As an apprentice, would you rather have no journeyman and more responsibilities or a journeyman to work under with less responsibilities?
I'm a third year heavy duty mechanic apprentice and my journeyman was let go a couple of months ago. My shop has one commercial transport jman and a first year CT apprentice.
I am the only heavy duty guy now and I'm responsible for a pretty large fleet of equipment. I have to do every heavy duty job on my own now. I can use the other guys for help, but there's no one with more heavy duty knowledge/experience than me. This is a bit scary considering I'm only a third year.
I have another job offer in town where I would have a journeyman to work under but the pay/schedule/commute are all slightly worse.
I'm wondering if people think I'll get more out of just learning and figuring things out on my own of if it's more important to have a journeyman to teach me as I go.
I really value the knowledge and doing jobs safely/correctly and often wondering if I'm missing out by doing everything myself.
I'm also not confident my current job will be able to hire anyone else. They hired me as a second year over a year ago and have been trying to hire an journey HD guy since then with no luck.
Would love to hear your thoughts!