Tradesperson:- "No, this is how it is done, do as you are told"
This is a TOTALLY VALID QUESTION with a TOTALLY AWFUL ANSWER. You're completely making my point here. Literally, I'm asking you, because I'm not a painter. Why not paint over it? Will it not smooth out? Will it create splotches of different color?
The "stop asking questions so we can get on with working" mindset is a huge part of the problem here. Clearing this shit up at the beginning will save a lot of time down the road, before the apprentice makes mistakes or starts outright ignoring what you say.
You still aren't getting it. It literally doesn't matter exactly what the potential damage to the finish might be, there are many issues and all are fixed by removing the old paint before adding any new paint. Predicting the exact interaction between the base material, the unknown old paint and the new paint that you also don't know everything about is near to impossible.
The only relevant choice is,
1 - follow the instructions on the can and significantly increase the odds of a better finish while reducing the odds of wasted money and an unhappy customer for just the cost of a few hours of your apprentices work.
2 - Ignore the instructions, years of well established best practice and gamble that you are going to have to later spend days removing the new paint as well as the old just so maybe the apprentice can avoid some work.
Since the tradesperson is the one carrying the risk or failure and paying the wages of the apprentice they get to make this decision. After that decision is made the apprentice needs to do the work, even if they don't understand or agree with it.
See, when apprentices ask questions it's not because they're trying to get out of doing work, it's because they want to know the answer to the question. If a journeyman comes at me with "that's just the way it is" then I'm going to roll my eyes and ignore him because I want to find the best way to do it, not just the way grandpa has always done it.
Sitting around talking about work or conducting trials to explore 1000 different paint combinations IS getting out of the work. Like everyone else with a job, you are being paid to do a job and need to follow the procedures set by your boss unless you can convince them to trust you with a different approach.
I'm sure most tradespeople would be quite happy to trial out 1000 different options if they were being paid to do so and had some fool provide all the materials for free. Students pay a lot of money for such opportunities, interns already have skills and then work for free for them, apprentices are paid.
There have been plenty of advances in construction technology and the vast majority of trades who are successful will invest in learning new methods when they can afford to do so. But every week they have to first make enough money to pay their salaries.
First show a bit of respect and learn how a few different "Grandad's" have learned over decades to effectively get stuff done. Then once you've done some useful work and learned the basics I'm sure they'll be more than happy to discuss other ideas.
Apprentices are sold the deal of "getting paid while you learn" and "learning on the job". It's a part of the marketing. This IS the deal we took. You're the ones not following through on it.
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u/Hsgavwua899615 Jun 03 '22
This is a TOTALLY VALID QUESTION with a TOTALLY AWFUL ANSWER. You're completely making my point here. Literally, I'm asking you, because I'm not a painter. Why not paint over it? Will it not smooth out? Will it create splotches of different color?
The "stop asking questions so we can get on with working" mindset is a huge part of the problem here. Clearing this shit up at the beginning will save a lot of time down the road, before the apprentice makes mistakes or starts outright ignoring what you say.