One set of lessons every apprentice must master is how to price and schedule work. This is rarely easy in a business where every project is custom work that is custom priced. If we owned a movie theater these particular issues would surely be much easier—ten bucks for the regular feature and six bucks for the matinee. But when every little job must be individually priced and scheduled the process can be a little daunting. We have to make money but we do not want to rip people off. And either way, we have to meet a reasonable, defined schedule.
Learning the Business Not Just the Trade
The day my apprentice took in his first project I coached him afterward on some better ideas; the reason being that I consider a true apprenticeship to be one where the master craftsman is training the apprentice in all aspects of the business including the management of it. In a small business, sales, estimating, and bidding are skills the business owner must have in order to survive. I want my apprentice to survive and thrive when he leaves my service.
Explaining the Mysteries
A good apprenticeship contract ought to stipulate that the master will teach the whole trade not just portions. The old, medieval contracts often specified this very precept. The master had to teach all the “mystryies” of the trade as a part of his agreement with the apprentice. That was the Christian and moral way to handle the relationship. The master agrees to teach the secrets of the trade and the apprentice agrees to work diligently for low pay for an extended time. Everybody wins. But we employers have to behave rightly toward that apprentice who has in good faith contracted to help us for little immediate financial benefit.
I watched and listened (and cringed a bit) as Tim told the customer he would have the cabinet repaired and refinished this very week, just four days hence. I wanted to step right in and tell everybody that there was no way that piece was going to be ready by Friday. But, I let it go and talked to Tim afterward. I explained to him that it is much better to tell the customer a longer period till delivery than you think the project will take. Typically, projects do take longer than we think they will anyway. So why end up being perpetually late on deliveries?
Mastering Fear & Timing
There is a moral dilemma here that is difficult to precisely address. Christians ought not lie to their customers about anything, including schedules. Yet, we often do not know exactly how long it will take to complete work. The fear of man always drives us to give dates that are too soon. We want to please the customer with a promise for prompt delivery. Our sin (fearing man), or a just plain lack of knowing how our trade works, gets in the way of wiser judgment. So my faithful apprentice promised delivery in half the time the project would reasonably take. This was not a disaster but it provided a good opportunity to talk about these issues. I will do what I can to train him to be a better planner and manager as well as learning necessary trade skills.