On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:15:14 +0100, dave wrote:

A personal OT: I served a 5 year electrical apprecticeship in the 70's
(70s) with a very well know major industrial company. (Still going
today). During my 2nd year I was the victim of "a greasing". This
entailed being attacked by several other (older) apprentices, wrestled
to the floor in the machine shop, overalls pulled open and trousers
and underpants pulled down so the "senior" apprenctices could take
turns in rubbing copious amounts of grease onto ones genitals.
It was very degrading. I was quite a strong lad in my youth and it did
take more than five of them to do it - at one point I was faced with a
decision to either kill at least one of them with the length of steel
bar I had managed to grab or - well, not to.

I just felt sorry for them afterwards. Still do I suppose. And
disappointed. It's kind of like being betrayed, a super let-down.

Rite of passage; common in most engineering works at the time.
Anyone who didn't get their balls greased or something similar can't
call themselves a proper tradesman.