Planet Glass
06-01-2008, 10:41
Well, my two days at the shop have come and gone and were a huge disappointment.
I'd hired two assistants. One was supposed to play "gaffer" and was charging me a gaffer hourly rate. I insisted many times that he should hire a male third assistant for spinning because I don't believe women have the endurance it needs to pull zanfirico (unless they are regular practitioners and have had opportunities to buit up their muscles!).
So I saw him at the glass school two weeks ago and I asked him if he hired a guy. He said, "no, a woman." No explanation. I said, "are you sure she can handle this? It's really hard on the muscles and all that spinning is tiring." He said, "oh yeah."
Turned out she was a woman my age, very nice, but no more endurance than I have.
But that's not where the disaster begins. The kid who was charging me near-professional wages did not even come close to "passable."
First, he had to blow a cylinder, 3-4 mm thick. Size of cylinder was not an issue, just wall thickness. He overblew it, and lost control of it several times, and had to try repeatedly to open the bottom. There were so many mistakes that I decided we should switch to zanfirico right away.
He admitted LATER, after failing repeatedly, that he only has two days of zanfirico experience, supervised by a teacher. It showed.
First off, instead of making a cylinder in the proportions of a pop can, he was making a cone. I told him not to, and he argued that this is how he'd been taught. Then then had NO NOTION whatsoever as to how to do it. The first two ended a mess on the shop floor, and the third was 3 feet long and the rest a colossal waste. All the while, they stubbornly refused to listen to ANY and ALL of my instructions, imagining that I'm some loser weekend glassblower, they had no respect, but as it turns out I've had 10 times more experience pulling zanfirico than they do. And I do not master the technique AT ALL myself. I would say, no, that's not hot enough, or don't move, or flip... they did not listen one bit.
Meanwhile, the other people working in the shop were looking our way with worried looks, and some came when they had a minute to talk to him and tried to give him tips.
So after that, I decided I had a better chance doing it myself, I did the next three, zip, zip, zip, it really takes minutes to get it really to be pulled since it's a super-simple shape to make - no reason to fuss and muss. The first one didn't work (I have been in the hot shop for 10 months) but the next two were great, I got a good twenty feet of zanfirico each.
They didn't even know how to break it from the cane. They were banging on it... shattering the little they'd produce. I even had to show them how to separate the zanfirico from the cane and punty, how basic is that? He even tried to breaking it down in sections by banging it with the end of the tweezers rather than using the tile cutters that were 2 feet from him, and of course it shattered there too.
Anyway, after I quickly and efficiently produced the two good canes he decided to take over to show me he could do it, I guess. Gawd knows how he managed to do this, but instead of making a "can" he ended up with a "saucer" on the punty, and then he lifted up the edges, and he had a big donut. I tried not to show it but I was besides myself. He can't even make a solid cylinder and for this he charges me $20/hr. I asked him what he was doing, and he lied, he pretended it was on purpose and he was trying to "heat the core." I swear.
The next day, I was going to work with cane/murrini rollups. But I tossed and turned all night, there was no way this guy had the level of experience required to make any sort of rollup with the precious murrini I made at Pilchuck last summer.
I thought he had not been honest by not disclosing his total lack of experience, charging me as if he did have years of experience, hiring a woman against my very specific instructions... so I decided to send him home the next day.
I ended up using the woman as an assistant the next day, and I blew the regular stuff. Not a total loss since it allowed me to practice after being out of the shop so long (I was happy to see that I hadn't "lost it" - haha) but I'm not getting at all what I was hoping for.
I had agreed to pay the third assistant $8-10/hr. She was actually very good, I very much enjoyed working with her, and I was going to give her $10/hr, but when with my checkbook in hand I asked for her hourly rate, she told me that the guy had told her $14/hr. I said nothing and paid her, but this guy managed to screw up absolutely everything.
I'd hired two assistants. One was supposed to play "gaffer" and was charging me a gaffer hourly rate. I insisted many times that he should hire a male third assistant for spinning because I don't believe women have the endurance it needs to pull zanfirico (unless they are regular practitioners and have had opportunities to buit up their muscles!).
So I saw him at the glass school two weeks ago and I asked him if he hired a guy. He said, "no, a woman." No explanation. I said, "are you sure she can handle this? It's really hard on the muscles and all that spinning is tiring." He said, "oh yeah."
Turned out she was a woman my age, very nice, but no more endurance than I have.
But that's not where the disaster begins. The kid who was charging me near-professional wages did not even come close to "passable."
First, he had to blow a cylinder, 3-4 mm thick. Size of cylinder was not an issue, just wall thickness. He overblew it, and lost control of it several times, and had to try repeatedly to open the bottom. There were so many mistakes that I decided we should switch to zanfirico right away.
He admitted LATER, after failing repeatedly, that he only has two days of zanfirico experience, supervised by a teacher. It showed.
First off, instead of making a cylinder in the proportions of a pop can, he was making a cone. I told him not to, and he argued that this is how he'd been taught. Then then had NO NOTION whatsoever as to how to do it. The first two ended a mess on the shop floor, and the third was 3 feet long and the rest a colossal waste. All the while, they stubbornly refused to listen to ANY and ALL of my instructions, imagining that I'm some loser weekend glassblower, they had no respect, but as it turns out I've had 10 times more experience pulling zanfirico than they do. And I do not master the technique AT ALL myself. I would say, no, that's not hot enough, or don't move, or flip... they did not listen one bit.
Meanwhile, the other people working in the shop were looking our way with worried looks, and some came when they had a minute to talk to him and tried to give him tips.
So after that, I decided I had a better chance doing it myself, I did the next three, zip, zip, zip, it really takes minutes to get it really to be pulled since it's a super-simple shape to make - no reason to fuss and muss. The first one didn't work (I have been in the hot shop for 10 months) but the next two were great, I got a good twenty feet of zanfirico each.
They didn't even know how to break it from the cane. They were banging on it... shattering the little they'd produce. I even had to show them how to separate the zanfirico from the cane and punty, how basic is that? He even tried to breaking it down in sections by banging it with the end of the tweezers rather than using the tile cutters that were 2 feet from him, and of course it shattered there too.
Anyway, after I quickly and efficiently produced the two good canes he decided to take over to show me he could do it, I guess. Gawd knows how he managed to do this, but instead of making a "can" he ended up with a "saucer" on the punty, and then he lifted up the edges, and he had a big donut. I tried not to show it but I was besides myself. He can't even make a solid cylinder and for this he charges me $20/hr. I asked him what he was doing, and he lied, he pretended it was on purpose and he was trying to "heat the core." I swear.
The next day, I was going to work with cane/murrini rollups. But I tossed and turned all night, there was no way this guy had the level of experience required to make any sort of rollup with the precious murrini I made at Pilchuck last summer.
I thought he had not been honest by not disclosing his total lack of experience, charging me as if he did have years of experience, hiring a woman against my very specific instructions... so I decided to send him home the next day.
I ended up using the woman as an assistant the next day, and I blew the regular stuff. Not a total loss since it allowed me to practice after being out of the shop so long (I was happy to see that I hadn't "lost it" - haha) but I'm not getting at all what I was hoping for.
I had agreed to pay the third assistant $8-10/hr. She was actually very good, I very much enjoyed working with her, and I was going to give her $10/hr, but when with my checkbook in hand I asked for her hourly rate, she told me that the guy had told her $14/hr. I said nothing and paid her, but this guy managed to screw up absolutely everything.