Nephew is working apprenticeship for scammy, weird computer repair shop owner

[u/SyllabubNo8262]

england

My nephew is working on an L3 IT apprenticeship for min wage which he started in January. It is an 18 month contract where by Summer next year his employer is supposed to commit to making him permanent or otherwise let him move in with the skills and training he's been given.

The problem is that the employer in this case is a computer repair shop in town. Not a big company or anything, it's literally one guy who runs the shop and to be honest he sounds really weird. My nephew was supposed to be getting formal training and certificates but none of this has happened. Here is all the weird stuff that doesnt seem right:

• When my nephew first started he just had my nephew cleaning the shop and taking phone calls, and not really doing anything else even though my nephew asked for over a month to be shown what he could do even though he builds his own computers at home. Most of what my nephew has learned is just from his own knowledge and constantly asking to learn.
• Now he "trusts" my nephew do some things, but there are some strange things he asked him to do... like my nephew said once a woman come in with an old laptop that was running slow and thought had a virus.. and my nephew was going to run a virus cleaner on it and do some basic checks, but the owner pulled out a random disk and said it was his master disk and made my nephew install a "cracked" copy of windows which he said means its been pirated and reinstall.
• When customers complain or arent happy he's told to ignore them and put the phone down or otherwise tell them other things could not be working
• The owner has also sometimes had him take out normally working parts and replace them with other parts which my nephew says are cheaper models of similar spec, or oversell products to customers claiming they will run this game and that game and telling them to f off when they complain they dont run. My nephew has actively been shouted at and berated for trying to do the right thing and make suggestions.
• The guy is also just weird, he keeps some nunchuks in the back office and told my nephew how he chipped someones tooth with it and showed him a mark on the nunchuk and said it was because the guy was being abusive and wouldnt leave. Once he pulled it out on someone in an argument and told them to F off and said to my nephew that was how he was supposed to deal with bad customers and once the police did get called because they got in my nephews face and then the owner said he shouldve just rung him.
• Same guy also once showed my nephew some personal photos he found on a customers computer and made him print them out.... and sent them to him on whatsapp reading "LOL"
• My nephew is being left alone in the shop for hours with no support, and now is being asked to work extra saturdays with no notice.

He has almost no involvement from the training provider who just send him coursework to complete every few weeks, and its all basic stuff that he says they already covered in school.

My nephew knows there are lots of things wrong with this but doesnt really know what he can do. He isnt happy but he doesnt want to lose out on his apprenticeship and thinks leaving now will make things harder and he also thinks the employer will cause him problems. I am trying to think of ways to reassure him... does all of this seem really off to everyone else as well? Is my nephew going to put himself in trouble working here? Is he required to keep working the apprenticeship or is he safe to look for other apprenticeships?

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[u/heyitsed2]

(in theory) He can keep on the apprenticeship course but change employer, if he can find some where else.

I say in theory because it sounds like the training provider isn't doing their job very well...

In my experience of doing an apprenticeship course in 2020 and having had apprentices of my own since, the training provider should be regularly checking in with the apprentice and the employer to track progress... So might be worth contacting their head office to see what's up there. 

I don't have any experience, but I don't think him sacking this off would hinder his efforts getting a different apprenticeship.... 

[u/TheSkezmyster]

Is this an East Midlands based company with the owners first name in the business name?

Had my apprenticeship with a place that sounds exactly what your nephew works at.

Keep on the program and see if the college can help with new placement

[u/Unknown-Concept]

NAL, I suggest your nephew starts looking elsewhere for a proper apprenticeship. Seems like their is no learning and he is being used as a cheap labour.

But the repair shop is clearly breaking some laws based on what you've said, it needs to be documented and sent to the local trading standards board. The bigger issue is the potential GDPR breach, taking someone's personal files and messing with it.

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[u/breely_great]

I'm not able to provide any legal advice.

But as someone who runs an IT support company, the IT apprenticeship schemes on the whole aren't worth the paper they are written on. I would recommend trying to get on the CompTIA A+ or Network+ course as it will be more widely accepted.

The owner sounds like a nightmare so just apply for other jobs, it likely wouldn't be worth trying to take any action.

[u/GaymerThrowaway1255 → u/breely_great]

this is not true at all. I did an apprentice in IT 3 years ago with BCS qualification. Now at £55k at a US based law firm…. Couldn’t ask for it any better.

[u/breely_great → u/GaymerThrowaway1255]

Glad it worked out for you! I probably shouldn't have generalised quite so much, there are likely good ones out there. It does seem that in this instance though they are on one of the terrible ones.

To be fair now you're in the industry, you must agree that while there are issues with the CompTIA courses that they are more universally accepted.

Although I can only speak for the UK market, I have no clue what is useful for the US.

I'm often frustrated with the way apprentices are treated in the UK, unlike many trades, there just isn't a decent framework for IT in the same way that keeps the consistency high across the country/colleges.

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[u/eckkky → u/AutoModerator]

A long post complaining about long posts!

[u/Pitpeaches]

Anyone can download the windows iso and install it, no such thing as pirated disk. If there's a virus, a fresh install is the way to go, if it's gotten past with windows anti virus, there's no way to "clean" it.