Young and dumb mistakes

[oilwell1415 563]

Back when I was still working as a mechanic I worked for a guy that loved bringing in apprentices to "help" me.  Out of probably a dozen over 7 years there, the only one that was any good at all was the one that came in knowing zero about cars.  Couldn't even change a tire or oil, but he turned out to be a good hand and now manages a local 4x4 shop.  But that's beside the point.  One of these apprentices was named Charles and came to us from a local trade school and talked a big game.  The first job I assigned to him was changing the battery cables on a Jeep Cherokee.  Those have a cable with about 10 connections on it and he couldn't figure out where the last one went, so he came and asked me.  I looked at it and knew instantly that it was a ground that went on the thermostat housing, but instead of telling him I knew that I just told him I thought that's where it went and to be careful when he hooked the battery back up so he didn't burn the vehicle down.  He finished the job and our service adviser called him up to the front desk.  While he was up there I set up the smoke machine under the Jeep and put the outlet next to the thermostat housing.  When he came back out to the shop the whole back half of the shop was filled with smoke.  He about lost it.  I don't think they taught him anything about fixing cars at school, but they must have spent a lot of time on fire extinguisher operation.  I've never seen anyone get to one so fast.  I was barely able to stop him before he discharged it.  There was hardly a week go by we didn't have some kind of joke to play on him.