Scared Straight
I've been doing what I do for a living since 1982. Twenty nine years of CNC programming, automated metal work, and microscopic tolerances. I started in manufacturing right out of high school, 1979. I was a snotty nosed kid who could not read a micrometer, but I learned.
Junior, my 20 year old coworker, step son of my office compadre Hermanos, started community college this evening. When he applied for a job at Monkeytech one year ago, I looked him in the face, steeled my eyes, and told him to go back to school. I've spent most of the last year teasing him and teaching him. His step father handles the lessons of the trade, I give him lessons he does not appreciate ...yet.
He's a stereotypical 20 year old, not different than I was at that age, concerned more with appearance than substance. I'm the Alpha Monkey, leader of the old guys keeping the young apes on their toes. Junior is a daily target of observation and correction.
On a few occasions I caught him cussing at me under his breath. He thinks I'm a hard ass and I don't like him. That's not the case, not even close. I just don't believe he belongs in this trade. He can do better.
On the other hand I often lament the lack of young people entering the trades. Our nation is losing in the business of making things. Manufacturing is not a glamorous profession. After a century of upward mobility through technology and Mfg, good jobs for the middle class, that prosperity has been exported. Like agriculture, Americans are doing it less.
If Junior was a hungry worker, every day looking to do more than the previous, I might attempt to pursuade him to stay at Monkeytech. He's too distracted by everything else in life to apply himself fully. He has the Bossman fooled .... not me, and not his stepfather.
He'll continue working at MT while attending class but his schedule does not include technology, math, or engineering classes ... so it appears he'll be moving on to something else. That's fine.
I always tell him, "If you stay with this trade in thirty years you'll look like me, still doing THIS." It's not a pretty sight. We're good at what we do but wonder what life would be if we went to school for something else.
One year with me, Hermanos and Grumpy John has pushed the kid back on the right path.
Junior, my 20 year old coworker, step son of my office compadre Hermanos, started community college this evening. When he applied for a job at Monkeytech one year ago, I looked him in the face, steeled my eyes, and told him to go back to school. I've spent most of the last year teasing him and teaching him. His step father handles the lessons of the trade, I give him lessons he does not appreciate ...yet.
He's a stereotypical 20 year old, not different than I was at that age, concerned more with appearance than substance. I'm the Alpha Monkey, leader of the old guys keeping the young apes on their toes. Junior is a daily target of observation and correction.
On a few occasions I caught him cussing at me under his breath. He thinks I'm a hard ass and I don't like him. That's not the case, not even close. I just don't believe he belongs in this trade. He can do better.
On the other hand I often lament the lack of young people entering the trades. Our nation is losing in the business of making things. Manufacturing is not a glamorous profession. After a century of upward mobility through technology and Mfg, good jobs for the middle class, that prosperity has been exported. Like agriculture, Americans are doing it less.
If Junior was a hungry worker, every day looking to do more than the previous, I might attempt to pursuade him to stay at Monkeytech. He's too distracted by everything else in life to apply himself fully. He has the Bossman fooled .... not me, and not his stepfather.
He'll continue working at MT while attending class but his schedule does not include technology, math, or engineering classes ... so it appears he'll be moving on to something else. That's fine.
I always tell him, "If you stay with this trade in thirty years you'll look like me, still doing THIS." It's not a pretty sight. We're good at what we do but wonder what life would be if we went to school for something else.
One year with me, Hermanos and Grumpy John has pushed the kid back on the right path.