Talked to a Locksmith today...

[Temple]

Like a lot of people here I am thinking about taking a locksmithing course and then maybe do some side work on the weekends for some extra income. My wife works for a wrecker service and they use the same locksmith all the time to get access to cars they have towed and other things, she suggested I talk to him about my idea. I called the nice man and after about 10min of him trashing my idea and basicly telling me there was no point in wasting my money on some half baked get rich quick scheme, I am having second thoughts. Granted if things go the way I would like I would be getting a free ride for the full course from the government. But I don't want to waste my time and tax payers money if it's going to get me laughed out the door of every locksmith shop I walk into.

Now I know this is only one person I talked to but he was nothing but doom and gloom even after I told him I didn't want to start my own business. He told me the only school he new about was in California and it was $12,000 plus lodging and meals and it was about 9 months long. He was also nice enough to tell me it would take for ever to learn how to open cars and make car keys. I told him I wasn't interested in cars at this point but more interested in residential and commercial doors. That's when I used what little locksmith lingo I have learned here on him telling him I had already done some installs of door sets and re-pinned a couple of locks already. At this point he seemed to warm up a little but brushedme of with "oh well then you alredy know everything you need to know you just need to find somebody that will let you work in there shop". Again not the most happy cheerful guy you would want to talk to so I plan on going to a couple of other well established places and talking to them hopefuly I will get a warmer reception.

[Gundanium]

Sounded polite enough, you coulda very well just been a person who steals road apples and wanted to divert you. Anyways, ha, lucky to find anyone at least that nice, there some asses out there, heck I am one sometimes when i'm mad (rarely) but yeah, sounds like a decent enough guy, 12,000 aint bad for schooling plus meals.

[LockNewbie21]

He's btiter becuase you'd be competition, heh a lockie told me locks would be obsolete in 3 years

But then again i played dumb he told me lockpicking took him 5 years to even a lcok open, and most locks are impossible to open..

Locksmithing.. isn't an outdated job.. its just most lockies will get aggressive.. one its a sensitive topic about there knowldge in wrong hands, plus competition.

I was lucky to know someone.. who knew someone who was a lcokie and retiring, otherwise i wuld have spent quite a few hundred.. and a few more for nothing.

[VashTSPD]

a lockie told me locks would be obsolete in 3 years

But then again i played dumb he told me lockpicking took him 5 years to even a lcok open, and most locks are impossible to open..

thanks for making me laugh

[bpc293]

when i was first calling around asking locksmith shops what they looked for on applications. if there where schools they accepted or liked. i talked to one guy that said he never had someone with experience or schooling apply for a job. he told me he trained guys two or three years before they really got it. he was positive with me thow.maybe that guy is not doing that well and he's miserable. would you like that type of work? what other things are you thinking about doing. some people say do what makes you happy. i say go where you will make the most money ever one hates there job.

[n2oah]

ALL OLD PEOPLE ARE MISERABLE. EXCEPT FOR RAIMUNDO!

[raimundo]

He thinks yer gonna break his rice bowl

[Temple]

I went home and told my wife I had talked to the locksmith she recomended and his negative attitude, she told me he is normaly a grumpy old man anyway.

But I'm not going to give up yet I'll be calling some more locksmith shops tomorrow.

[Delta]

I went home and told my wife I had talked to the locksmith she recomended and his negative attitude, she told me he is normaly a grumpy old man anyway.

But I'm not going to give up yet I'll be calling some more locksmith shops tomorrow.

Smart move..don't give up, being persistant is the most usefull piece of advice that i got from a locksmith. It's what got me my job. If you give up how do you expect to get a job, just keep calling people once you think you are good enough to become a locksmith, keep calling them every six months if you have to.

[globallockytoo]

TN has some decent locksmiths and some even better associations.

Be sure to talk to the associations as they can usually provide alot of guidance here.

I know some locksmiths there personally and they are top tradespeople aside from knowledgeable locksmith businesspeople.

It would be beneficial to seek more than one opinion.

[bpc293]

sorry about that last choppy post. it was late. i wouldn't give up either. if anything isn't it great to have a hobby you can fall back on to make money if you had to.

[Varjeal]

I, too, would skip going to the locksmith shops direct, and find/call local locksmith associations.

Tell them about your interest in taking some courses, etc. and find out what the requirements are in your particular state. Most locksmiths still tend to see any interested party as a possible competitor. Associations, for the most part see interested people as possible members, and you are more likely to get accurate, helpful assistance from an association. They may even be willing to direct you to locksmiths looking for help.

Cold calling locksmith shops is not the ideal method of doing things, but when nothing else works, go for it.

[linty]

i feel as though the correspondence course i took taught me less than the first 2 days working in the shop. however it did get my employers to give me an interview.
it gives you a better familiarity with the terms, but the scope was quite broad and consequently vague.

[Bud Wiser]

Rather then start a new thread about taking to locksmiths I thought I'd share my experience on this thread.

I've had better responses from locksmiths in hardware stores then locksmiths in locksmith shops

There is another thread around here some where that talks about the arrogance some lockies seem to have. I don't want to get any lockies mad at me, or judge a whole industry from the few lockies I've talked to.

I was not received very well in locksmith shops, even when there was no customers in the store!

I looked in the yellow pages to find some locksmith shops to visit. I ran across one ad that claimed they were the biggest in the area. I called them and spoke to the guy briefly. Told him I'm practicing picking and will be taking a course for locksmith. He couldn't have been less interested or unsocial. I asked him if he does any bumping. He said what is that. I said using bump keys to bypass the lock instead of picking, it's faster. He said he has been a locksmith for 15 years and has never heard of that before.

Any way that was about a month ago. I finally got around to vising "the largest locksmith" in our area today. What a joke! It was a very small shop, and all they had on display was kwikset locks. They did have a couple schlage, but about 20 kwikset demos! The parking lot was empty and there was no one in the store.

I started talking to him and he was the same guy I spoke to on the phone. He looked like he was about 30 years old, so I guess he started being a locksmith around 15.

I asked him what would be good locks to practice on, Guess what he said?
KWIKSETS!

I said come on your joking right? He wasn't, I could tell by the dump blank expression on his face. He said they can take a few minutes and some times a hour to pick, you never know. Next he showed me all the Master padlocks they had on the shelf. It was very hard for me to keep from laughing but I managed to keep a straight face.

I told him I was having some trouble with a schlage light duty. I can pick it, but not constantly, and asked him if schlage light duty had security pins. He said, some do, some don't, you never know.

Here is the real kicker. He is located in the vicinity of a high crime area in this city. All he stocks is kwiksets. Scary!

My guess is this guy is not a locksmith! May be he knows a little, but I'll bet he is the owner's son or son in law and just works the counter. At least I would hope so! That still does not justify being so over stocked with kwiksets!

I will keep you folks posted as I visit other locksmith shops in my area.

I hope to find that this shop was not typical!

[linty]

i gotta say, i work in a pretty big shop and i work with a few idiots, i also work with a few very clever people, however being a big shop many of the mobiles in the area either do work for us, or have us do work for them and not a single one of them has gone out of their way to educate themselves beyond what they see every day. The other smaller shop owners that come to us also surprise me sometimes with their lack of abilities i'd consider completely necessary.

i keep seeing negative opinions regarding the "big shop" type locksmiths but from what I've seen bad locksmiths come in all shapes and sizes, they aren't going to change either so all we can really do is make sure we keep ourselves educated.