Tariffs for everyone!

[beej]

they'll never really 'replace' the old guys we lost.

Bill Clinton has a plan to "replace" them

[neurosis]

We have had 5 guys retire in the last year. We have only been able to hire two kids as apprentices to replace them. And being millenials, they'll never really 'replace' the old guys we lost.

Over half of our shop has retired in the last 8 years and we haven't been able to replace them with anyone who has a fraction of the knowledge and most of the younger guys spend more time in the toilet than they do at their machine.  I doubt that any of them have an attention span longer than a tik tok video.

[Del.]

Company I retired from had several tools built in China for them. He hoped to make money off the repair work later on.

[Jeff]

most of the younger guys spend more time in the toilet

AND they can't go in there without taking their phone with them.


It's crazy. My phone is fully charged every morning. And when I get home from work it's at 98%. I almost never use it at work unless to call a customer.

[beej]

this thread is depressing. the problem with you guys is you don't remember how dumb you looked to the people who were training you. Fortunately for me, I'm still friends with a lot of those guys that trained me who are still alive. And they remind me of it all the time. 

[Jim at Gentex]

I'm retiring in March and they have already hired a 20-something Millennial to replace me.

I trained this kid who had a background in CNC woodworking, and he seemed to make the transition well enough from woodworking to composite and polycarbonate machining. One thing that was very new to him was tolerancing in thousandths of an inch rather than sixteenths! 

Metalworking (mostly aluminum) was also new to him, but he is catching on.
I still look at the speeds and feeds in some of his programs and occasionally need to remind him he is not cutting a piece of hickory. 

He is a bright enough kid, and I think he will be OK when I leave, but yeah, like others have said, he has a VERY short attention span and is constantly on his phone.

I guess this in the 'new normal' in our trade...

[neurosis]

this thread is depressing. the problem with you guys is you don't remember how dumb you looked to the people who were training you. Fortunately for me, I'm still friends with a lot of those guys that trained me who are still alive. And they remind me of it all the time. 

I trained my boss.   He was 16 when he started.  He knew he was going to inherit the shop so he didn't put in a lot of effort.  I enjoy reminding him what a dipshit he was from time to time.   

[neurosis]

I'm retiring in March

I know you've mentioned this before, but this is the first time I've thought about giving you the official congratz

Congratz!

            

[Jeff]

the problem with you guys is you don't remember how dumb you looked to the people who were training you.

I was trained by a pretty strict boss. No time for fuckery.

[Smit]

I'm retiring in March

Congratulations Jimbo.

[ghuns]

Company I retired from had several tools built in China for them. He hoped to make money off the repair work later on.

When we first got into building tools over there, around 2012, the China tools were clearly inferior to the ones we built ourselves. It was obvious just by looking at them.

Today, you can't tell the difference visually. If you know what to look for and what to check, you can catch some of the shortcuts they take and common mistakes they make. I mean, they still can't tap a fuckin 1/4"NPT hole right. But they are building very good tools.

I went to a sample Wednesday for a washing machine part. It's the handle that snaps onto the detergent dispenser drawer in a top load washer. Very visible part, so A2 diamond polish on the cavity. Core side has 16 lifters and a bunch of ribs. Part design has some not great rib/wall thickness ratio, so we knew we'd fight sink/read through on the show side. Our customer's process guy kept cranking up the mold temp and pack pressure to get a part that looked really good. Ended up with a 170° mold temp and 10,000PSI pack.

In the past, a China tool like that, run that way, would have flashed way before 10,000PSI and the lifters would have seized up way before the temp hit 170°. This one ran like a sewing machine out of the crate.



 

[Rstewart]

I was trained by a pretty strict boss. No time for fuckery.

Was it Smit?
















    

[Jeff]

Was it Smit?

No, because I'm good at what I do.

[CNCAppsJames]

I spent the last few days training a couple 20-somethings. I was impressed. Their knowledge and experience is of course lacking, but, they were really asking great questions.. these ones cared. They asked a lot of manufacturing questions not necessarrily related to the machines. Process, software, machine communications, networking, etc...

Hopefully we can find more of these kids. They lamented that duringf their high school years they were not even aware this CNC stuff existed. STEM for the most part is seriously shitting the bed in a BIG way.

[neurosis]

these ones cared.

I think that there are a lot of intelligent youth.  I just don't think that most of them are interested in this kind of work.   

I can't say that I blame them necessarily?