Bryan C. Warnock wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Dec 2000, Nathan Torkington wrote:
>
>> Nice. An apprentice is an administrative assistant with a career
>> path. If people are happy to do this, we'd be happy to use them. The
>> chairs proved weak at reporting on their list's activities (I know I
>> was) so being able to delegate that to someboy who wanted to do it and
>> help, would be good. And as we get able to do more technical things,
>> the tasks we delegate can be technical too.
>
> One need only spend an hour or so watching CNN's or MSNBC's Florida election
> coverage to notice that the only political interviewees with a general clue
> are all the former law clerks for some judge... There's a reason for that.
>
> No one likes to do what the military affectionately calls "shit details," but
> I hope that both sides can benefit from it.
>
> I am slightly worried about the "career path" dead-ending at personal lackey,
> however. But, hey, that's why we're getting paid the big bucks, right?
I doubt that'll happen. Apprentices can bail at any time, and
undoubtedly will, when they get busy or their interest wanders or whatever.
One comment -- an apprenticeship is a two-sided relationship. Bryan, I
think you've done a great job of describing the apprentice's
responsibility to the master. But what about the master's responsibility
to the apprentice? The apprentice is entering into the relationship with
the intention of getting experience and skills out of it. I think you
should loosely describe what a master is expected to do to facilitate
the apprentice's progress in exchange for the grunt work. Just so a
master can know whether he's being a good master, if nothing else.
You skipped journeyman. :-)
