To be an apprentice is to be a courier. I’m exaggerating but I’m not far from the truth. When you become an arpette, you run around making deliveries. I remember one impossible day. I had started shopping just after a coffee and I hadn’t stopped all day. “You go to Pierre’s, he’s on the sixth floor; then you go to Jean’s, he’s on the fifth floor; I think Yves has some parts for us, it’s on the eighth floor…”. I would go back to the workshop on the fourth floor, put the folds on and leave. I didn’t have a mobile phone at that time, but I had legs! And there were hardly any lifts in the buildings on the 9th floor. That day, I counted, I climbed a hundred floors… Memorable!
J, almost retired crimper
Exigency
The requirement as a lifeline is me. I have my magnifying glass riveted to my eye, I check everything all the time. The slightest pitting, crack or oddity in the metal earns the right to go back to the workshop to be reworked, not to mention the setting. A...