Fired my apprentice today after he botched a PEX install on a service call

Man, firing someone sucks, especially when you're short-staffed already. This kid was my third apprentice this year, supposed to be learning the ropes on residential repipes, but he kept mixing up PEX-A and PEX-B fittings and damn near caused a leak on a customer's main line. We're in Texas so everything heats up fast and those expansion issues bite hard if you screw it up. I tried coaching him for weeks, even showed him some Uponor expansion tool tricks, but he just wasn't getting it. Now I'm back to solo jobs until I find someone reliable, and good help is impossible these days. Anyone else dealing with this crap? Saw a similar rant in Plumbers United group last month.

Insurance companies and their BS requirements are the real villains here, forcing us to hire certified guys who half-ass it anyway. These apprentices think a YouTube vid on SharkBite is all they need, then blame us when it fails.