No I was like that before I went to France
, plumbers were the best trade etc, but seeing the arrogance of the Brits has only served to enhance it
Puddle ,
I was an arrogant sod almost from the word go, being a London trained plumber we used to consider ourselves a cut above the rest
I have been lucky in the trade, and done just about all there is, apart from hospital work, right across the board, lab work with poly and glass wastes, and 4" soil stacks,, 4" lead pipe work, cast iron soil stacks, drains, water mains up to 12", 6" copper water and soil, PVC water mains up to 4", 150mm blue Poly water main with electro fusion, 63mm Poly gas main with electro fusion and hand, gas lamp heated saddle tapping tool, also worked on sludge main in a sewerage works, steel tube up to 4" once with a solid head die stock for 4" threading, worked mostly on large developments, but done a fair bit of house bashing as well, also had a time in the office as a junior design engineer, doing pen and ink drafting, with a bit of estimating and taking off from bills of quantities, plus a couple of spells in the Middle East
When I first went to France I thought that I would wipe the floor with these "peasants", but I am not ashamed to say they used me as the floor rag, at first. Example, I was sent to second fix a school, everything was there they said, bench, bottles, a few bends, and half a dozen "bar" of copper, no couplings, no tees, in a few places around the building there were a few stumps of copper tube sticking up out of the slab, ranging from a couple to more than half a dozen, it turned out that I had to make on site the manifolds and join them to the first fix tubing, this is normal in France, how many UK plumbers would know what to do??
In the time I have been in France, I have had to go back over work carried out by UK "trades persons" to rectify the work, a good half of it would not meet the Norms, and when the person is told this, the standard reply is, we have always done it like this in the UK, whilst you might soft solder all copper pipework, its hard solder for water, and silver solder for gas, ring mains are not allowed same as unswitched neutrals in the fuse board, or 13 amp socket outlets but the "English" still insist on them
Supermarkets somebody with two trolleys, no food but just booze, arguing with the girl on the till, in English, that last time he was allowed that amount of booze, or hearing them swear in front of the girl, because he did not get his way
Whilst its not all milk and honey over here, the trade training is better, a tradesman is a respected person in the community, the wages are lower than the UK, but you can live better than in the UK for what you get, there is not the compulsion to work all hours god gave you, "family comes first" I offered to work on a sunday to help get the job out on time, and was told nobody works 7 days a week full stop
I do reserve the right to defend my adopted country, which has given me the opportunity to retire early ( I retired 2 years late at 62 instead of 60 the norm for France), a better pension, no council tax bill because I am retired and don't have enough to pay the council tax, also we are below the income tax limit so no income tax to pay (between us we pick up from the state in the way of pensions the best part of 14000€ a year say £13000) health care
we pay about £60 a month to cover us for the difference between what the state pay and what the medication cost, the state pays normally 70%, life saving drugs are 100% paid for by the state
Edit:: One thing I did forget to mention, is the fact that nobody can just pick up a set of tools and start work as a plumber, electrician, etc, they have to register with the authorities first and that means a week back at school, doing accounts, tax, vat returns, the law in relation to your work, after this is done you have to find an assurance that will accept you, for the mandatory 10 year assurance of your work
How does that grab you all you plumbers in the UK by law you must guarantee your new work for 10 years, repairs and renovations are for 2 years
