What exactly does "qualified" mean ?

[bernardgreen]

Jim B****** needed to expand his factory and required his bank to provide finance for the project

Extending the production hall area presented a problem. Until this problem was overcome the bank would not finance the project.

Jim obtained well thought out, fully calculated and documented solutions to the problem from two consultancy firms. Both companies and their staff have almost identical sets of qualifications. Yet they came up with two very different ways to solve the problem.

Solve isn't the right word, they reduced to an acceptable level the effects the problem would have without actually eliminating the problem.

The bank were prepared to accept either of these solutions mainly because they were proposed by people with the right qualifications and therefore did not need to be verified by an independent assessor.

Jim and his staff came up with a third solution. This one did remove the problem but because Jim does not have formal qualifications in that area the bank were not able to accept his solution as a viable solution.

Jim bit the bullet and paid for one of the consultancy firms to develop his solution into a fully worked up proposal in a format that the bank would be able to accept as presented.

It was a difficult process as the consultant's training for his qualifications was often in conflict with the experience that Jim and his staff had collated and used to create their solution.

 

[transam]

In our trade the word qualified does not mean a lot imho

(well not to me any way)

 

[conny]

We have two 'electricians' at work.
One served a 5 year apprenticeship and has 2 further years experience but minimal 'paper qualifications'.

The other is ex-military with paper qualifications as long as your arm, in fact he has more papers than the supervisor. Asked to 'isolate and check for dead' a motor on a machine last week. He simply turned off the main incoming supply. Asked why he didn't just isolate the stated motor his reply was, "I can't understand the paperwork.'

The younger guy pulled the books out, identified the circuit, isolated it, locked it off and checked it was totally isolated. That's what I call qualified.

 

[HawkEye244]

I think the governments persistant cashing in on competancy schemes has pretty much trashed any legitimacy the word 'qualified' once brought with it.

Quality of knowledge and a trade does not come from college it comes from work, and it's painful because that's all the government (certainly under Blair) was offering. In fact it created a market for those wanting to teach, lecture more than it did teach a young person a skill. The college I did my BTEC in construction & the built environment was stocked full off old people topping up their pensions. Some of them never turned up. In fact on one or two modules there wasn't a lecturer, if they did turn up their knowledge was old, outdated and no longer relevant.

In fact having hands on experience of construction (both desk & site jobs) I'm not impressed by all that shyte traders plaster their vans with, CHAS logos and master craftsman logos etc etc doesn't mean sh1t.. Company I worked for once would employ a company to do all the health and safety work for the CHAS assessment, all we had to do was change a few names and jig a few things around, send it off and then the company would get CHAS certified, we never even used the paperwork, site inductions, checklists etc, none of it... Like everything in this country it's bullsh1t, just some money making scam... actually I do agree with the gas safety stuff but only that one thing... even though I'm sure there are gas safe cowboys about.