Hello to everyone. Absolutely thrilled to join this community. First post so brief intro... I'm 36 and did construction and shopwork from my late teens through most of my 20s. Took a long time away from it (thinking that work was "beneath me"). I wanted to be a suit with a trophy wife (never happened) and a big bank account (never lasted) and all the classy accoutrements the illusion promises. The longer I was away from metalworking, the greater my desire to return to it became. It's my calling. My first position was as a tester, which involved arguing with other workers about their screwups (it's always the messenger's fault). I taught myself every phase of production at the first plant I was employed, staying after work 2-3 hours a day (off the clock) running a lathe, or learning this or that piece of equipment that otherwise sat idle for years, or practicing laying weld beads with proper penetration on scrap metal. In time I evolved into the shop millwright. In most things I've mastered I'll start out through self-education and hands-on experimentation. I devour technical books en masse in the hopes of always becoming more versatile. Being a victim of a broken public educational system (school of hard knocks), I was a neanderthal with a HS diploma at 17. Life was hard. I've since turned that around and have a massive private library with the finest collection of books ever amassed on shop practice, engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, mathematics, foundry ops, etc. etc. Knowledge is power.
Rather than becoming more valuable as an employee, I became a loathed character among my coworkers everywhere I went. The smarter I'd become, the more intimidated people around me were. They would try to sabotage the work I did, and the gossip was that I was trying to steal everyone's job. The Prod. Mgr's favorite go-to guys were always the worst. I'm smarter than most and frequently offered suggestions on how to increase productivity, remove redundancy, and kept an eye out for any chance to do away with gross inefficiency when I'd find it (and it was everywhere). End result: those in positions of management above me and subordinates in my charge took offense to my dedication.
I see alot of people talking about the miseries of having employees and I think back to how every bit of initiative I showed always caused me trouble. There is a flip side to that coin. Not disagreeing with you, quite the contrary. I've seen the eroding work ethics and mental incompetence of which you all speak in most places I've worked. Both among employees and employers. I have my own long nightmarish history of hiring worthless people in other pursuits. I have stories that would make your hair stand on end. That being as it is, the buck stops with the owner. You set the pace, you lead by example and your people, and miraculous things will happen. If
I think at the end of the day, it's all about the vision and tenacity of the man who wears the captain's hat. If the head honcho lacks people skills, or wants to sit back in his office leaving command decisions to people who are'nt invested in his company beyond their paycheck, then he's gonna get what he pays for. I plan to be different. I want my people to be inspired by me and they are going to know before they ever get hired that I'm a hard man to work for and only want motivated and ambitious people who I can train and cross-train in every phase of production. I'll pay smart people what they are worth. I don't want automatons who are looking for an easy paycheck doing mind-numbing repetition. If I require that I'll construct a robot. I want nerds and geeks who love math and science and ain't afraid to get dirty. Since I am one, I know how to find them with relative ease
So here I am, a 1-man shop being born. I've been buying tooling and American heavy metal ~ a Clausing and SB lathe, bridgeport milling machine, Miller welding rigs ~ MIG, TIG, Stick, etc. I'm resurrecting each piece of machinery I buy, truing and trimming it so that when it hums back to life in my shop, it will be as perfect as it was the day it rolled off the assembly line (and reworked to handle my own automation schemes). I spent a considerable sum of coin on the lion's share of tooling from a shop that once employed 40+ people in it's heyday. The owner had slowly become a 1-man shop, and shared with me his wisdom about the burdens of employees which I see echoed here. I don't have a piece of paper from a college saying I'm a mechanical engineer but I've got more books on the subject than most college professors. I'll get one eventually but since the only man I ever plan to call boss is the ugly mug I see staring back at me each morning in the mirror, there is no rush. I would rather die a slow painful death than ever again work for someone I regard as my intellectual inferior. Arrogant? Perhaps. Suffering at the hands of petty fools and primadonnas throughout life has made me this way. I sink or I float based on my own merits and determination and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm an unemployable control-freak who needs to have creative freedom as badly as he needs oxygen.
I should be erecting structural steel and placing the foundation for my shop within the next 4 months. It's been a thing I've dreamt about for more years than I can count. I will start out as a 1-man operation, but I'm planning on explosive growth, huge banks of redundant equipment jigged up for production, aggressive marketing and sales, etc. I'm going to build an industrial empire in the aftermath of NAFTA and GATT gutting our industrial sector. I know am ex-foundryman from Beth Steel who now works at Home Depot. If I didn't have fire in my belly that could have been me. Only difference between he and I is one of us refuses to surrender. I'll screw up big along the way but am determined to make a go of it.
Marco
