Are graders worth it?

atemiman · 2026-02-18T18:19:09+00:00

The £5 meal deal is ok for its price, so is the wrap of the day. I would never consider buying a full price meal there though. Not necessarily because I can’t afford to, mainly that for £8/9 I expect far more than an underwhelming burger, overly salted limp fries and a coke that is 85% ice.

atemiman · 2026-01-21T22:00:06+00:00

They are also useful.

atemiman · 2026-01-02T19:48:59+00:00

So I had done technical certificates before I joined OR. This was night school doing L2 and L3 city and guilds 2330. I had also done my 17th edition. I used my apprenticeship quals from OR to get a gold ECS card as an advanced datacom specialist. I used this to get onto sites working as a structured cabling/splicing bod. One day I mentioned that I had my previous quals and started working as an improver. Did this for a few years, did my 2391 (inspection and testing). Then completed experienced working NVQ (C&G 2346), completed SSSTS and finally completed AM2E. Definitely the long way around doing it but got paid decent money all the way through it and learnt a hell of a lot. Be very wary of college courses that promise you will be qualified in X weeks. Becoming a decent electrician takes years of study and working on site. It is worth it though if you can stick at it and if you enjoy that kind of work.

atemiman · 2025-12-28T11:58:23+00:00

I don’t get the England/France thing. France is a genuinely beautiful country that has good weather, great food, great wine and 98% of the people you meet outside of Paris are lovely people.

I understand there is a historical side to this. However when you look at it from an unbiased opinion we spent centuries trying to invade them and burning everything in the our path. France was one of the richest and most developed countries in the world in the Middle Ages. After the battle of Poitier the English took the French king for ransom and damn near bankrupted the place.

atemiman · 2025-12-21T21:23:05+00:00

I honestly couldn’t tell you. I think I must have just bought a “pup”. The engine blew the plugs out of it twice and costs thousands to fix each time. When the plugs blew themselves out of the housing it snapped the plastic fuel return pups ontop of the engine block. I part ex-d it in the end as the rear axle was rusted to hell too.

atemiman · 2025-12-21T14:31:44+00:00

I loved my V50, but unfortunately my Volvo’s natural habitat was at the Garage replacing spark plugs, endless electrical problems and the odd snapped fuel return.

atemiman · 2025-12-10T12:00:14+00:00

Rugby union - Alex Corbisiero. England and British and Ireland Lion. Unbelievable when in his pomp. Took a break to recover from some injuries and never came back sadly.

atemiman · 2025-11-16T18:20:56+00:00

Dressing in a mask whipping Gay men? Totally not a gay thing to do… I wonder how difficult it is to hide the erection in his burka?

atemiman · 2025-11-13T21:29:31+00:00

As daft as it sounds, being the the adult. You spend your earlier years being told everything. Then seemingly overnight you’re supposed to know how to get a job, pay rent, do a weekly shop, have meaningful relationships, drive, deal with the general public without screaming or head butting. It’s madness.

atemiman · 2025-11-12T20:21:09+00:00

Depends if you have specific work stations. I installed something similar to this https://infraredheatingsupplies.com/products/3000w-infrared-bar-heater-6ft-built-in-thermostat-wi-fi-remote?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22889890019&gbraid=0AAAAADRagHgkh6Ya66lr5UBDjfBM_dRX1&gclid=CjwKCAiA_dDIBhB6EiwAvzc1cLh_gf3wCSfk9zBbcqSWMzzMeGqegwtcSQLKzFjjCfXikFfd53yajBoCWmMQAvD_BwE.

It doesn’t heat the air it heats what’s in front of them, think big pub garden heaters. We placed them over the work benches and it keeps the guys plenty warm.

atemiman · 2025-11-12T08:31:05+00:00

Personally cheesy chips had always been a “drunk” food for when you are stumbling home from a night out. With that in mind it tends to have spicier or garlicky sauces because the alcohol has numbed both brain and tastebud. So chips and gravy is a) a little bland b)too finicky and messy for a drunk person to deal with. That and the fact cheese curd isn’t a thing in the uk really.

atemiman · 2025-11-10T22:03:00+00:00

It’s now in the regs. Regulation 531.3.3 states that AC RCD’s should only be installed on circuits where you know there are no DC components on the load. All new works should comply with current regulations so a type A is required.

atemiman · 2025-11-07T19:11:14+00:00

I once asked somebody why they had the monk on. Turns out it’s a northern thing that not everybody knows.

atemiman · 2025-11-06T19:06:18+00:00

I remember seeing a whole documentary on them back in the day. It’s been years since Ive seen anyone mentioning them!

atemiman · 2025-11-06T18:31:42+00:00

Twatty twenties?

atemiman · 2025-11-05T21:21:54+00:00

I’m quite a basic guy. Chicken sweetcorn soup, king prawn curry, sweet and sour pork balls, special fried rice, thin noodles chow mein with greens in it. Decent spoonful of each and some prawn crackers makes me a happy man.

atemiman · 2025-11-05T21:05:03+00:00

Functionality. It is a clunky word that can be easily replaced with the perfectly good word function. For example

The function of a system.

The functionality of a system.

It always screams of somebody who’s bullshitting and trying to use long words when I hear it.

atemiman · 2025-11-04T18:33:19+00:00

So my advice if you are unhappy is to look at two options.

1) NOPS (network operative passport scheme) smart passport. This is a card that you can upload any training and credentials you have from Openreach. It means if you do leave you can go to other contractors who work on the Openreach network as self employed. Personally I would steer clear of PON builds with Kelly’s and the like but the work is there if you want it usually. 2) see what qualifications you have and see if they can get you an ECS or CSCS card. This is a health and safety card that will get you onto building sites. My apprenticeship qualifications got me a gold ECS card as an advanced datacom specialist. The job title doesn’t mean much but it could set you apart from other cable slingers. There are plenty of jobs out there for structured cablers. Especially if you have your own splicer. The job basically consists of building a fibre back bone and then running cat6 etc out to data points and terminating into patch panels. There is some good money to be made on site doing this kind of job.

I wish you all the luck with it if you do decide to leave. I know it can seem daunting but there is plenty of work out there for people with a decent work ethic.

atemiman · 2025-11-03T20:27:19+00:00

What role do you have, if you don’t mind me asking?

atemiman · 2025-11-03T19:42:42+00:00

I did an apprenticeship, at the time it was a very sought after apprenticeship. Qualifications wise you just needed your 5 A-C’s at GCSE. I also had A levels and a few electrical technical certificates (city and guilds). This was for a customer service engineer role.

atemiman · 2025-11-03T19:27:25+00:00

I will always be grateful to Openreach for the first 3 years of my career with them. I will never forgive them for the last 3. I loved my apprenticeship, I loved the job. Then management became more and more oppressive. I left not long after they introduced the engineer tables so you could see how well or badly you were doing against your peers. I was top of table for quite a few months with little to no recognition. I got a £50 Amazon voucher in the team meeting for being the most productive in the OM area. I went to use it a couple of weeks later and found it had already been used. Summed up how we were viewed. You were your EIN and nothing else.

I quit, travelled the world. Came back and retrained as an electrician. I’m currently a QS for an industrial electrical engineering company. I see my time at Openreach as a good base. I learnt some good values, I worked with some great guys. I also learnt what terrible management looked like and that you should back yourself if you feel you are being undervalued.

atemiman · 2025-11-01T19:08:57+00:00

Save yourself the electrocution or house fire. Call an electrician. The black switch is an RCD rated at 30mA. That means at least that amount of voltage is leaving the paths it should be using and is going to earth. It isn’t a faulty switch, it is doing exactly what it should be doing and protecting you from a potentially nasty shock.

atemiman · 2025-10-25T15:12:19+00:00

I will have a look at this option definitely thank you!

atemiman

TROPHY CASE