I see a few issues in this.
Craftsmanship is not being taught nearly as well as it once was. "Hurry up and get it done" is the prevailing attitude. Not that we should loaf around and "milk the job" by any means. Lazy bums should get the steel toed boot in the butt.
Many young boys now coming into the trade have no basic knowledge of tools. Most boys in the past at least knew how to use hammers, screwdrivers, etc. I have seen several green helpers that I had to teach how to hammer nails, how to use the right size screwdrivers, etc. Of the handful of girls I have seen coming in, a few of them knew their tools better than the boys. They were more motivated.
Some foremen do a poor job of exposing their helpers and mechanics to new things. A guy may get pigeon holed into just running conduit and he does little else. May get moved to another job as wire is being pulled into what he ran. I have known a few guys that run great conduit but have no idea what to pull into it. I worked under a few foremen that were forward thinkers. They would ask everyone's experience and get them involved in new things. I think when you get well rounded, it helps you a lot even if you still "specialize" in 1 or 2 things. When I was taking night classes, I would also ask the foreman if we had certain things coming up & could I be involved in them. I had never terminated a transformer at the time we studied them. I asked the foreman and he brought me into the next one on the job. I think most foreman appreciate the interest and will keep it in mind.
I also see a lot of people who do not read or write well. That is a hindrance when takng classes, following procedure manuals, reading prints, etc. All are challenging enough as they are. A poor reader can easily get lost and have to depend on others to interpret for him.
Lack of attention to detail. Labeling conduits, boxes and wire on a commercial job save a lot of time and confusion later. No one can keep it all in his head & if different people do different stages of work, labeling is very important. If a panel has layered neutral and ground bars, the rear bars should always be used first. I have cursed dozens of people who landed the front spaces, forcing me to pick through to the rear for a later install. On the other hand, I once worked a job where another co. had roughed in the building when built. It was a divided office building & this section was yet to be rented out. They had piped to every section, marked every pipe and box and made notes in the panel room of any oddities. They had run as much conduit as possible up to the slab, above the bar joists and 90'd down to j boxes. They left a lot of the prime space open for follow up work. Out of several hundred boxes, I found less than 5 labeling errors of any kind. That was 1st class work.
I worked 1 job where we had to color code our conduits; black, red, green, orange, yellow, etc. for different apps. We mostly gave it a quick spray and held it to a heater to dry. The guy piping the panel room made some paper sleeves, painted about a foot, leaving 6 inches or so at the end and labeled there. Easy to spot and neat as it could be. Clean, neat work gives a sense of order and encourages others to do better work too.
Foremen & superintendents should insure the right materials are on a job. Mechanics & helpers should not have to scavage from other trades for beam clamps, rod, etc. Proper brackets & screws assure that device boxes do not wobble or push back into the wall later on. If possible, a big job should have a supply man, keeping materials ordered and organized. Good job for a guy needing light duty because of an injury or sickness.
All this helps if troubleshooting does have to be done later. Saves many headaches.
