Certificates

Beam me up, os gwelwch yn dda.

 

Clare, stop confusing me with the Welsh.. Hand propelled transportation equipment, is a wheelbarrow.:yess::yess::yess:

 

Well I only said 'please'. It's just that it takes four words to do it in Welsh.

 

But you HAVE the certificate, otherwise you would not be allowed, and have to employ a certificated hand propelled transprtation approved handler

Anyone can do it, but only with a certifcate are you allowed to do it :yess:


Jack McH

 

Well, there's my certificates for 'O' levels (which no longer exist), and various typing certificates and bits of paper that prove I can write shorthand at 130 wpm (see 'What Would You Really Like to Have Done' thread), oh and one that says I once swam a mile, the Junior Lifesaving Certificate, a First Aid one from the St. John Ambulance and let's not forget the pièce de résistance the .... Cycling Proficiency Certificate!

Trouble is, back in the day, when or if you got one of these it kind of meant something, now they give them out if you can turn up and remember your name. Sorting out some of my daughters' things proves this; there's daughter No.1's 'Certificate of Merit' for handing in her homework on time for a whole term: daughter No. 2 got a certificate for going through the whole of her senior school without a single day off sick (just the sort of thing an 18 year old wanted!) but, despite having a First Class BSc., the one daughter No. 3 is rightly and justly most proud of, is one she was awarded at the age of 4½ when she was just learning to swim at school and which reads .... 'One width, walking, with float' :yess:

 

I have a health and safety certificate, and all I did was sit there for 20 minutes... so if anyone's expecting me to know what to do if someone's choking or something, they're sadly mistaken :o

Also, I have the COSHH certificate, too, from when I was 16 (Plastering at college) with us using lime, etc...

 

20 mins? blimey, you got off lightly there Kyle. My CITB health & safety site management certificate took 5 days, same as the ecological site managers ticket.

 

Like most people, I've accumulated a number of certificates over the years, many of which are pretty meaningless.
As others have already said, it seems you only have to be able to turn up and write your name to obtain some of these 'qualifications'.
I would make one exception here though, in my experience the hardest earned of all my certificates by far was 'CS30/31', the certificate which says I am competent to maintain and use chainsaws at work for small tree felling and cross-cutting (the most basic level of chainsaw use).
A week of rigorous training, most of it out in the woods actually doing chainsaw work rather than sitting around talking about it, was followed by an equally rigorous day long test, in which I was required to prove to the examiner that I was competent in every aspect of basic chainsaw use.
You do not pass this test until the examiner is completely satisfied with your level of competence.
This of course, is exactly how it should be, those things are lethal.
I only use chainsaws occasionally at work, but I salute anyone who does that every day for a living.
By the end of that course I was kn... sorry, worn out.

 

I on my own accord got a degree in Electronics
The company I was later employed by put me in for a national, city and guilds basic electrical knowldege exam held within the industry
I had to attend fully paid eight weeks basic electronic knowledge course and at the end I passed the exam 100% :-)

It made within the industry press that xxxxx xxxx xxxxx Ltd had a technichian who passed 100% the industry standard for maintenance
I got £100 one off in my following months pay that was taxed at full rate :-)

Later when the company did me BAD, I announced it, with a few more exposures on my website, I had a knock on the door, Well a letter from the companies lawyers that if I did not remove the truth I would be taken to court

Off course there are two sides to a story, so I backed down and removed it
The other side was we had a new technician called Dxxxd Walker, who worked 20 hours for free every week
I refered to the Director as a right Walker and they must have misread it :-)

Jack McH