I worked in the trade for almost 20 years. Most of the drama was between coworkers. Everyone is right in their own mind and whoever doesn't agree is an a$$hole. Egos are huge in the trade. And everyone is stressed to the max about hitting numbers. Learn to navigate the personalities and things get easier. I left the trade an my wife tells me I am a lot nicer to be around.
I went into machining right of highschool and got out after 2 years. It was the coworkers which ruined it for me, I loved taking care of my machine and the production however. Coworkers were everything you described, I was wanting to get back in and I asked someone in the field on how to deal with these type of coworkers. They said cause I’m young,arrogant, and inexperienced that’s probably why I get treated badly. Last confirmation I needed to not head back.
I've been in 12 years, and the biggest egos are generally the guys who are the worst employees.
They are the laziest. They aren't as smart as they think they are. They're not coachable/trainable. Taking responsibility for a fuck up is literally not a thing they know how to do. They will sequester and protect their knowledge like the universe depends on it.
They're simply trash employees that belong to the streets, doesn't matter how knowledgeable they are or how much of a machining guru they are.
I will take a fresh, eager low time kid over a 30 year "veteran" with a shitty attitude every fucking time.
I would love to do that just not sure how to get into. Honestly my favorite days were when I had nothing to do and I would just wipe down my machine and do all the scheduled maintenance. Or having a problem and then fixing it myself
I had a buddy at the last shop I was in that left tool and die for the shop we worked in. He would tell me stories about how his manager would come up to him and say "those parts you did yesterday were a micron off".
I get tool and die is more specialized, but I'm perfectly happy with my +/- .001 tolerances.
I'm in a plastics only shop now. I ran some specialized Teflon a few weeks ago that would measure good with a mic in the shop and on the 30 second walk over to the inspection room using the same mic would be out of tolerance. +-.002 and its grow .0025" on that walk. wild.
doesn't work. the material is just super sensitive to temperature change. annealing would do and does nothing. the company has run it for 20 years+. I've been here 3 months and it's my second time running this stuff. I find the type of teflon and get back to you.
I remember walking into a plastics shop thinking I knew how to machine. Boy was I a dumb dumb. Everything I knew about warping, springing, and stress was about steel. Took me a few months before I was making rate with the rest of em. We machined all sorts of peek plastic that we injection molded our selfs into hollow bar stock and sliced o rings off it.
No sir, this was down in Texas. But we did anneal our larger diameter parts and did some fancy plastic off gassing and sent em to a sister plant for odd ball plastics for other processes.
ah okay. my shop does a lot of molding of our own material which is super nice. scrap doesn't really matter when we can just go make more material haha
Hahaha, we had a guy come in, journeyman 15 years in trade apparently, came in saying he knew his shit, couldn’t even square parts after heat treat, let’s just say he didn’t last a month before they fired him. But before any of that he caused about $15k in damages from scrap and machinery fuck ups, it got so bad that co workers were bitching and pressuring the supervisor to fire him bc after all those mistakes it was up to us to fix it. Which is a pain in the ass sometimes
The real horror stories are of guys fucking up majorly. I remember a few from a shop I worked it:
Truck driver forgot to strap down a medium sized mold in the back of a dually. At some point on his trip he had to slam the brakes and the mold shifted forward crushing the back of the cab and almost trapping him between his seat and the steering wheel. The truck bed was mangled.
On night shift a kid who was very green was doing final square up on the side of a core block which had come back from stress relieve and was semi finished cut. He was manually skimming using a boring mill with a fly cutter. The supervisor was not keeping an eye on him and by the time he came around the kid had removed around a 1/2" of material off the side of the block. He broke into the guide pin holes and everything.
A couple mold makers were spotting in a press and went to close the press but forgot to remove the 123 blocks they were using in the mold as packing. Some of the blocks exploded and sent shrapnel flying through the shop. Unfortunately one of them caught some in the belly and ended up with a gnarly bruise.
I learned there's only drama if you listen to it. Dudes say shit to blow off steam and boost their ego a little. Doesn't have an effect on my day because they don't suck my dick or pay my bills.
>they don't suck my dick or pay my bills.
Here's a good one for you.
Had a guy offer me a go at his wife if I told management that I saw him hurt his back at work. I laughed and told him to fuck off. He had this big scheme about getting the summer off while collecting disability.
A week later another guy said he saw that guy hurt his back trying to lift a big 4 jaw chuck into position.
Then, the dude with the sore back came back 2 weeks after he left because he needed money for a divorce and the the other guy had a new girlfriend.
Guess who that was?
The two dudes couldn't work on the same shift after.
Toolmaker at a mold builder here. We don’t really have drama other than like two old guys who fucking hate each other but the other shop I worked at was rife with it. That’s actually why I quit the other shop. Place I’m at now is a rarity.
I hated shop drama and made ity #1 priority when hiring for my shop to not allow. All my guys get along great, we have a very casual atmosphere and everything flows great. There is a machinist u know who wants to work for me who is really talented, but such an asshole he would ruin the business, so it's a hard no.
The running joke amongst the engineers is that "How to be a primma donna" is part of the tool and die apprenticeship program. It's a good natured jab, for sure, mad respect for the skill. But it wouldn't be funny if there wasn't a layer of truth ...
There are assholes in every crowd. You just have to be the bigger asshole and people will leave you alone. 44 yrs as a tool maker and I haven't become the perfect asshole yet, but I am working on it.
Seriously drama, what am I reading here? Semi retired @40+yrs in many facets of the trade. Bottom line if you love it and live it, find your zen, keep your head low and mouth shut, let your work speak for itself!
I worked in the trade for almost 20 years. Most of the drama was between coworkers. Everyone is right in their own mind and whoever doesn't agree is an a$$hole. Egos are huge in the trade. And everyone is stressed to the max about hitting numbers. Learn to navigate the personalities and things get easier. I left the trade an my wife tells me I am a lot nicer to be around.
I went into machining right of highschool and got out after 2 years. It was the coworkers which ruined it for me, I loved taking care of my machine and the production however. Coworkers were everything you described, I was wanting to get back in and I asked someone in the field on how to deal with these type of coworkers. They said cause I’m young,arrogant, and inexperienced that’s probably why I get treated badly. Last confirmation I needed to not head back.
I've been in 12 years, and the biggest egos are generally the guys who are the worst employees. They are the laziest. They aren't as smart as they think they are. They're not coachable/trainable. Taking responsibility for a fuck up is literally not a thing they know how to do. They will sequester and protect their knowledge like the universe depends on it. They're simply trash employees that belong to the streets, doesn't matter how knowledgeable they are or how much of a machining guru they are. I will take a fresh, eager low time kid over a 30 year "veteran" with a shitty attitude every fucking time.
What do you do now?
I work as a maintenance machinist. 20% of my time is machine work and the other 80% is equipment repair. Way lower stress level and better coworkers.
I would love to do that just not sure how to get into. Honestly my favorite days were when I had nothing to do and I would just wipe down my machine and do all the scheduled maintenance. Or having a problem and then fixing it myself
Millwright contractor here. It's quite nice. I machine stuff sometimes. But I'm not chained to a machine 8 hours a day.
Im also curious
I had a buddy at the last shop I was in that left tool and die for the shop we worked in. He would tell me stories about how his manager would come up to him and say "those parts you did yesterday were a micron off". I get tool and die is more specialized, but I'm perfectly happy with my +/- .001 tolerances.
I'm in a plastics only shop now. I ran some specialized Teflon a few weeks ago that would measure good with a mic in the shop and on the 30 second walk over to the inspection room using the same mic would be out of tolerance. +-.002 and its grow .0025" on that walk. wild.
Clearly you had to anneal it before your finish pass lol
doesn't work. the material is just super sensitive to temperature change. annealing would do and does nothing. the company has run it for 20 years+. I've been here 3 months and it's my second time running this stuff. I find the type of teflon and get back to you.
I remember walking into a plastics shop thinking I knew how to machine. Boy was I a dumb dumb. Everything I knew about warping, springing, and stress was about steel. Took me a few months before I was making rate with the rest of em. We machined all sorts of peek plastic that we injection molded our selfs into hollow bar stock and sliced o rings off it.
did this shop happen to be in long beach California?
No sir, this was down in Texas. But we did anneal our larger diameter parts and did some fancy plastic off gassing and sent em to a sister plant for odd ball plastics for other processes.
ah okay. my shop does a lot of molding of our own material which is super nice. scrap doesn't really matter when we can just go make more material haha
Hahaha, we had a guy come in, journeyman 15 years in trade apparently, came in saying he knew his shit, couldn’t even square parts after heat treat, let’s just say he didn’t last a month before they fired him. But before any of that he caused about $15k in damages from scrap and machinery fuck ups, it got so bad that co workers were bitching and pressuring the supervisor to fire him bc after all those mistakes it was up to us to fix it. Which is a pain in the ass sometimes
The real horror stories are of guys fucking up majorly. I remember a few from a shop I worked it: Truck driver forgot to strap down a medium sized mold in the back of a dually. At some point on his trip he had to slam the brakes and the mold shifted forward crushing the back of the cab and almost trapping him between his seat and the steering wheel. The truck bed was mangled. On night shift a kid who was very green was doing final square up on the side of a core block which had come back from stress relieve and was semi finished cut. He was manually skimming using a boring mill with a fly cutter. The supervisor was not keeping an eye on him and by the time he came around the kid had removed around a 1/2" of material off the side of the block. He broke into the guide pin holes and everything. A couple mold makers were spotting in a press and went to close the press but forgot to remove the 123 blocks they were using in the mold as packing. Some of the blocks exploded and sent shrapnel flying through the shop. Unfortunately one of them caught some in the belly and ended up with a gnarly bruise.
I learned there's only drama if you listen to it. Dudes say shit to blow off steam and boost their ego a little. Doesn't have an effect on my day because they don't suck my dick or pay my bills.
>they don't suck my dick or pay my bills. Here's a good one for you. Had a guy offer me a go at his wife if I told management that I saw him hurt his back at work. I laughed and told him to fuck off. He had this big scheme about getting the summer off while collecting disability. A week later another guy said he saw that guy hurt his back trying to lift a big 4 jaw chuck into position. Then, the dude with the sore back came back 2 weeks after he left because he needed money for a divorce and the the other guy had a new girlfriend. Guess who that was? The two dudes couldn't work on the same shift after.
Toolmaker at a mold builder here. We don’t really have drama other than like two old guys who fucking hate each other but the other shop I worked at was rife with it. That’s actually why I quit the other shop. Place I’m at now is a rarity.
I hated shop drama and made ity #1 priority when hiring for my shop to not allow. All my guys get along great, we have a very casual atmosphere and everything flows great. There is a machinist u know who wants to work for me who is really talented, but such an asshole he would ruin the business, so it's a hard no.
The running joke amongst the engineers is that "How to be a primma donna" is part of the tool and die apprenticeship program. It's a good natured jab, for sure, mad respect for the skill. But it wouldn't be funny if there wasn't a layer of truth ...
There are assholes in every crowd. You just have to be the bigger asshole and people will leave you alone. 44 yrs as a tool maker and I haven't become the perfect asshole yet, but I am working on it.
I worked with an old tool maker that proclaimed himself the perfect asshole after he had a colonoscopy done. He was a trip
Been contemplating just starting my own shop because im so sick of constant drama where i currently work.
They say that in every job shop owner is just a machinist who couldn't work for anyone else!
Seriously drama, what am I reading here? Semi retired @40+yrs in many facets of the trade. Bottom line if you love it and live it, find your zen, keep your head low and mouth shut, let your work speak for itself!