
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end all. Loads of people have different routes to being excellent electricians. Don't
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let anyone benchmark what you think is an electrician or smart home installer, create
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your own damn bench You're the daughter of a carpenter. You're more than able
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to do that anyway. But the ultimate test of your skills will be your
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own knowledge and confidence for when you look to day forward three to five years,
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and then in three to five years you look back and you go,
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oh my god, I was doing that two years ago. And you're able
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to make Louise and John proud of what you're able to do and accomplished by
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yourself, and they watch your growth in your journey. No jib C,
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I, TB or college will really be part of that part of your journey,
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do you know what I mean? The college is the form or learn
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the basic bread and butter formulas, calcs, installation methods. But you're already
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doing that. Yeah, same bim with Louis and John for about eight months
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now. And let's say the amount that I've learned in that amount of time,
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it's crazy question, what have you learned in the time you've been there?
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Like what sort of stuff? Dude? So one of my wouldn't would
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you call it a fourte were recently I've done CTC CCTV cameras and stalled eight
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run a property, helped run the cable, terminated all of the cable,
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all of cameras up and running. You can terminate it's got some Yeah,
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this was your I think it was two real Lawrence, but we had to
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chat with her a day. We suddenly noticed she progressed and confidence and skills
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to actually do two installs. You know, this is what we're doing,
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This is how we're doing it, and pretty much took the lead. I
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mean, you know you were with Lauren running cable through the loss, but
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you know Lauren already knows extra voltage, you know, separation, that was
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all perfect cameras fixing them. You know, we've now we know we can
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go to can you do this? Since you go do that bit, and
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then we don't need to check her on the stages going through it. We
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can go right, should I've done this bit, We're go and check it.
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And it's like last week she wored up a motorized cinema screen and the
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only instruction we'd give it was like, these are the power cables. This
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is the control cable. It needs to run there, the parent cable needs
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the ones there that the control cable needs to go into that right there,
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you do decide how to do it. If you go back, you go,
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yeah, run, you know, separations correct. And it was tricky
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one because it all ends up in one box. So your roots, you
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know, it's like your roots coming and you go, oh, I forgot
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about that one. But it was mains voltage extra voltage signal cables. And
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you know, we just turned up at the end and went perfect. See
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I've never done that, So you've done saying I haven't done, which means
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you're more skilled and experience in wiring that certain product and component more than I
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am, and you're at the start of your learning journey. This is the
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joy of this industry. We're all different, we're all at different levels of
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skills, so keep it up. Fix Radio. This is the Electrical Show
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with Thomas Najie and Paul Mellan and we are talking to Louise and John and
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their apprentice Lauren about working together. So, Louise, what has been some
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of the challenges and hurdles that you guys have faced to bringing an apprentice into
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the business. Probably the biggest challenge is providing Lauren with enough work that keeps
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her engagement enthusiasm up. Don't want to keep giving her necessarily the same things
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to though, but obviously she's got to hone her skills. And we also
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don't want to getting bored because the loser wouldn't lose me. I don't mind
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a bit of repetitiveness in the garden. Three months of uni struck cutting,
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We're going to hold you to that, Lauren. Three weeks is about my
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limit of doing the same task. Trust me, my first some of my
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early stuff, it was cutting unis struck for weeks and weeks of horrible all
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right, how how are you and John ensuring that Lauren's making progress with her
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development while keeping on top of the work you've got to do, because it
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is because a lot of people have this thing. We'll take on an apprentice.
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It's it's going to slow me down. And you kind of understand why
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people say that, but how do you find it? What's been your experience
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with that. We'll always have a chat in the van when we're going to
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a job and we're just sort of how do you find that? Which bit?
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And to be fair, Lauren is always primed with questions. Anyway,
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we don't have to kind of you know, interrogate her. She's at she's
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asking us about this. Why did we do that? You know, when
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will we do that again? So it makes it very easy for us.
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I know we're spoiled because we've heard horror stories, you know sometimes, but
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it really Helps's enthusiastic. It would get three years climes. She forgot to
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say, get out of the way. I'll do it. Waiting the van
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pretty much. We know that's coming. Just wait until I get in short
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on the van. Yeah, yeah, so I'm sure you'll be better driver
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than Nime. Well, we always have those those chats and they're interesting,
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you know, they really are interesting. But we'll also give Lauren homework so
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to speak, so it might be research once I think you did just try
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and blatantly download it straight from Google before chat Lauren. And the reason we
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know that is because that's an American size, Oh is it? Yeah?
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And sometimes we give a practical homework. You know, when Lauren started,
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we would give away go box. This is how we do it. We
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explained to you in the day how we do it. Go and do that
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network Hay with our J forty five go and creep Nose and it just means
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she can kind of do it in our own environment first. Then come you
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know, you've you've sort of done half the battle. So I wouldn't say
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there's a there's a timetable, but we do keep on top of that because
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it actually helps us as well, you know, so we can start advancing
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Lauren on a little bit. So we can do that. Do that,
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do that. See, I think that's amazing because I'd love to be able
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to give Lauren on one eight five four core arbor and say take that home
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and gland it, but you probably would struggle to get it in. So
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no, but it's a really cool suggestion though, Four people with apprentices to
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give them them small tasks, take them home, have a play around with
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some bits, and just practice practice by Lauren. Here's quite one hundred lens
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of struck. Cut it back in the morning. Yeah and yeah, well
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do it over the weekend. You've got some free Yeah, here's a palette
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truck to help you get it in the house. Yeah all right, Well,
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look let's come back to wrap up today's chat after some more music here
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on fixed Radio The Builders Station The Electrical Show with Thomas Najie On Fixed Radio
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The Builders station. It's the end of the electrical show where we have been
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talking to Louise and John, the smart home specialists, and about bringing Lauren
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to work with them as an apprentice. Now, Lauren, how do you
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see your career progressing with these two great people? How do you see it?
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So? I see myself becoming fully qualified electrician. Although we do a
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lot of smart home work, I know there's always going to be a demand
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for electricians. Well, I do believe Paul here has got some work lined
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up for you, yes, yes, So we have some work experience for
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Lauren to see how industrial electrical installations on railways are done. A lot of
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people think railways are commercial and they are a commercial premises, but the electrical
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installation is purely industrial because of the electromagnetic fields twenty five thousand volts vibrations,
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so it's a different mindset. So we're going to fast track show some of
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the cool things that we do, and it's really cool. It's very heavily
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technical, but in a different way because it's more bread and butter. As
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as one of my guards talk bread and butter fundamentals of drilling, fixing,
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setting out, why are you doing it? Bending radius is a cable some
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but on big clunky stuff. So like what he's just done there in like
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ten seconds, right, imagine that over like eight hours and it doesn't stop.
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I'm alive. That's literally, It's like it just cooks. It just
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fries your brain. So you're just this piece of morphed plastic at the end
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of the day, like I'm not. Like me and Tom have had many
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a conversation over the last two and a bit years that you've been doing rail
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and it is another form of an apprentice when you go from and I did
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domestic when I was doing rail days and nights, which I don't recommend,
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but it was another form of apprenticeship I went when industrial guys going our domestic
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it's easy, No, it's not. Have some respect for the horrors that
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it's just different to go through. It's different. You need to serve your
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time, you need to learn, you need to appreciate. There's a different
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dynamic. It's the same when you go from domestic to industrial. I try
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and create an atmosphere of mentoring and partnerships and just everybody being nice and walking
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away going. I enjoyed that rather than a lot of electricians, I've work
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with over years who just hate the world and everything and everything in it sounds
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like John, are you writing a book exposally of black cab drivers? Yeah?
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Yes, dear, all right, that's it for today's show. You
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can hear. I think that's a perfect time to end. Now you can
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subscribe to the podcast is always worth the download as we do put some exclusive
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bits and pieces in there, so please leave us a review as well,
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because it really does make a difference. You can also subscribe to the Electrical
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Show newsletter at Fixed Radio dot co dot uk, where you'll get access to
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competitions, news and or a massive thanks to Louise, John and Lauren for
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joining us these past two weeks. Thanks