The Industry

I'm sure you're correct about the legal requirements, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily best practice....it just means they're the only way anyone can think of to regulate the standards.



Na wrote:
>
> Like actors, techies have to update their skills, especially as new
> equipment comes out all the time.

Is there any requirement to update your skills after you have a qualification? Someone may have 'qualified' in 1983 with a certificate showing they knew everything about lighting equipment, but never worked in the industry since. The person without a qualification, who nevertheless has been working on current equipment, would understand it better.

> I guess because you're working with highly dangerous equipment,
> and if not done by someone who has the right to do it, it can
> be lethal (imagine what would happen if someone hung a light
> and didn't know to put the safety chain on... and the light
> fell for some reason. Or the clamp wasn't tight enough...
> Etc. etc.)

Again, things that someone with experience would be well aware of.


> and no one will hire you if you don't know what you're doing

This is true enough...it ought to be the REAL guage.

> (no one should hire you if you don't have the legal right to
> do the job you're being asked to do, and no one should accept
> or do a job that they don't have a right to do).

This is not the same as the previous statement above. A 'right' doesn't always equate to an 'ability'.


I'm being my usual argumentative self, of course, and I don't really have a suggestion for a better solution. But I am influenced by a parallel situation I recently experienced:

I used to be a scuba instructor. I not only know resuscitation and rescues, but I was qualified to teach others. It was the equivalent qualification to a St John's First Aid certificate and a Royal Surf Life Saving Society award.
I've since let it lapse, and so am no longer able to instruct, unless I take a refresher course. Now, I'm in total agreement with this situation...these are safety skills that ought to be regularly updated.
However, I was just employed on a camp for kids where, because I have no current qualifications, others with current certificates were put in positions of lifeguard when we did beach activities. And yet while supervising a group of about twenty 10 year olds, I realised that the two 'lifeguards' were spending almost the entire time with their backs to the water, talking to each other, building sandcastles or swimming in the surf alongside the kids; whereas I had automatically placed myself in a position where I was able to see the whole group, was half in the water and the most ready to enter in an emergency, and was apparently the only one doing regular headcounts...a child with a stomach complaint had been sent back to the campsite by her teacher, and the lifeguards had no idea that a kid had gone missing from the group..!

I'm sure there are equivalent examples in any field...the kid with the new certificate is not always going to know to do the job properly - something that they will hopefully learn with experience (and I pray not a tragic experience).
I understand that across the board the new public liability issues mean that everyone has to re-train and keep their skills updated...unfortunately this often means restrictive training fees... I hope the ones with REAL experience aren't weeded out in the process.

Cheers
Craig