I am working in the country of Norway. I can say things are a lot
different in the welding industry here..lol

In the States, I had to pass a vertical and over-head weld bend
test before I could get employed. Here they seem to play by
different rules.

I work for a Norwegian company and they are pretty strict..but
we have a temp agency from Poland, who supplies us welders
for short term projects. I don't even want to use the word "welders"
as I know many of them are not.

There has been some discussion of the Polish workers just saying
they can weld and getting hired with no tests, papers or anything.

Yesterday I got one of these new welders to help me. I had to move
a 1600 lbs beam into place with a crane...and then make specific
welds to it. The blueprints asked for 8mm fillet welds on one side etc..

The welder I got spoke broken English, and told me he welded 4 years
ago. He didn't know how to change the wire in the fluxcore machine,
he started chipping welds with his hood up...got nervous once and
started welding with his shield up and flashed his eyes.

I tried to be as easy as possible with him. I told him he was improving
and tried to encourage him...felt sorry for the guy. To be honest he
can't weld...he tried to do a fillet weld and didn't brace himself so,
he was shaking around and made under-cuts the whole way. I did
all the vertical welding for him...

I have tried my best to help him. There is no way I can teach him
to be a welder in a few days.. I'm afraid he's going to get hurt on
the job here.

I told him many times to quit chipping with his hood up "no safety
glasses either" but, he keeps forgetting he says..

Sorry for the rant guys..