/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Really depends on how proficient and what job your in. My grandfather owns his own machine shop and is pretty wealthy. My dad and brother are also machinists, dad makes like 23-25$ an hour in a crome shop with almost zero supervision which is kinda on the low end for him because hes also a tool and die maker with 30 years experience. Brother used to work for my grandfather and made about 23$ an hour but he didn't really like working in a shop because you have eyes on you at all times, he now works at a place he absolutely loves for about 25$ doing jobs for a small business thats very laid back.

>>1935267
today when people say they are a machinist 90% of the time they are employed in some factory as the tool changer guy that must not touch anything except the tool release button and thats paid as much as you think

if you are a cnc programmer then that is more complicated and more expensive

probably the most expensive is those master machinists that do shit by hand and they get paid the most for the privilege of getting stuff with less precision and speed than with a cnc but hell some people like their products like that

as with any job it depends on your experience, expertise, how well you can sell yourself, and a bit of lucky coincidences ..good luck

>if you like having small but absolutely fucking irritating shavings in every piece of cloth, orifice and otherwise unfortunate locations then its a job for you

It's a bulk job these days and competition is hard for small companies.

In large companies you feed CAD files into the CNC machine and...that's about it. Does not pay very well.

>>1935267
There are many levels in an average shop:

1- Shop bitch: empties chip bins, deburr's parts, marks parts, does coolant and way lube fills. Pays for shit but its a foot in the door. Maybe $12 / hour.

2- Operator: Everything is already set up, they are just responsible for pushing the green button and calling for help if there is a problem or part is out of spec. $12-$16 / hour in most places.

3- Setup / prove out guy: Loads files and sets tools and maybe runs a machine if no other set ups need done. Deals with some operator problems. $17-$22

4- Machinist: Programs the machine, sets everything up, proves it out, and runs his own parts. A lot of the times QC's and documents his own work. This is a real machinist. Given a print and asked to make the part. $23-$30+ depending on shops and if they are union.

Also note:
1- Service industry shops do not make as much as production shops. If a shop is making a product with their own name on it generally it will pay higher than a job shop that deals with outsourcing.

2- Union shops ALWAYS pay higher. it sucks but its the truth.

3- There is ALWAYS shop politics in a union shop. it fucking sucks. Union stewards and reps can suck my balls. All of them are entitled lazy pieces of brown nosing shit.

4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college. Old school engineers are cool as fuck though.

>>1936154
>4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college. Old school engineers are cool as fuck though.

This. Our shop's in house engineer of like 30+ years retired last year and his replacement fits the mold almost exactly.

>>1936154
>You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college.

EVERY
SINGLE
TRADESMAN
ON EARTH
FEELS
THIS
WAY

>>1936168
why don't you guys read a book lmao, it's just math

>>1936172
Math is the easy part. Figuring out why in gods name you can’t skip from step A to step F in a process because the math doesn’t cover your shops specific machining capability and tooling is the hard part.

>>1936172
As a Mercedes Tech, I can assure you, we know the math.
The problem is, the engineers lack the wisdom to comprehend why placing a meter wide moving object in a meter wide engine bay doesn't leave room for access or movement.

Engineers are fucking retarded. They have no comprehension of practical execution.

If you want to make a good engineer, have him try to disassemble what he designed.

>>1936191
>the engineers lack the wisdom to comprehend why placing a meter wide moving object in a meter wide engine bay doesn't leave room for access or movement

They know it's not easy to service, its just not their problem. They just need to design something that should work. Especially for mercedes, their priority was never ease of service or repair costs, thats not what people buying new mercedes care about at all.

>>1936203
ding ding ding, right answer.

>>1936187
>>1936191
If you guys knew the math, you'd be the engineers and solve these problems.

>>1936224
We ARE.
You won't find engineers making custom rods etc.
That's the world of the mechanic.

Why?
Because we know what the fuck we're doing.

If it weren't for shitty engineers, half our work wouldn't exist.

>>1936225
Not to mention, the mechanics are the ones coming up with solutions to the engineers mistakes.

The vast majority of TSB's aren't written by engineers, they're solutions found by mechanics to the engineers fuckups.

>>1936225
I understand your frustration, but thats just Mercedes adapting to its market. About 70% of mercs are leased, people do not buy these cars for reliability and cheap repairs. They buy them because of the brand name and luxury features.

Why would the engineering team budget time and resources focusing on things most merc customers literally do not care about? They're obviously going to focus on visual appeal and tech features. They don't want to spend time on making your job easier because it literally doesn't matter to them.

>>1936224
>If you guys knew the math, you'd be the engineers and solve these problems.

Engineers don't solve problems in a machine shop. They cause them. The number of times I have had to red pen a print fresh out of engineering is laughable. The green eared "but it works in solid works" crowd is infuriating to work with when they are trying to design parts that from a manufacturing stand point are almost impossible to make as zero fucks what so ever are given to things like being able to hold and locate it in machining fixtures. Don't even get me started on lazy fucks who use auto dimension in solid works and let fly what ever retarded crap the default settings spit out.

>>1936247
If it were up to the engineers, EVERYTHING would be an interference fit, because it works in CAD.

>>1936236
Look at it this way.
If you bring your car in for repair, and the mechanic cringes and says "Yeah no, I'm going to need ALOT more money before I do this" the owner is going to get pissed... not just at the first mechanic that says this, or the second, third etc, but they'll start believing the entire fucking brand is a load of garbage.

Especially as more and more mechanics keep telling them "I'm not fixing that piece of shit for less than a small fortune"

IT DESTROYS THE BRAND REPUTATION.

>>1936248
If it were up to engineers most all assemblies would never be able to actually be assembled. Cause rather than manually put in tolerances they let it all round up to 2 place decimal to make use of the unlisted standards meanwhile everyone out on the floor has to wonder if they actually want that hole location at x.38 or if it's really x.375.

>>1936251
Like i said, vast majority of mercs are leased for terms well within manufacturer warranty, then the only real inconvenience is frequency of servicing not the cost. It's unlikely the customer is going to experience any real issues within the 2-3 years of their lease, then after that they turn it in and move onto the next car.

They just need to build something decent enough to last a few years before having a big issue, after that it's probably on its 3rd/4th owner who learns the reason why most luxury cars tank in value faster than other cars.

Their job is to appeal to the people buying NEW, who are also very unlikely to keep it for more than a few years and in that regard, they're doing their job just fine.

>>1936261
That's pretty much the definition of shitty engineering. Putting cost benefit analysis before product quality is the greatest reason tradesmen hate engineers. Most of us care about our product and reputation. But you fucks make that impossible.

>>1936261
lol, those new cars were on my hoist for engineering fuck-ups constantly.

The number of TSB's we had were absurd. I've had to listen to way too many customers bitch about how much time their new merc had to spend in the shop.

Not that I gave a shit, I don't care about the customers, I cared about money.

Trouble is Mercedes knows their builds are crap, and decided their warranty times should be about half the pay of regular jobs...

... as a result, we rushed the warranty repairs and, quite frankly, many of them came back because of this.

Like we gave a shit. If the engineers fucked up its on them, if the company's warranty times didn't cover enough time for us to do it properly, again, that's on them.

There's a reason I left mercedes... Can you guess what it was?

Pro-tip : Never buy one of these shit heaps. They're problems from day one.

>>1936269
Hell, the number of newly delivered mercs with serious fucking problems was absurd. We'd catch severe issues just in the initial inspection.

I've seen brand new vehicles fresh off the truck need replacement engines.

>>1936265
>>1936269

I'm sure the engineers would love to make a quality product in every regard, but when doing so costs a lot of money and your boss is telling you a very strict budget BUT the car also needs to have all the latest features, you have to tailor the budget to the people paying your check. They know what the answer would be if they pointed out that it will force them to cut corners on part quality.

They're just trying to keep their job, if you really want to be mad at someone, be mad at Mercedes corporate. As always, shit rolls downhill.

>>1936276
Toyota has a better fucking track-record for quality than Mercedes, and their budgets are WAY fucking lower than ours.

There's "strict budgets" and then there's "shitty engineering"

>>1936278
I doubt it's that simple, another thing you have to consider is how big a margin Mercedes is looking to have on each model. Bigger margins can also tighten the budget.

Toyota puts out like 6x the volume in sales, higher volume means you can tolerate a smaller margin while still pulling in alot of money.

>>1936278
For instance, look at the Sprinter lineup.

Who in their right fucking mind runs the transmission wiring, urea injector wiring, and NOX module wiring right alongside the exhaust flex pipe in such a way that when the flex pipe fails, all the wires get cooked and short out?

Who? Mercedes engineers.

Who gives the 906 chassis sprinter a single common ground point in the foot-well of the chassis, so that any corrosion there will disable the entire fucking vehicle? The same common fucking area that is expected to get wet and salty from getting in and out of the vehicle with wet shoes?

Mercedes engineers.

I can go on and on... the problem always comes back to the fucking engineers.

None of this was thanks to cost necessities... none of it.
All of it was because "it worked in CAD why won't it work in real life?" brainless thought processes that have no practical application in real life.

You can try to excuse it all you want. We saw the problems the moment we laid eyes on the new units... and we knew what was going to happen... and lo-and-behold, IT FUCKING HAPPENED.

The engineers are hands-down utterly fucking retarded.

>>1936282
Which results in a cheaper car being more reliable, while the luxury car is riddled with problems.

If you're going to make a luxury vehicle, you had better damn well have your designs figured out BEFORE manufacture, not months down the road when you've got thousands of pissed off customers.

>>1936154
Please elaborate on politics in union shops

>>1936299
Not him and different industry but union shops have lots of stupid politics.

You will have a union rep call you and mail you something telling you who to vote for. As far as literal politics go.

Then theres stupid human shit about who got the newest tool or truck. Why does fred get to do x, I wanna do x or y. I got seniority on Bob I wanna take a crap on him, and I technically can, so I will. Well even if I technically cant tale a double crap on him, I'm gonna do it anyway and call him a pussy scab and do everything i can to make his life miserable because he dared to object. I put in my time afterall.

Then the union will swoop in and do everything it can to save the job of the biggest pill popping alcoholic piece of shit in the shop that doesnt do anything and gets popped DUI in a company vehicle. But the good guy that produces, well cant do anything for you mate, company has a clear case against you.

This is the most bitter thread on 4chan right now

>>1936402
I came in expecting to see a bunch of bitter angry machinists, because being a machinist fucking sucks. Bit surprised honestly

>>1936154
>4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college. Old school engineers are cool as fuck though.
This is extremely accurate, and that is coming from the engineering side (I'm an engineer). The difference is that I did a shit load of machining work for various jobs while in college so I at least have an understanding of how some of it works. I am far from perfect and will gladly take the input from the shop guys when designing things. But most of my peers on the other hand... Most of them can't even use a fucking screw driver

>>1936410
Machinists are the most angry and sexually repressed tradesman there is. We spend all day at work tapping and reaming holes and all we care about is a good (surface) finish.

>>1936424
Peck cycles with through coolant.

>>1935976
>>if you like having small but absolutely fucking irritating shavings in every piece of cloth, orifice and otherwise unfortunate locations then its a job for you

That's not too different from being a 4chan regular.

>>1936154
>2- Union shops ALWAYS pay higher. it sucks but its the truth.

Is it still true after you subtract out the union dues?

>>1936422
A friend of mine was a civil engineer. He started on day one with the attitude that the construction workers have been doing it for years and so if they tell you something you'd better fucking listen. They mostly dont hate him.

>>1936191
Remember, engineers are not paid to consider repair or service, they're paid to make it as cheap and fast to assemble as possible. That oil filter you can't reach without without an extremely specialized tool? They didn't have an issue putting it on during assembly. Those diagnostic fittings that are behind an A pillar, main wiring harness, and under the cab? Not their problem, on the bench it's easy to get to. That main chassis harness with an set of 2.2 hrs? Well that's how long it takes on a bare frame before they install the power train, cab, cooling pack, and any other stupid shit. Those motor mounts on the side of the tranny? Why would you ever need to pull a tranny, our shit never fails.
Fucking engineers.

>>1936815
Union dues aren't very much. At my workplace, it is $100 per month. But our max pay is $43 per hour for journeymen (achievable after 6 years there, or 4 year with completion of the apprenticeship). In local shops, people max out at around $26-$30. Plus, health/vsp and dental is $100 per month for my wife and I, which is normally many times that. The union is far from perfect. But if you look at it in purely financial terms it's worth it. At least for this company/region.

>>1936830
I think they are paid specifically to consider those things and fuck you over. Obviously some brands and managers prioritize it.

>>1936154
>4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college. Old school engineers are cool as fuck though.
It's far cheaper to make the college student buy the 300$ textbook and make him memorize formulas than actually show him machining and practicle engineering. That way colleges don't have to buy machine shops. I wouldn't blame the apprentice for getting taught poorly by the master.

>>1935267
>What's it like being a machinist?
It sucks
>Is it a well-paying career?
No, learn literally any other trade if you want to make money. Only real reason to become a machinist is for the experience and knowledge for your own projects. Becoming self employed in this career is prohibitively expensive and competition is cutthroat.

>>1936830

>>1936908
>no drain plug on transmission
>"transmission oil requires no servicing and should last the lifetime of the vehicle"

I'm on the verge of skipping out on my software development program due to the fucked up amount of autism they're expecting in the industry and about to jump into a metal fabrication/welding program.
Is it as fun as it sounds?

>>1936915
My xc90 lasted 200k miles with no transmission changes

>>1936922
Probably depends who the instructor is and what you make of it. I'm 35 now and have owned a non stop full time fab shop since I was 26. Started learning how to build CNC machines a few years ago for certain things and no longer have any employees. Google is free advertising if you can learn how to build a website with SEO and make the search engines work for you.

>>1936276
Bah, they overcomplicate parts which in no way require that. You could put a fucking LS under the hood with different covers and the buyer would never notice.
Used car dealers laugh at nazicars and don't pay shit for them at auction, then sell them to aspirational chumps.

Even if you have 30 years experience as a tool and die maker and general shop problem solver you will share an identical title with someone who has 2 days experience closing a vice and pressing a green button. Hr sees mechanical miracle workers and non English speaking button jockey retards as interchangeable. Why should they give you an extra dollar an hour when ping bihn pong makes more parts and has made 2.75 an hr since 2003? HR has made me racist against vietnamese immigrants

>>1936877
>>1936830

Plot twist - mechanical engineers are given X hours to design stuff with X amount of initial data. The situation combines the utopistic promises made by marketing people to the customer, customer's own inability to specify their needs accurately enough and the fact that you are the last person to fix the shit that others caused before you.

Anyway, usually X = not enough.

This usually leads to that "it fulfills the contract by barely working" level of quality that makes assembly and maintenance people throw up in their mouth a little, which is understandable.

t. nearly a decade of mechanical design experience

>>1936265
that's due to marketing which is based on consumer preference. blame the person paying you for your work. if products were valued based on the intrinsic work put into them, Karl Marx would've been more correct

>>1936269
Redditard detected.

>>1936154
>You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college

I was aware of this "cats and dogs" attitude before i started work, but i was surprised because it took years to actually experience it. Two years in, managers started asking engineers if we'd had any arguments with the machinists and no one could recall anything significant. As it turned out a few hot headed machinists would constantly bitch about the engineers, and eventually since it was the cool thing to do, other machinists joined in until you had essentially a clique of highschool girls who would constantly talk shit behind engineers backs (or on 4chin boards). The only reason we ever found out was because a large number of these machinists were fired because they didnt know the company intra-email was fully visible to their managers who didnt think it was appropriate to be calling engineers "liberal faggots" etc. on the company dime.

I've only worked for 4 companies but that constitutes hundreds of engineers, hundreds of machinists, and thousands of interrelationships between them. Only at one company did i experience the actual "shitty engineers / innocent machinists" duo; the shit engineers would constantly be sending back stuff like already bent sheet metal and arbitrarily asking for +/- 0.001" precision on everything. It's worth mentioning that in this situation none of the engineers were mechanical/manufacturing and were repurposed from other disciplines and the other half of engineers were former machinists for the company that were trained to design. The hilarious part was that the former machinists, now engineers, formed a super-clique that hated the current machinists with such a passion that some of them literally would never speak unless it was to exchange insults.

>>1936857
>At least for this company/region.
where is that?
I am in Boston area

Damn, I cannot wait to graduate with my ME. I want to work closely, if not it, the shop. I fucking love everything about machining. I'd love to have wherever I end up working pay for me to learn machining. I want to work with the machinists and design cool shit for a living.

This all being said, your run of the mill machinist is not going to know half of the shit a professional engineer knows; I know because I've friends in the machining program in my school. They do cool shit, don't get me wrong, and I respect what they do and know that I don't, but to think that machining is equivalent to engineering is simply silly. One is making the part to spec, the other is designing the part to requirements.

>>1937894
Nice blogpost faggot, there are retards in both fields and the only thing worse than having a retard engineer or a retard machinist at work is having both fight with each other constantly about how hard it is to line up bolt holes

>>1937954
>when you recognize yourself as the subject of a post and instinctively use the word "faggot" which ironically telegraphs who you are.

>>1937954
Incompetent engineer is light-years easier to deal with than incompetent buttontard.
"I moved it... I think it's Duh-uhm point two...? Point oh two thee 6 thousand? Point oh two thirty six thousandth?"
At least engineers can fucking talk shop.

>>1936191
>If you want to make a good engineer, have him try to disassemble what he designed.
so satisfying

>>1937928
Don't neglect their practical advice on how they would actually machine your design.

>>1937900
Pacific NW. I'll give you one guess what company. Hint, Covid is extremely bad for this industry, lol.

>>1937389
That sounds like a problem with HR and not Nguyen.

>>1938134
Oh, absolutely not. That's part of fun.

>>1935267

It tends to be awful at first - the industry almost universally makes absolute beginners button pushers, where one is given limited instruction & sits in front of an expensive machining centre & simply operates it after other people set it to run properly. If one has determination & a willingness to learn one should be able to absorb enough knowledge to demonstrate one's ability & learn more advanced stuff like programming, setting, & the theory behind it.

Lots of shops run 10 or 12 hour shifts, but 8 hour shifts are around too. As a newcomer one probably won't work the day shift, but instead an off shift like evenings, nights, or weekend shifts. Day shifts are rarer as they're the coveted spots for vets.

Wages vary a lot by industry & location. I was hired at $10/hr & pretty quickly moved up to $14 & then $17 as I showed that I could learn. I've moved to a different state & a different shop but I'm earning a fair bit more now. $42k/year is only a bit over $20/hr, which is fairly easily obtainable as a machinist if you work hard & look for the better-paying jobs.

>>1935267
in UK I used to make 4-5x minimum wage doing medium skill work on big machines, from then minimum wage tripled and wages barely moved up in that field due to chinks taking all our manufacturing
now medium skill operator earns 1.5-2x minimum wage in most industries
you need to work in high end to make good money

It sucks. It's pure hell. It will take you 25 years to break 20/hr

For the love of God, don't do it. I know of 5 axis programmers that are being paid the same as a Walmart forklift driver. Do anything but machining. You could make more an hour as a machine shop janitor, receptionist, working in shipping etc with 10x less stress and misery than your first 10 years as a machinist. I've been doing setups and writing programs for years now and have been begging for pennies for the same amount of years, making the same as friends who are driving forklifts in warehouses. If you're considering machining consider driving a forklift

>>1938001
so which one am I, the engineer or the machinist? you're right though, op is the most faggot

>>1938919
I worked with a guy digging ditches that quit the field because ditch digging paid better and was less work

>>1939055
can confirm, because of
>>1938731
I am better off doing gardening and only occasionally fix machinery now when I can be bothered
you can do anything else that requires no skill and make way more money
its a good hobby tho

>>1936908
That's not even particularity egregious, wedge a funnel or flexi funnel under there and you'll make way less of a mess

>>1939070
A old co-worker of mine quit to be a cashier at an upscale convince store that had a patio and beer bar (not just a gas station) worked 3 nights a week and with tips made the same amount as a machinist working 10 hr shifts. This trade is a joke. The guy on the road crew that holds the "SLOW" sign makes more than a fucking prototype setup guy

>>1939197
Which is weird because if you try to find a machinist to make something they want like 5k to give you the time of day.

Well that thread a damper on interest in machining as a profession.

>>1939446
Its a job
All jobs are shit, all jobs rob you of your time and energy and dont pay you what you deserve.
The whole "just join a trade, its amazing" meme gives people these unrealistic expectations that they can walk into a place, do some really fun hand on building stuff and walk out with a huge paycheck, all without student loan debt.

Its not true for any trade and I wish people would stop pushing it. Its just a shit as any other shitty job.

>>1939458
I wasn't under any sort of that delusion given how much I see entry level button pusher potions being payed, but hearing even experience people get paid poorly comparatively is somewhat surprising.

its what ever, if i was smart enough, id have a better job. the reason i do it all, is access to machines for personal projects, cnc mill, lathe, surface grinder, edm. i hope it ends up being worth it.

>>1936283
This is all true, bmws are also gigantic pieces of shit. For instance theres no coolant temp gauge on the dash and the vehicle "health monitoring" system wont warn you of high coolant temps until after the head gadket or other weak point blows. Honest to god not a single one of the customers who came in with a blown head gasket due to a failed fan or whatever said they got any warning what so ever. The same monitoring system tells owners to replace the oil every 10000 miles, the engine wont make it 100k miles if you do that. Theres a million other reasons they suck, but its a mix of either crap materials, shitty design, and out right designing the part to fail and needing to be replaced.

>CNC Machine Operator 3+ yrs exp req
>$15-$18 hr
>Walmart/Amazon/Fedex warehouse worker
>$18-$20
wHy cAn't wE FiNd aNy nEw wOrKeRs iN ThE TrAdEs????

>>1939680
>wHy cAn't wE FiNd aNy nEw wOrKeRs iN ThE TrAdEs????

There isnt actually a shortage of workers in the trades, im not sure where that meme came from.

>>1939709
Trade schools maybe? I remember my teachers telling me there was a labor shortage and that employers would bend over backwards to hire me, which is bullshit. I've realized teachers would make great salesmen.

>>1939718
I remember being told the same thing in welding school
Except for the fact I had a bunch of 40-50 years old in class with me who had been laid off and were looking for work in other trades.

Should have been a red flag

>>1939709
>>1939718
>>1939725

The meme comes from everybody expecting there to be a massive spike in demand for those types of jobs when the boomers all finally die.

If it's only a meme why are so many boomers complaining about finding workers? I've seen listings unfilled for 8 months, companies running radio ads every day etc.

>>1939753
It's not that they're not finding workers, it's that they're not finding experienced workers ready to work for low wages.

>>1939753
They want to pay 20 year tool and die makers 16 dollars an hour so mr ceo can buy his 8th yatch, there are plenty of skilled people out there that would rather drive a box truck on a local route and make way more on day shift than subjective themselves to this shit

>>1939804
>>1939767
I know it's due to not being willing to pay for the workers, but that's basically true in any field with a "shortage" of labor.
I remember several years ago my mother told me to go be an airline pilot because her father made a lot of money in the 70's. And if you look online you see them complaining about not having pilots, but if you actually read about the conditions they work in and how little you make starting off with regional stuff or whatever, why would I take all that responsibility for like 10 or 20 grand more than the guy doing basic maintenance screwing in light bulbs or mowing lawns at the airport is getting like $17 an hour.

I have a fresh engineering degree and can design a bicycle on AutoCAD / Siemens NX, whom do I have to rim to get a job?

>>1939825
>I have a fresh engineering degree and can design a bicycle on AutoCAD / Siemens NX, whom do I have to rim to get a job?
That's the fun job, you don't get to do the fun part as a newbie, you get to be a glorified drafter, glorified salesperson or write 200 page reports on stupid bullshit. Have fun.

>>1939458
Yes, but if driving a Pepsi truck stocking drink machines pays more than an extremely technical trade then what's the point of learning the trade?

You can make good money in this trade if you find the right place. Your average job shop isn't going to pay well.

>>1939831
Okay, who do I have to rim to get those pre-cursor jobs?

>>1939810
yeah, my pilot friend had it shitty for a little bit when he was first trying to get his hours, couple years of bs. now my pay check is the same as the taxes on his

>>1939862
>Implying it's worth it to spend 25 years to break 50k salary

An entry level office drone can get quadruple the time off as the greatest machining gig on earth and make 50k a year in no time.

>>1939810
>why would I take all that responsibility for like 10 or 20 grand more than the guy doing basic maintenance screwing in light bulbs or mowing lawns at the airport is getting like $17 an hour.
Yearly income ceiling on that job is lower, and he will probably always be making the same payscale for his entire life unless he changes employment. Lifetime income total for a pilot will average higher as a result. But there are other benefits aside from pay that are harder to quantify as the career path for a pilot has a lot of options. My uncle did freelance aerial photography for real estate while also being a courier pilot.
There's always a difference between a "job" and a "career". And some jobs and skills are more valuable to have on your resume than others.

>>1939951

You don't have to spend 25 years to get that amount, again not every place or area is the same. It took me about 4 years to hit 60k, I've made 6 figures in this trade. It's about having the right skills along with finding a good place to work. Focus on high end, multi-axis work and don't get stuck on job shop type stuff.

>>1936265
Mid career engineers get hamstrung by bean counters.

Lynch pins are 43 cents each, a plastic popper is 8 cents.

You think it's bad here, try dealing with a budget person justifying return on investment when their bonus comes from how hard they jew and nothing else.

>>1936892
Most University have machine shops, but 5 people are allowed on mills or lathes.

Those 5 also have sub 4.0 GPA and get fucked into a shit job because they are learning useful stuff and not just abstract math.

As far as engineers go, I met all kind. Those who came out of high school, went to college and then have their fancy degree are terrible. Never had to dead with the stuff they now have authority over. The best ones are those who worked in the shop, then got further qualification down the line and their degree later on because they could and wanted to. But those are very rare.

>>1936299
People act like its a high school, people bitching about what work they get, they bitch that they didn't get your work, they bitch because you have a radio on, they bitch because you whistle.

Just a bunch of whiny miserable cunts for the most part

>>1939846
The pay ceiling that you will never see unless you hop jobs every two years and hope you don't hop at our once per decade recession. Also the lack of stability and constant moving will be stressful.

>>1938919
>It will take you 25 years to break 20/hr
It took me 3 but I'm also not retarded.

>>1940142

Ok boomer

>>1936168

Im a retard landscaper rn and the landscape architects are fucking retards. It seems as though the people planning things out have 0 experience doing the work and 0 accountability. I guess its up to us to take their jobs...

>>1940142
Our starting is currently $24 for a button pusher.

It's also aerospace so things are complete shit due to corona though.

>>1936892
>master
That's antisemitic anon

>>1936191
>>1936203
>>1936236
>>1936251
>>1936261
>>1936269
>>1936274
>>1936276
>>1936278
>>1936282
>>1936283
>>1936285
>>1936830
>>1936915
>>1936945
>>1937378
>>1939601
I went to a Makerspace where a guy was using their lift to work on his Mercedes. He was shouting curses the whole time he was there.

>>1939601
>theres no coolant temp gauge on the dash
And I thought that was just a Volvo thing

>>1935976
>>1935977
>>1936907
>>1937389
>>1938919
>>1939055
>>1939070
>>1939197
>>1939487
>>1939680
>>1939767
>>1939804
>>1939810
>>1939846
>>1939862
>>1939951
>>1940457
It's as if they don't want people working for themselves, but for the man.

>>1936154
>You will learn to hate almost every engineer.
Was told today by a 60 y.o. welder that engineers have no common sense - "except you, anon, you're the only engineer I've ever worked with who had experience and really understand what we do down here".
Felt pretty good desu.

>>1937928
>Damn, I cannot wait to graduate with my ME. I want to work closely, if not it, the shop.
good luck anon but other people here have alluded to what most meche jobs are actually like. you're expected to apply patches to already massively bloated products where the most important things are meeting ridiculous schedules and getting the latest gimmick tacked on to the system at any cost. you're expected to just barely meet requirements for reliability, maintainability, manufacturability. and if you try to go above and beyond, you'll end up behind schedule which is the only thing your project manager cares about.

working with machinists has been the best part of my career, but it's hard to get those roles while still being a real designer and not a paper pusher. machinists just need to realize that the shitty engineers they deal with are byproducts of a larger broken management system.

>>1941048
>good luck anon but other people here have alluded to what most meche jobs are actually like.
Unfortunately this is true, but I got my job off Craigslist going on 10 years ago now, and every day I'm either designing new stuff from scratch or modifying things I designed myself over the past decade to meet customer requirements. IME this is MUCH more common at small (2-40 person including the shop) companies than large ones although there was always that one engineer who interfaced with the shop on special stuff and got to do all the fun shit even at huge aerospace companies.
>working with machinists has been the best part of my career, but it's hard to get those roles while still being a real designer and not a paper pusher.
Same and true, but see above
>working with machinists has been the best part of my career, but it's hard to get those roles while still being a real designer and not a paper pusher.
VEry true. I worked places where the work was interesting and the job had the potential to be very fun and enjoyable but animosity had built up over countless tiny miscommunications and it was just miserable. SAD!

>>1941738
>machinists just need to realize that the shitty engineers they deal with are byproducts of a larger broken management system.
sorry the last part was supposed to be a response to this.

>>1937894
>calling engineers "liberal faggots" etc. on the company dime.

>>1936154
>4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college.

I'm a home gamer machinist, and in school for Mechanical Engineering. Taking my Manufacturing class right now, and I have to mentally check out for almost the whole class because of how little and how poor the information is. If the professor has touched a Mill or lathe in his life, I would be surprised.

>>1941790
lol, when I was in school for ME, our manufacturing class teacher was some lady from Soviet Moldova or something and it really seemed like she just read the textbook the night before class and paraphrased the chapter the next day in class. We started reading ahead and asking questions and she'd be all 'nyet nyet, we didn't gets to these yet my friend'. I used to smoke outside with the machinist technicians during break and talk shit on that olga bitch or whatever her stupid russian name was.

>>1941792
my prof is from mainland china, but its the weirdest thing, he is super big into trying to get manufacturing back into the US. I wonder if its a defensive reflex he developed. But he also is just slowly verbatim going through the book.
When we get to the part that his Phd is in (welding) I am sure he will have real input. but ffs the mill and lathe section has made me want to jump.

>>1941797
Don't listen to the hype, foreigners fucking LOVE the us, a lot more than most Americans.

>>1936154
In 4 years of mechanical engineering at my uni I have yet to put my hands on any proper tooling equipment on campus. Sure, all the equipment is there, milling machines, CNCs, lathes etc. but the labs would always get cancelled at the last minute due to red tape OR the lab would consist of you just WATCHING one of the lab techs use a machine without getting a chance yourself.

Luckily I got an internship at a small start-up for 6 months that had a small but well-equipped toolroom, and to get things done fast and cheap they'd try to make as much of their jigs and fixtures onsite which was what I spent a good chunk of my time at. It was great because at least now I'm not entirely clueless when it comes to machining and why some approaches work or not but prior to that bit of experience me and basically all my peers were fucking RETARDED when it came to this kind of stuff.

>>1942681
>me and basically all my peers were fucking RETARDED when it came to this kind of stuff.
as are many design engineers with 10+ years experience

So the state of Michigan is willing to pay up to an associate degree or equivalent certification for working during the coof, what should I do first if I want to go down this path? Mechanical engineering first or do the shop certifications like manufacturing technologies and Computer Numerical Control?

>>1942793
Shop certs and CAD first. You should be able to dream in CAD.

>>1942797
Thanks anon

>>1936154
>You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process but have a huge ego because they sat through a couple years of college. Old school engineers are cool as fuck though.
anon, you are 100% right. I got little shits coming who think they are know-all and they barely can do anything right.

How is the trade in Europe? Is a good paying job there?

>>1943095
Ah, its the "make 'em sweep, fuck training 'em" guy

>>1935267
>What's it like being a machinist?
You will find metal chips everywhere and in everything. I think I even shat one out once. Old coolant full of chips is the worst shit ever to deal with.

>>1936256
Sounds spooky because I just started doodling in CAD for my 3D printer two months ago and would never even think of such bullshit. Though I *am* assembling the parts myself, so that might be it.

>>1935267
You will find yourself in a variety of places.
In a small company, you'll depend largely on your ability to perform from day one. A boss with very limited cashflow is going to expect you to perform as a fully qualified tradesman even as an apprentice, especially if they utter the dangerous words of "we've never hired an apprentice before". You're going to get your shit kicked in for things you didn't know you did wrong. Make friends fast, especially with the lead engineer. If he's the caring sort, he'll end up as your boss and cover for all your noob fuckups. It's at this point you've won, because now you've got somebody who really knows their shit and is willing to help you out.

A large company that's dying, particularly the older ones, is going to have old men that have a lot to offer, but have largely thrown in the towel. Your best bet here is to steal as much knowledge off these oldfags by showing both promise and respect to them they will share some of their knowledge that just isn't found anywhere except some dusty book at the back of some library. For the same reason, at least one of them will be a cynical, crusty faggot with a hard on for fucking apprentices. Watch for it. Absorb as much as you can, because you've got 2 years on the outset to get all their knowledge. Key phrase to watch for in job interviews is "need some fresh blood to revitalize the company". Every company needs a newfag to replace the guy leaving. Depending on the newfag to bring your company to life is retard tier aspirations.

Finally, and these are absolute unicorns, the growing company large manufacturing company that is trying to invest in both it's workforce and it's machines. If you get one of these, and get a good boss to boot, *FUCK THE SHITTY PAY, STAY THERE.* You'll end up making friends with everybody because if there's problems they get fixed, meaning that politics are minimized and people bitch a lot less.

>>1943347
Additionally, the last company may actually let you use their machines off company time, which is an absolute boon if they have dynamite equipment that lets you expand what you can do at home, the old story of make up 8/10ths of it at home and do that finicky high precision bit in their 10 million dollar machine. Helps with your career too, because the boss looks at projects like this and thinks "he doesn't really clock off, does he?".

Fuck a machinist. Maintenance technicians are among the highest paid employees at most manufacturing plants/shops..yes, at times higher than the plant manager

>>1943374
Please keep believing this.

>>1943374
They make usually 20% more, plus they are not sometimes unionized

>>1943477
>being non-union is a plus
"No"

>>1943481
Yes

>>1943486
I guess its perspective
Its certainly a plus for your employer to pay you less, give you worse working conditions, and replace you easier.

>>1943488
Or I have a marketable skill and I know my worth, so I find a place that I am comfortable with that pays me what we agree upon. I am free to leave if I find the place disagreeable. On the plus side I don't have to pay union dues or deal with union workplace politics or wonder why the union is spending my dues to prop up politicians that I disagree with politically. I guess my perspective is different.

>>1943499
>Or I have a marketable skill and I know my worth, so I find a place that I am comfortable with that pays me what we agree upon. I am free to leave if I find the place disagreeable.

So does every person in a union shop anon, are you dumb?
The only difference is those wages you agree on? You have 0 leverage while the union guys have a lot more leverage and objectively end up with higher pay in almost every case. Couple that with stronger job security.

>On the plus side I don't have to pay union dues
The higher wages pay union dues and then some
>or deal with union workplace politics
Literally no different than normal workplace politics
>or wonder why the union is spending my dues to prop up politicians that I disagree with politically.
So it all comes down to this huh?
You are actively hurting your career and dealing with shittier employers because of politics?
You think the investors and banks and everyone who has their grubby hands at the top of your company dont have opposing views in politics? Half the country disagrees with you, there are billionaires on both sides making money off you.

You bought into false rhetoric pushed by employers to fuck you over and keep you from having any bargaining power against them. And its working, and you are proud of it.

Good job, you played yourself

>>1943510
>5 seconds later this anon's company dies because union reps making 6 figures spent all day filing grievances because Ted picked up a washer that Bill dropped on the floor, when picking up washers was Zach's job, instead of doing actual work

>>1943523
Is that what you told yourself in 08 when you were laid off and union shops werent laying of?
Is this what you told yourself last month when you were being laid off and union shops werent laying off?

>>1939446
Check out 6:30 of the new TOT video
https://youtu.be/JN-Pkbeu52E?t=391

>>1943554

It's like Boeing moving the 787 production to South Carolina. I guess the Seattle unions proved to be too costly.


https://www.reuters.com/article/boeing-787-idUSKBN26N08Y

>>1943575
>company goes through the effort to completely shut down a shop and move to non-union shops to slash wages

Sucks for the union guys, but they will walk into another union shop and keep their high wages.
Cucks like you will suck boeings dick working for half the wages for a hostile company who has shown they dont give a shit about the workers.

Im not seeing where you are going with this, in the odd case of draconian companies with the ability to just upend their shops to spite their workers, you will be there ready to pick up the sloppy seconds?
Enjoy it anon.

BOOM!

>>1940183
Any modern architect can fuck off straight to hell.

>>1943585
Handing out piles of money to some unskilled faggot to install screws all day is not good. It makes perfect sense to go to where the labor is cheaper, just like you shop around for whatever gay shit you buy.

>>1943669
This anon is correct. In my state a union sprinkler fitter makes $50/hr. A sprinkler fitter is a $15/hr job if that. To build a school in my state, it can cost $30 million. Whereas the same school can be built in a right to work state for half the cost. My state is in direct competition with California for corruption and bullshit. You can probably guess with ease. Unions are a menace to a place that wants to progress.

>>1938291
Boeing fag ?
Heard they were moving the factory .

>>1939680
>>1939709
Depends heavily on the part of the country you are in. I work in manufacturing and we can't find any qualified machinists/tool and die/electricians. Can't even get any qualified welders in the building right now. We have to contract that work out. If I fly out to any of our plants in the south, we have an army of qualified guys. When I visit our suppliers in the midwest its just shop after shop, factory after factory.

>>1943374
>>1943477
No way. Our plant manager makes $200k and our top tech might be pushing $40/hour. Lots of OT for them if they want, but still not close to plant managed.

>>1943728
Yep. They're moving 787 production to South Carolina. They set up SC to bypass the Union and have been producing the 787 in Everett and SC simultaneously. Now it is being consolidated in SC. The rest of the planes will still be made in Everett (aside from the 737 which is made in Renton).

>>1943510
>politics arent worse in a union shop
Ask me how I know you're a fucking faggot shitter that does fucking nothing all fucking day and should be fired

Youd go up against the wall in a glorious revolution comrade because everyone knows you're just as much of a shit as any capitalist

>>1943669
They should have just sent the plant to Mexico then.
The boomers who have outsourced industry and destroyed the middle class for the last 40 years were right!
Why would you pay living wages when you have a bunch of bootlickers willing to sell themselves and their peers out for slave wages? Why even bother with the bootlickers when you have spics that will do it even cheaper?

>>1943679
>Unions are a menace to a place that wants to progress.
What exactly is "progress" to you?
Taking literally every single trade and devolving it into the bottom of the barrel so that everyones wages are $15 an hour, when sitting behind the counter at 7/11 pays $12 an hour?

Is this your grand plan to bring industry back to the USA, to strengthen the middle class? By paying pittance of a wage when employers are asking for skilled work? Cheapening your own labor until its not even viable to live comfortably on?
You like sending your woman to work every day, taking out loans for everything, all while doing a career in skilled labor? Should have just got a liberal arts degree at that point anon.

Enjoy your $15 an hour, everyone else who isnt fucking retarded will enjoy the $50 an hour.

>>1943881
Your shop knows exactly whats in the contract, grievances only happen when a shop or an employee acts outside of the contract.

Why are you scared of your own accountability?
Why would you not want to be able to hold your shop accountable to not fuck you over?

Your buzzwords wont make you right.

>anti union guy: unions are gay haha
>union guy: how dare you unions are great let me tell you why blah blah blah
do you guys get paid for this?

>>1943911
>40 years in the union loser
Gimme your truck fucker, the boss only gave that to you because you're productive and stuff
>but mr. Peer, according to the contract seniority has no bearing on tools or vehicles
Hurrr I dont give a fuck I'm grieving it
>he grieves it over and over until boss gives in and gives him my truck, not because it's in the contract, but because there's no discipline for being a dick and grieving shit that's not grievable.

Then the union goes balls to the wall and gets the job back of the complete fuck stick pill popper DUI in company vehicles dude that doesnt fix fucking anything or know how to do his job. But if you're productive and cut your hand, fuck, you almost got fired there anon, nothing we could have done.

>>1943917
Not the guy you are responding to but I have not experienced anything like this in the 7 years I have worked in a union shop. The only time any semblance of politics comes up is possibly when there are shop steward elections. But usually they run unopposed so often not even then. First of all, things like company tools or whatever (no company truck, being a machine shop and all) are assigned to areas/machines and not people, and are assigned by the company, not the union.

>>1943915
Im just trying to keep trades in the USA alive, trying to get fellow anons to help themselves make a better living.
Its pretty pathetic to sell yourself out like a fucking spic to make bossman record profits every year, especially when its really easy to avoid that.

>>1943917
Cant help you have a shitty union steward, would you go back in time and take away half of your wages the last 40 years over it?

>>1943911
Progress is expansion(primarily, building) of our civilization. Illinois is going backwards purely because any and all major contracts essentially have to be union. State contracts must be union. So tax payer money is funding these idiots who make way more money than they're worth. Jobs take six times as long as a result.

I'm own a non-union electrical contractor and have had jobs sabotaged by union idiots. You fuck heads are so brainwashed and so ignorant of the world around you. Unions were important at one point in time. They are no longer important.

It is quite selfish to be all for $50/hr sprinkler fitting when that certainly does not benefit society or its people and definitely not worth that price in labor. $15 should be the set price for that type of labor. The sprinkler fitter should aspire to learn plumbing to the point that he is worth $50/hr.

>>1944120
>not worth that price in labor. $15 should be the set price for that type of labor.

1. sprinkler fitters should be responsible adults, not teens after school or crack heads
2. a responsible adult should be paid enough so he or she can buy decent clothing, food, shelter, etc.
3. therefore, you are full of shit.

I agree that unions suck in many ways, and once they get enough power they abuse it as much as they possibly can. But paying someone a sub-standard wage and expecting them to do decent work is not a viable policy.

>>1944131
Expecting any tradie to do decent work anytime is not a viable policy. Oddly, no matter what they make it's just not quite enough to inspire them to do anything with any semblance of professionalism or urgency. They sure do complain like it's their job though.

>>1944131
A sprinkler fitter should be a job for kids fresh out of high school. If you're still a sprinkler fitter after two years of doing it then you should reconsider your career or you are just a brainlet.

>>1939767
There's a difference in criteria checking nowadays too. Used to be knowing someone was good enough, if you could weld your in. Now you need certs. They are expensive. They expire. NDT has become more common. Welders might have gone their entire career with never having more than 5 done. It's not harder to be a good welder nowadays it is harder to be a bad welder, cuz you will get called on bad welds. Used to be ignored. Lots less failures this way.

>>1944131
You got to move up the food chain. Your boss wants you to be smart. The better you are the better he is. Ask around for some study materials or find them for free online. It's not that hard. If your doing the same shit when you're 50 that you did when you were 18, you are probably an idiot.

>>1944120
This sounds like a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with machinists or machinist unions.

>>1943666
based and satan-pilled

>>1943510
Have you dealt with shitty union coworkers before? I'm union and appreciate the fact that I get yearly raises, decent pay and the lot, but holy shit, I can fully understand why people hate unions. The shit I see daily is infuriating.

I've got a rep on my floor that's been caught napping, officially, 6 times. Last time he got caught he said he was having chest pains and left in an ambulance. I've seen him sleeping while being a back up instructor (making 2$ more per hour) and heard him snoring from across the floor. The dude only wakes up to gab on the phone or quote George Carlin. Been on the job 40yrs and I run circles around him after 3.
Roughly 1/4 of the people are some combination of useless and dangerous. Some will sit on jobs for 6 months draggin their feet pretending they're stuck until bossman gets fed up, throws the job to me and it moves to the next stage in half a day.
One of these useless dangerous combos likes doing casual OT. Would do 50hr weeks even if he had nothing to do. Browsing gunbrooker and saying 'who am I really stealing from'.
Supervisors are too scared to do anything, walking on eggshells for fear of being grieved. Two goons on my floor dressed their work area up like a highschool girl's locker, loudly watch videos on their phone and make fart noises at people when they walk by.

The kicker of it all is if there are layoffs, I'm near the bottom of the seniority list. I'll be first out and last in, while fart noises, sleepy, and casual OT will be sittin pretty, even though I output the same as all three put together. Merit means nothing, hard work means nothing, it's absolutely demoralizing. The union fought against discretionary bonuses, claiming it'd just go to the supervisors favorites (hint hint, it's the ones who perform), but we're just crabs in a bucket.

If we were capable of policing ourselves, it would do so much good for our reputation. Would probably give us more leverage at the bargaining table too.

>>1946673
>I'll be first out and last in, while fart noises, sleepy, and casual OT will be sittin pretty, even though I output the same as all three put together. Merit means nothing, hard work means nothing, it's absolutely demoralizing.
At that point anon you should just stop giving a fuck and slow down to a comfortable pace. Why work yourself into an early grave if no one gives a fuck? I also have a hard time with this but you have to learn to stop caring.

>>1946673
>The dude only wakes up to gab on the phone or quote George Carlin.
Pffft. Definitely sounds like a union worker.

>>1946679
I honestly don't feel like I work that hard. The bar is just so low that I can zone out for half the day and still outproduce about 75% of the workforce. I don't stress much tho, it's just the job is important, lives do depend on it being done right, and as corny as it is I get a feeling of pride for doing a good job. It's just that there's only a handful of us.

>>1946690
This. I got a chill union job and still produce more than the 7/ of the crew put together.

I sent two guys to do a job that should have taken 2 hours top and they fucked around on it all day and lost a $2000 test meter.

>>1943101
Are you talking about Moldovia, France or some other country?

>>1936236
>I understand your frustration, but thats just Mercedes adapting to its market.
No, it isn't and no one familiar with them would so contend as their poor design adds nothing to their profit margin and overly complicates production. They're not geniuses and they do not have the elegant simpler easy to manufacture design of previous Mercedes. They just suck without benefit to anyone.
May BEVs kill them swiftly.

>>1940928
Holy shit. I'd be honored.

>>1943669
Aircraft construction IS highly skilled (career USAF jet mech, crew chief and avionics puke here) and moving to SC with a retarded workforce (I live here and worked workforce training after retirement) was a desperate bean counter move not a quality move.

The aviation industry in the US has turned to shit since they replaced dedicated aviationists with MBAs. That's what gets you the 737 Max disasters. Some manufacturing doesn't suit the race to the bottom.

>>1946714
>and lost a $2000 test meter
Like soldiers casually "losing" Gen3 NVGs only for them to show up online?
I'd check ebay or craigslist my dude.

>>1948765
why tf are they that much anyways? should be like $500 tops

>>1948772
Low volume high quality gear. Company pays for it.

It makes the job so much easier even these idiots can find trouble because the TDR is so good

>>1935267
Went to college for machine shop and CNC programming.
Now making $21/hr as a department head at Home Depot.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you. Most shops just wanted bottom labourers, and the one good job took 7 months to get back to me.

>>1936191
Engineers could make it easy, it's the people that breathe down their necks that make everything shitty

>>1938731
this is basically every job though

>>1935267

I'm working as tool designer for in-house new stamping tool toolshop for german company operating in backwater town in Poland.

We have iron-workers, CNC opearators and guys who operate EDM machines.

It's not a problem being CNC operator since you usually just manually change tools, clean machine, rerun program etc.

Guys writing programs are a handful, operators rarely write their own programs but it happens. Process is mostly automated through CAM tool and guys always have CAD.

EDM machines are a bit less chillax, since 1 guy has to operate like 3 or 4 of them. It's still not a big deal, but more of a rush. Also sometimes pain to trace dwgs because of duplicate lines etc.

I wouldn't recommend being tool designer / cad designer. Too much unpayed hours, constant stress, no pay. I should be today on my free day drawing in CAD since guys want to have data for machines and material dimensions. Fuck this.

>>1949202

Oh and also like it's evident in this thread, all tradesmen will think you are retarded/will want to show you how better is their insight.

This is the reason why we make dozens of unnecessary changes, waste time, money and manhours and change things back & forth. And sometimes it only starts from not wanting to weld since it's "too much work" and thus we are making new metal inserts, first drawing them in CAD, then making buyer order material and at the end work large machines or in case of them being too occupied outsource manufacture.

2 days ago someone found out that some cutting punches MAY have too little to cut. Didn't even try it, just suggested every gas spring and bought in part has to be replaced, more than €5000 for it since there's too little travel.

Fuck this shit.

>>1936191
You don't have to answer to accountants when thinking up your nigger rigged solutions to things.

In engineering it's easy(ish) to do the math and ensure something works; much easier if you get to do some prototyping, it's actually stressful as fuck when you're designing shit sight-unseen.

It's also easy to design it such that it's a mechanic's dream. Many (not all) engineers do work hands-on, or at least did at some point in time. It's not like 3D space is some foreign concept to educated people for fuck's sake, get off your high horse.

What's NOT easy is to do all that while also making it cheap to produce. It has to be easy to MANUFACTURE, ease of maintenance is secondary. That's just the reality, more noticeable with German vehicles for some reason. Probably because the Krauts don't want anybody doing their own maintenance so fuck it, make it easy to produce and screw repairs.

Engineer in a union shop here. We're not strictly machining, but lately I have been pressed into service programming machines I have no business programming. To answer the OP, there is a big difference between a machine operator and a machinist. Now for some union shenanigans.

>accidentally turn on fire suppression system dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water
>put parts into machines upside down or backwards on several occasions despite having instructions with pictures of how to do it
>starting a fire under an acid tank while welding a hook for a fire extinguisher to a post
>shipping parts to wrong customers
>driving fork truck through steel i-beams
>bidding on job that has 1-year of training, then retiring a month after training is complete
>do nothing to protect the jobs of younger members that are laid off because senior jobs get outsourced so they bump the young guys out, but get an employee that was fired for being drunk at work rehired

My company also moved work to SC, management is also retarded. However, the union literally offers nothing of value to the company.

>>1949308
>started a fire by installing a fire extinguisher
That got me.

>>1949308
I've posted earlier with the ae.pr9blem but
>do nothing to protect the jobs of younger members that are laid off because senior jobs get outsourced so they bump the young guys out, but get an employee that was fired for being drunk at work rehired

This fucking horse shit reeeee

>>1936464
very nice

I haven't slept in a year

>>1949323
The union can't do anything to save sometime unless the company messes up the process. The rep just acts like a defense lawyer at that point. They're not allowed to be choosey of their clients.

>>1950306
They really go all out and try to save the worthless fuckers even if they're like shooting guns inside the warehouse or getting drunk on company time, or DUI

>>1950549
>having your own bar and shooting range on company property while getting paid
hello based department, it's an emergency

>>1950306
that's nice. I'll be out here in the real world where that shit happens all the time.

>this thread
So why don't you guys just get the engineers' jobs and make more money

I've been graduated in machining.
Like five years of studies and everyone told me "it's a job of future, it's really interesting and you'll be paid thousands of euros".

Indeed the studies were very interesting. But after that the real job began for me, I was paid like just a bit better than a McDonald employee, the job was simple : Don't think, don't do anything by yourself, push the three same fucking buttons everyday.

I quit a few years ago. But I'd love to get a milling machine at home to build nice projects without an asshole telling me to work faster.

>>1950613
>Like five years of studies and everyone told me "it's a job of future, it's really interesting and you'll be paid thousands of euros".
5 years of study? It's 2 years here in Canada, and an extra few months if you want to get your CNC specialization at the schools i know. What did they teach you for 5 years?

Machinists and engineers are booth fuckups, engineers are just slightly worse as their mistakes often cant be fixed by us
>t. Assembler, plc jockey
>>1950593
Would rather shoot myself

>>1936154
> 4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer.
Mechanical engineer here, I apologize to everyone who had to work with me during the first 10 years of my career.

>>1935267
posted in wrong thread:
Its great, give yourself at least 3 years of learning from the greybeards to get up to speed. Welding knowledge helps. It is a mix of engineering, math, coding if you cnc, and problem solving. pretty chill and you can make 150 if you are good in less than 3 yrs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsxLF-Db7uk [Embed]

best part, start your own machine shop after.

>>1936908
This is intentional, now it will never rust

10

4

>>1936236
yeah but i mean the only reason everyone leases now is that cars are like four or five times more expensive than they really should be, and part of the reason is the absolute bloatmax that is the average auto manufacturer. major auto maufacturers have turned their backs on the demographics that built them up and eventually the prestige that brought them the new customers won't be there anymore because the trendsetters will be doing something else. you can't blame the market because the manufacturers deliberately built the market to be like this.

>>1943347
Worked for four years as a NC programmer, and got fired for using the machine on off time.....which I've been doing for 3 of those years.

>>1936154
>4- You will learn to hate almost every engineer. The chumps they are dumping out of college are all glorified draftsmen who don't know shit about actual manufacturing process

As a recent MechE grad I can confirm this is true and I hate myself for it. Feels like I got ripped off by uni. I generally get along with machinists though, I just approach every interaction with them from the understanding that they're right (because they always are) and that I can learn from them

>be machinist in unspecified east Euro country
>work on aircraft parts for a US Corporation (literally stole US job)
>They told me its peak mechanics and very rewarding job etc etc
>reality is different
>each workplace has a few machines and specializes on certain parts
>in all, i regularly do just about 15 parts, then there are few more that arrive once a few months (thus job got boring rather quickly)
>program gets loaded into machine via computer. God forbid i made some adjustment in the program
>most of the time i just press green button and change cutting tool. Or check Facebook and internets in general
>nobody actually gives a fuck about quality of final product as long as if its sellable product. Ive seen so many fuckups sent to assembly that i now consider not flying planes ever again
>only thing boss cares about is how much overtime youre willing to clock
>salary is not terrible, but if youre willing to become indentured servant and work ungodly amount of overtime, you can soon get a raise on par with upper management salary
>most of the guys i know who get these top bucks started there as young kids who suddenly found out they can easily make good money, started borrowing in banks to buy stupid shit they dont need and now are neck deep in debts with no end in sight, although some of them make on par with average MP

Overall, its extremely dull, boring and totally unrewarding job. i feel im getting more retarded the longer i stay there. Gonna jump the ship as soon as some good opportunity appears. Unfortunately this Wu flu situation doesnt help