Don’t feel bad, I probablhy have 50 people at one
point or another I am forced to train that can be anywhere from semi-compitent to total idiot but paid as a professional lighting techincian. At the moment, the shop boss is gone on a tour. I’m taking bets on his semi-compitent even member of
IATSE - assistant (or most experienced person left in the shop no matter the opposed politics of the shop) as to how many idiots he will fire in the next two weeks given last time and only for a week it was one person. Of note today, in bridging such a bet to him today he already fired me as one person almost as fired. Too bad I'm working for someone else - both our boss's, but in any case it's one person down as fired, and one person kicked off a local install given he was late to work and others just as qualified were on time to work this morning. Don't show up to work - no matter the importance of the show you are dooing and don't expect to work it. Instead push boxes for a day or living.)
Yea, “we hire only the best” has become more quote than reality. Can of at leat two hands worth of tech people only count at best one
hand worth of even potentially able tech people living up to their status. The rest might as well get a job surving ice cream for all they care or are able to fulfill their jobs. Want a career in lighting, it's not only how qualified you are but how needy the market is for employment much less how many people without experience or IQ are willing to do the job economically you would otherwise excell in for a few months but
advance further in in necessating someone in your absence of replacement for that might last a wee
bit longer.
In any case,
heat shrink.com/shrinkmarkers - Brian there is my dude. I also have another source for it in another brand -
Insulation Products that will try their best and be good for other than what
clear heat shrink Insulation Products offers, but does not offer in general the same grade of
clear heat shrink the other company does. Should
Insulation Products be sufficient in less than world tour use, it will be cheaper. For price it might be more economical to start with the smaller comany that will both print your labels and supply the
clear over it than go onto the more national company for
heat shrink that can also do it all but might not be as cheap.
Give Brian at
Heat Shrink a
call - good stuff his product. Granted it’s almost $6.00 per
foot for me on a 3:1 or 4:1
heat shrink necessary to fit over a
Soco plug than shrink down to a 12/14 cable, still they offer such things and as opposed to taking off the about 2.5" dia.
Plug in an effort to replace the
heat shrink on it, it’s who I
call for a
clear heat shrink that will shrink down and protect the cable.
Between McMaster for certain heat shrinks,
Insulation Products and
Heat Shrink.com for mostly
clear and very specilized adhesive lined
heat shrink, I do good savings given I buy at least 200' of 19mm 3:1
clear heat shrink every three or four months. What you pay is q question of what you buy. What I buy from works for me but there is lots of other vendors out there.
Note especially however that good quality
heat shrink alone in touring conditions won’t prevent the
heat shrink from re-expanding. You tend to need to physically glue the
heat shrink to the cable to bond it with it and prevent it from ripping or expanding further. Such adhesives are another story and only necessary for huge abuse conditions. If you don’t abuse, you don’t need to glue.
Interns are fun and helpful, let them develop sufficiently in using the limits of their brain
power you inspire them to consider above efficiency at first or you might just seem too demanding in commanding policy without reason. As long as you ensure a certain training program above what might suffice but not be perfect technique, and allow them breathing room to hang themselves, it all should work out fiine.
This past week I trained into replacing torn up ripped up
heat shrink on cable to the one stand out person in the shop as having the lowest IQ of all tech people employeed by us. A seriously deficient IQ. Never forget that the drive to learn with others to you is not the same as you have. Teach what you can as best but at the end of the day, what little you expect them to understand the how and why to do of will be more worth what you had hoped than them understanding the why and rational of.
Teach your assistant to make you useless, but at least teach them to be sufficient with patience if less than you in abilitiy to understand. Alwasy also remember that as a assistant, they are a
reflection of you. No matter the mistake, forgive, educate and forget - otherwise if not sufficient by such
foot notes to benefit, fire them.
In assistants, what works for me beyond recognizing praise is not forgetting the carrot following the stick that is positioned beyond the general crew’s eyes.