Here's another one for you, this was an actual post on this very forum back in 2012:
Excuse me, but as the argument has been made that trained monkeys could be taught the requisite skill set as welders I feel the neccesity to take issue. The small business endeavor I undertake to run profitably operates on slim margins and we are constantly seeking more efficient means to enlarge those margins. As labor is the highest cost of goods sold, at a certain point in our history we attempted to decrease this burden with cheaper labor. Why NOT monkeys we asked ourselves. The housing, upkeep, payrate and feeding should be minimal. Extensive testing was undertaken.
By chance our first set of candidates were a small clan of Spider monkeys acquired from a South East Asian Zoo from a purchasing agent willing to overlook certain standards of importation documentation. These fine animals seemed promising at first, with their pre-hensile abilities they were able to hang from nearly any point of purchase and weld soundly. Unfortunately hanging upside down was their preferred position of comfort, so while they could and did produce many xray quality weldments for us we found ulitmately the cost of positioning equipment too expensive and they had to be let go. I believe they have found more suitable employment somewhere in the southern states repairing waffle making machinery.
We next undertook the training of a pair of adult, male Howler monkeys, provided us through a freind from the Yucatan Penninsula that came already certified in no less than three welding processes. Superb craftsman. One couldn't fault their work based on the most stringent codes or standards. But the noise.......... my god the noise. Three different TPIs needed hospitalization and a long respite to the local State Facility for nervous conditions after only a week of inspection. We thought it cheaper to replace the inspectors but in the end the neighbors started complaining so our Howlers went home to their beloved jungle. We do miss them sorely.
We took a shot and found a promising Baboon. Or so we thought. Fancy hood, starched collar, spanking new rig, but really, who want's to put up with that Golden Arm Attitude. We cut him a pink slip pronto.
Not ones to give up, we moved on to the Apes.
Gorrilas seemed like they might strain our overhead but the applicants seemed enthusiastic so we thought, "why not". We do a fair amount of bending in our fabrication and these three fellows seemed right at home, strapping our heaviest members to be formed across their chests and gripping for leverage with their formidable triceps pulled 3" round stock into circles. Very aggresive work ethic. They competed with each other shamelessly for the largest iron and tightest bend radii but in the end they never could quite grasp the concept of tolerances so for them the bending was enough. Surprisingly good stick welders though. Nothing like the solidity of a large mass to provide a really steady hand. There was some discussion about who's responsibility it was to inform them their service would no longer be needed. I recall we drew straw. They were pretty good natured about.
The next and most obvious choice, which we slapped ourselves for not thinking of first was Chimpanzees. It seemed so obvious with their overwhelming shared genetics, should be a shoe in. Calls were made, contacts contacted, letters dispatched, funds exchanged hands and one fine crisp October morning our boys showed up, hoods and gloves in hand and doing somersaults on the asphalt, that's how ready they were. Into the test booth, 6" stick all the way out, 35 minutes later bending coupons without failure. Back into the booths, tig roots, lo-hy out and they're slapping their thighs with one hand and a toe hold on the filler wire with their foot and indicating it was time for lunch. This was our first red flag and we should have paid heed but we were beggining to be really excited at the possiblitites, so we pushed them into some alloy work. Some of the original enthusiasm seemed to cool but they began to prep coupons....... and then that was it. Prepped em, and just let em sit, looking around out of the corners of their simian eyes and just scowling. When we tried to communicate the urgency of finishing their testing so they could go to work they just rolled their lips and showed their teeth. Food was brought in. Baskets of fresh pineapple, yellow bananas, ripe mangoes but to no avail. Apparantly these chimps had worked some gigs that paid serious per diem or maybe just permits with 798 but they weren't having any of it. Conditions just degraded from there and we never bothered to put them on.
Finally, at wits end, an Orangatang answered our employment advertisement. He carried a calculator with him which we thought boded well and was extraordinarally humble in demeanor. Breezed through a barrage of testing with all coupon passing with flying colors. Put him to work on any station in the shop and there seemed nothing he hadn't brought a journeymans skill to. But......he was just so moribund. Depressing really. Does a fine job bending up a pallet of flanges on the brake, the compliments just seemed to fall on deaf ears. Weld out 90 inches of xray sched 40 in a shift and the praise garnered just seem to depress him. Morale was sinking with the other hands, not from jealousy but the new guy was just bringing people down with his glumness. Just reeked of sadness, tragedy and sorrow. We didn't want to cut him loose but one bad orange can ruin the barrel.
In the end we decided there was really only so much you could teach a monkey but we did at least make that decision through experience not assumption.