Sweet Vindication

[gcode]

This guy was from Belgium and had been through a 4 year apprenticeship program.
I spent the first 15 years of my career as a prototype machinist ( lathe and mill)
but I could never hold a candle to a guy like him

My  got first job in a real machine shop in 1980, 2 months out of the service
They had one room with a dozen Bridgeport and some manual lathes.
Most of the equipment didn't even have digital readouts.
The guys who worked in there were all middle aged or older and all from Europe.
The work they did blew my mind.. some of them would let me look over my shoulder and teach me
but most were cranky old bastards who'd run me off and refuse to share their knowledge.

[CNCAppsJames]

You could also work hard at mcdonalds and work your way up to CEO, my point was that Machining/Cnc Programming field contains a lot of companies paying well below median wage, which is very low, most entry food packing plant jobs pay more than an entry level programming job or CNC operation or conventional machinist job.

That's the awesome thing about getting to CHOOSE your employer. It's completely up to you what you will tolerate wage-wise. For years I was not happy with either the compensation or the company. 11 companies in I think 12-ish years... and 2 companies I was at for 3 years, and 1 for 2 years. Do the math. I moved around A LOT early in my career. Was it a drag? Yeah. Did it suck not takign any sort of vacation for 5 years in a row? Yeah. TOTALLY. Was that 5 year suck fest worth it? 100% I woudl not be where I am today without the tenacity to stick it out. My experience in manufacturing is not everyone's experience. Some things were right place, right time, other things were luck favors the prepared, and I fucking WORKED! HARD! NOBODY outworked me. ANYWHERE. EVER. I've never been naturally talented at anything... I've gotta work for everything. So I do. Instead of making excuses, I put forth effort. A LOT of effort. Some days I win. Some days I lose. The harder I work, the more days I win. Thats all there is to it.

[BrianP.]

11 companies in I think 12-ish years... and 2 companies I was at for 3 years, and 1 for 2 years. Do the math. I moved around A LOT early in my career.

Rookie. 

I think I have had around 25 jobs in 43 years. In one year I had 4 jobs. Layoffs did play a part in it all. Early years I would move to learn sometimes even for less money. Later years for the money. Now I'm pretty much at the top of the pay scale. I could make more if I wanted to drive further but it's not worth the hassle and headaches. Especially in the winter. Just got this job about 20 months ago at 59. I think I may almost be done moving. 😁

[JParis]

mmm, let's see..

and this list doesn't include the part-time jobs I've worked over the years or a few other jobs I've had that weren't machining related....yes, I had a few of those over the years too.

Latest to oldest...

[ ] Wilcox
[ ] RDS
[ ] Sweeney Metals
[ ] Sig Sauer
[ ] Cimquest
[ ] S4A
[ ] National Aperture
[ ] Kevlin Microwave
[ ]
This bunch below happened over about 5 weeks, left Bratt Machine, wound up back at Bratt Machine
[ ] Bratt Machine
[ ] G&A Machine
[ ] AW. Chesterton
[ ] Place in Seabrook - can't remember the name...I stayed 3 days, so did I technically work there? 
[ ] Ital-Tech
[ ] Bratt Machine
[ ]*******************
[ ] G&A Machine
[ ] Janus Technologies
[ ] T&S Machining
[ ] NEAT
[ ] Palmer Manufacturing
[ ] Extrusion Technologies
[ ] Knight Tool
[ ] Lawrence Pumps
[ ] MDC
[ ] NEAT
[ ] Boston Centerless

[CNCAppsJames]

From 1st manufacturing job to last (as best I can recall)
() Cummins Engine Company - years - started in January 1991
() Plastifab - months
() Turvey Engineering - months
() Seagate - months
() Mikana Manufacturing - weeks
() Furno Company - months
() Rainbow Technologies - months
() GT Bicycles - months
() Mori Seiki - years
() CAD/CAM Consulting Services - years
() NTMA Training Centers - years - part time evenings
() Brad Anderson Enterprises - months
() 4/Flight Industries - years
() Meyette Manufacturing Consulting - years
() Arnold Engineering - months
() Selway Machine Tool Company - years - started in January 2006 I think... could be '07.

I'm pretty sure I got the order right... I seem to be missing a few places though but their names escape me. One or two may be flipped but you get the jist. It took a while to get it figured out. When I got to Mori, that was where I figured out I was born to do this job (Applications Engineer). It was bad timing (still had a young family, and the travel was not as advertised). Not by a longshot. It was 3x what was sold to me, but, once I got a taste of that AE life I was hooked.

[CNCAppsJames]

That place I was at for weeks (3-4 as best I can recall) - Mikana Manufacturing... Richard (Dick) was the GM there, he hired me and we verbally agreed on an hourly wage (of course I was green and didn't get it in writing so totally my my mistake - only made THAT mistake once) for sake of giving a number let's call it $12.50/hour, and we agree that they can start my medical benefits in 30 days instead of the customary 90. So, I get my first paycheck (2 weeks after I start because that's how things were back then), and notice that the rate is $10/hr, so, I go into Dick's office when he gets in (we were paid on Mondays because if they paid on Friday people missed work on Monday... this was the 90's and partying too hard on weekends was still a thing - but I digress) and ask him about the clerical error and he looks me dead in the eye and lies right to my face and tells me that wasn't the wage we agreed on, then proceeds to lie to me again and me that my benefits can't start in 30 days because of some state law. Lyin' sack of shit bastard. I left a company making $14/hr... took the pay cut because the daily commute went from 2.5 hours a day to 15min a day. So that was a win IMHO. But do drop from $14 to $10... NOBODY does that, I told him as much and he in not as many words called me a liar. Game on mother fucker! I made his work life a living hell over the next few years until they got bought out. I got my revenge on those rat bastards... I made it my personal mission to find the guys that I knew that worked there better jobs. I want to say I raided probably 15 GOOD people over the course of around 5 years there, and it was a small shop. It hurt 'em. While I was teaching at the NTMA, he came down there and tried to get me fired. So when somebody takes a class at the NTMA the money comes from the state through a funding pool called the JTPA (Jobs Training Partnership Act). A percentage was taken from payroll taxes to fund the JTPA. Anyway, in order to qualify, you have to have worked at the company for so long, AND you have to remain there for so long after the training. I knew this and I ALWAYS engouraged my students to remain their current positions through that period no matter what. To the best of my knowedge, I never had any students voluntarily leave their jobs before the allotted time. However... on the 91st day... employees of Mikana Manufacturing were fair game and ripe for the picking. After I poached about 1/2 dozen guys from their Mikana figured it out.

The owner Michael and GM Dick... those guys were grade A pieces of shit.

[neurosis]

Damn you guys.    I've only worked four places my entire life.  I'm boring. 

[Incogneeto]

Damn you guys.    I've only "shown up" four places my entire life.  I'm boring and not very good looking. 

fixed.

[neurosis]

fixed.

That's just hurtful.

[JParis]

Damn you guys.    I've only worked four places my entire life.  I'm boring. 

Boring, no...

To put mine in a bit of context, a bit of personal history and my chosen path may make some sense...

When I was young, I grew up in home where before I was 10, my mother didn't work, my dad was employed in the local shoe shops. That's not exactly a comfortable job at those times, though being the 1st of 3 children by '75 the way things were, my mother had no choice but to take at part-time job.

Some how they kept a roof over our heads, food on our table(sometimes government provided), clothes on our backs. We never had a family vacation, hell, we only had one car until I was 12 or 13...my mom didn't get her license until she 30....if we were considered "middle-class" it was definitely lower middle-class. Public school education, private school wasn't any kind of option.  Continuing education, lol...no....

Being a child who was not challenged in school in anyway, I learned young to do enough to just get by....I didn't need to try to do that much....

My Sophomore year of highschool, I needed to have surgery to correct an issue in my ankle that I had hurt sometime before....if you have seen a potato grow "eyes" the inside of my ankle joint was growing bone spurs on the ball portion of the joint.  Surgery was successful but I wound up staying in the hospital for over 3 weeks becasue of an infection....I lost the entire month of December 1980...when I finally went back to school, I was thoroughly disinterested.....jump to the next year and a change of high schools...

When I registered in the local Tech school, I aced their entry exam, was told I could pick any vocational path they offered, I chose Drafting at that point it was it's own path tied to no other program...the teacher in that shop wouldn't take me, saying he already had to many students in his class....

So me, being the amiable person I am, said, "ok, I'll take Machine Shop." Guidance Counselor told me if I wanted drafting he'd get me in there, I stayed with machine shop...

With that all ironed out, they received my school transcripts and as I had missed so many days the previous year, I couldn't go forward as a Junior....I had to repeat my Sophomore year....it was redo the year or go back to the city high school, which had become a very rough place to be at that point.  I chose to re-do the year....so in September of 1981, I began to repeat my Sophomore year....

The school at that time offered 3 education tracks based on your entry test scores, so I was placed in their most advanced track, be it what it was....day 1, geometry class, it's test day...so the teacher gives me the test to, as he put it, "find out how much you know."

I was the only student who scored 100%

Later that week, I corrected him at the board, he was doing complimentary angles wrong...and yes, he came up with the wrong answer at the board in front of the class.....

A week of academics, a week of shop, that's how classes ran....

Cut to the chase, within the year my GF is pregnant...so by the end of my Junior year, I am going to school full-time and as soon as the summer arrives, I am working full-time...

Enter my now delayed Senior year, I am living on my own, with her and my daughter, going to school and working full-time nights. By the time November rolled around, I dropped out of high-school.

So here I am , a 18 year old teenager, living on my own, a high school dropout with a small family. I have people all around telling my I made a mistake, I'm going to amount to nothing and a myriad of other similar things....

So for the next couple years, that's exactly how I lived, I was a loser who had no future....

I enlisted in military...and I was just more of the same....my then wife, she takes up with my best friend, mid you, while she was pregnant with my son.....

So there I am 20 years old, 2 kids and a wife who left me....in the end, I can't really blame her, I was being the loser I was told I'd be....him on the other hand....that's a story for another time.....

I took a job doing store maintenance for a now defunct retail chain that was Zayre's and later was bought out by Ames...both now long defunct...I was good at what I did, I worked up to the point I was supervising several area stores....but it really was nothing jobs that I was earning under $10/hr at that time...
I was living in a rooming house, had a car but in my early 20's still no driver's license but I drove...

So one day, a friend calls and says, "hey, the place I'm working is looking for a CNC lathe operator" are you interested...so I went down, interviewed and got the job.

Well, I was still acting the losers part, I again was very good at what I was doing and picked up programming parts at the machine over the next 7 months...when I went to work....on the Friday when I quit there, I called over to the supervisor and called, "Sammy, I'm out of here at 5:00" Well, he thought I was calling it a day at 5....when at 5 I snapped up my tool box and walked out.....no job but being that cocky, arrogant prick I was, I knew I could find some quickly, and I did... 

on Monday I had job, more $$ to boot....this time, running mills. They were the absolute worst mills I ran in my entire career.....friggin' things were dangerous....again a bit of an attendance problem, after about 6 months, my exit there was similar to the previous one...so I'm paying child support, trying to keep insurance on my children and being as irresponsible as I could be....the loser. I had gotten to the point where I'd have a place in the rooming or wherever else I could find somewhere to hang my hat at the end of the day....next job came along as easy as the last and again, more $$$....

It was here, something changed and something clicked...I was there about 3 months, again good at what I'm doing but still an attendance problem...finally the boss there, Bob O'Keefe, I still remember his name, he called me into the office the next day after a call out and fired me....well damn, I am a loser.

At this point my current GF moved out as I was an asshole, there is simply no way to sugar that, I was an asshole...I had to give up my apartment....I had no where to go....so here I am at 22, I call my parents and ask about coming home....they agreed but there ground rules...this was a one time thing....so as I am moving my stuff on my final day in the apartment, I finally got a call on a job I had interviewed for a couple weeks back....I am employed again....

So at 23, I went back home emotionally beaten up, playing the role of the loser that I was supposed to be..
In the list above, that places me now at Lawrence Pumps...2nd shift lathe operator...but it again, was more $$$ than the last place....

It was at this point I began to see things differently. That led me to doing things differently, though I still fought that cocky, at times arrogant attitude...

In the 3 years there, I began to take on different things, I stepped up to learn to run new machines...I went from just setting up an old American Hustler with a GE550 control, to making complete parts on manual lathes and mills, learning how to set up a manual VTL with a 6 ft chuck, setting up and running the only CNC VTL in building, stepping in for QC at night when needed being a very adaptable and very good machinist. 

While working, there was a litter pub just on the corner, probable less than a 200 yard walk, so some nights I'd go over at lunch, grab a dog and beer, sit for a bit, then head back to work to finish my shift..at one point I was on days for a couple weeks, willing in the day shift for someone who was out for a few weeks....the guy that ran the shipping department one Friday afternoon, he grabs me and say's let's go over for the dog and a beer....it was the day I first met my now wife.....over the next several months, we ran into each other a few times, we'd chat a bit but nothing more...so here I am not "quite" 24 and one evening during my lunch, we're talking, I decided to ask her out...much to my surprise, she said yes....

From this point, things really started to change for me...I realized while working there I was capable of much, I took to everything very quickly, sometimes not being shown but watching and then doing...

So had a our first date, she tried to floor me, told me she was divorced, 32 and 5 kids....I told here I was 24 and had 2 kids....she was the one who almost feel on the floor at my age....but we went out a few times and found we were actually very compatible...our relationship did not take long to come together, after about 5 months, she gave me a key to her place and said If I wanted to head over after work, that I could....so I started to go over....after a few weeks, I was mostly there...and shortly thereafter, I officially moved in with her, her kids and her father..

Now, I was not going to be the loser any more and I had(still have) a HUGE chip on my shoulder for not only being painted into the corner but allowing myself to place myself in that corner....

From that point forward it was all about bettering myself and helping her to better herself. Believe me, the early years were LEAN....she was on public assistance, her ex, up until the day he died never paid $1 in child support for his children...he died in 1997 owing tens of thousands....I of course, I paid mine weekly...

She was taking classes to do Medical Transcription, she needed a computer because having to go a few towns over to do her class projects was not easy...so in 93/94 sometime, we got her a computer....well, that piqued my interest immensely...so I began to want to learn everything I could about how it worked, how the software ran....installs, updates, upgrades, simple BASIC programs....NONE of this was any kind of formal education, just what I could pick up and learn, much through trial & error.

Enter that I found out that CAD/CAM existed.....now I was REALLY intrigued...I saw what I wanted to do....

Everything I did professionally from that point forward was to put me in front of a computer and to program machines or whatever else I could learn...I also figured that at some point, that I might need my GED and "if" I had any hope of some higher education, I would need it....

It blows my mind when hear the stories of people of how long people take classes and study to the test, months upon months....I walked into the Community College to sign up to take the GED....this was on a Thursday, I was asked if I had prepared to take the test, I told them no, I wanted to take it anyway. Well, they had a test that was happening on Friday with the 2nd part on Saturday morning...so I signed up to take it....let's just say, the woman didn't have much belief that I would pass it and suggested I might want to at the very least grab a study book and go over it for a week or 2, they schedule the tests monthly...I said I'd take the test tomorrow.

I showed up, took the test both days....3 weeks letter, I get my results in the mail, I passed...I scored in the 98th & 99th percentiles across the board...

So, GED in hand...unfortunately, furthering my education never happened...I found myself in the situation of earning too much money but scrapping by as a family, so it never happened simply becasue we couldn't afford it...

So from that point on, I drove myself, I drove and pushed myself hard....I learned, I worked, I job hopped to get ahead, I was lied to, I was used but I was always moving forward, new skills, new machines new horizons...I was programming every kind of machine I ran up to a 4 axis live tooling lathe by hand...

It was at this job(Kevlin on the list) after 3 years there, my office opportunity FINALLY came....the guy that had been doing to programming, he needed a kidney replacement...he made many promises to guys on the floor but the Shop Manager tagged me to sit in for the 6 months that he would be out....back in my original interview he had stated to me then, "you know more than the guy leading the shop now"...when that opportunity came, I simply asked to take a basic class(3 days) as I "had not run Mastercam in several versions)....true.false & a  bit of BS, but I took that class and the old guy never wound up back in that seat....while I was there, I would take the HASP home at night...I would tinker, test, experiment with all kinds things and parts...I spent hour upon hour of my own time learning, teaching myself and picking so very much on EMc...

and anyone who has been on EMc since about 2007 knows the rest of that story...

People have wondered what drives me....well, I drive me and I drive me hard. Everyday I am doing things that I was told would never be possible...I was just going to be another lost statistic high school dropout who amounted to nothing....

I've turned my entire career into a big FU to all of those people...according to many others, I had stacked everything against and without an education I would never have anything more than a menial job.

So back to the start of this, why so many jobs....becasue if there wasn't a path available to me to move forward somewhere, there was no point in me staying...

Did I do this in a conventional manner? No, not in any way shape, form or manner...have I gotten to where I could have....no, by now I know whats possible with my capabilities....have I landed where I wanted to be...yes, I think I have....

If I have to lay my head down today for the final time, I'll tell you what, I can do so, I can be content knowing that I did things my way.  (wasn't always pretty though  )

So no Dave, you're not boring, some of us just had to walk a different path, sometimes, of our own making.



Edit: YIKES!!!  sorry for the long read
   

[Incogneeto]

That's just hurtful.

Aaaaawww ! You know I'd never hurt you baby.


I had to look up Scat....Nastee,Nasti, nasty.  

and granny porn...  

You and ST are sick,sick ,sick.    

[Incogneeto]

LoLz @ "had to look it up".
"Yes your honour, I didn't want to look at any porn, but they made me look it up"....

When I grew up there were only three kinds'a Porn.

man/wommenz

2 wommenz

man/2 wommenz..

The good Ol' Days.

[gcode]

I had to look up Scat....Nastee,Nasti, nasty.  

I don't know what scat porn is and I prefer to remain ignorant

[Incogneeto]

I don't know what scat porn is and I prefer to remain ignorant

"Shitporn"

and i'm serious.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are celebs.

[gcode]

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are celebs

I don't have any idea what that trial is all about and could care less
I know Depp is a fucking idiot who pissed away about a billion dollars playing the fool
I have no idea who Amber Heard is, but if she hung around with a fool like Depp, there is not
much more to be said