Absolutely necessary skills.

[Eschatos]

Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to ten. Now put yourself in this situation:

You are a professional locksmith and you own your own business. An 18 year old training for a career in law enforcement (me) comes to you and wishes to become your apprentice or for you to become his mentor. The following are skills you believe he must ABSOLUTELY have in order for you to hire him:

Please complete the paragraph for me! You can feel free to include skills you would LIKE to see someone mastering as well. I just want to know what is expected of me and be well prepared when I begin searching for an apprenticeship this summer (I should have graduated Foley-Belsaw by then)

I thank you ahead of time for your responses!

[raimundo]

The apprentice must sweep the floors, and and brush the chips off the key machines every morning, he must accept minimum wage, and he must learn the most common varients of keyway quickly so that he can cut keys for walkin customers while the locksmiths are assembling masterkeyed locks or whatever. Keyblank recognition and dealing with the customers are the primary skills, using the key copying machines, and assisting as muscle in putting in heavy herculite glass doors, chiseling rixson hinges out of concrete and all sorts of jobsite fetch and gathertools etc. Also he must show extreme loyalty to the company and a very close mouthed approach to the general public.

[locksmistress]

The apprentice wannabe needs have no actual locksmith skills. It's actually sometimes better if the apprentice wannabe conveys the impression that they know nothing about anything. Apprentices who know things are not necessarily desirable. It is very important, however, that the apprectice wannabe have certain Qualities:

Persistance: If you let yourself get blown off after only one (or 10 tries), you weren't really interested enough to stick with it.

Humility: To paraphrase raimundo - you should be willing to not actually touch a lock for the first 6 weeks of your employ. The situation of the lock is vitally interconnected to the entire rest of the door. To know locks without also knowing keys, hinges, frames and closers is to not know much about locks. And you learn a lot more from cutting keys than it seems - like painting the fence and waxing the car.

Flexibility: A variation on humility. It is never too late, too dark, too hot, too cold, too rainy, too long, too cramped or too Friday to work. People rarely lock themselves out or get broken into at convenient times of day.

Interest: You must be interested in the lock, the key, and the door. You should be interested in these things more than you are interested in your paycheck. You should definately be more interested in these things than you are on what is on the other side of the door.

Applicants who walk in and their first qualification, or, as often as not, only qualification, is their ability or interest in lockpicking usually go right off the list altogether.

You don't have to never mention picking - just save it for after you've been on the job for a few weeks.

Dependability: Your ability to show up, on time, every time is very important.

Loyalty/Commitment: It's a lot of work to train a person for this industry. You should be willing to offer the shop that's training you a commitment. They may require that you sign a non-compete - consider carefully whether or not you do. You may offer a certain number of hours at extremely low pay in exchange for training.

Honesty: Don't lie about anything. If you're super Apprentice in 6 weeks but it turns out you lied about your goals or motivations or criminal history when you were hired - you're going to suffer over that. You may get cut loose altogether. Regarding picking abilities or interest - omit them, certainly - don't volunteer the information. But do not lie about it if you are asked.

Competance: You should be aware of a decent bakery in the area and bring donuts early on in your employment - or as part of the interview seeking process if that wears on a bit. Early and often. Oh, and you should demonstrate the ability to not break everything you touch and/or a really proactive bent towards constructive problem solving if you do.

Perception: You are interviewing them as well. Watch out for lousy shops. They exist. You need to be able to commit to the career - but not if it means selling out to someone who's not going to train you well or return your loyalty. Look for a shop with a long term commitment to a community and a loyal customer base. Even new shops should have some indication of their quality reflected in their customer.

Good Luck

Aside: watch out for F-B. It's a good start - it's about the only start - but it teaches most folks just about enough to be dangerous. It represents the barest tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

[Eschatos]

That last post was amazing! I love it!

To clarify, if I was simply interested in picking, I would never pursue a career (or even apprenticeship) in locksmithing. I consider picking to be just a hobby and an endeavor to become more familiar with the inside of a lock. I want to learn the whole spectrum of the trade, and especially, I want to put some skills (especially impressioning, key cutting, identifying blanks and such) to good use and practice them a LOT!

Thanks for the tips I wouldn't even have thought of, however. Not mentioning lockpicking sounds great for convincing the locksmith that I am not just some naive teenager, and that I can grasp the full scope of what is expected of me. Taking initiative on offering the non-compete contract might work well, also, if the interview process is dragged out and seems iffy.

Anyway, I'd love to write more, but I need to get cracking on a paper due tomorrow. I have extra time since the university was shut down due to inclement weather!

Thanks everyone!

[raimundo]

don't bring up non compete if they don't, if they are not thinking in this direction, mentioning it could open up a whole new worry for them, If you complete foleybelsaws course, mentioning that is showing that you are interested and have a general understanding and commitment to learn.