When I started my apprenticeship, I worked with a few guys that had served in WW2 born in the early 1920s.
They went to college on the GI bill, most served in the military, a few my age were back from Vietnam, thinking they might want to be machinist.
Many lived through the Great Depression.
These were tough SOBs, becareful cause they'd threaten to kick your ass if you touched their tool box without permission.
You had to prove yourself worthy of being an apprentice.
After you become a journeymen 5 yrs of training and a couple at yrs at school and have paid your dues, you became one of the club, a Union machinist.
I was the youngest journeyman, All these guys are dead now except one.. . I worked with most of these guys 24 yrs, no one in this group ever quits. They have your back, they are never late for work, they don't call in sick... you are expected do the same.
After 15 yrs I became their team leader, it was an honor to work with these men.
When I was hired by a small struggling company, who purchased a new CNC lathe that needed to be up and running there was already a difference in the quality of the employee, I was older now, one of the old guys.
But I brought my work ethics with me...it shouldn't have stood out because it seemed normal to me... but by now it was becoming unusual to work hard for your company, take pride in your work, take charge of the job, your competition is the whole world, but so is your market.
We did assemble good team but it was much harder this time, lots of people quit, got dismissed, had poor work ethic, but there were enough of us that made a difference, that hung together and turned an almost failed small one owner machine shop into a successful manufacturing corporation, competing world wide... it takes years of hard work, along with some hard times, and a few set backs, but there is nothing finer than a team of machinist and helpers working together to build a successful company.
Today's people not so much...they are waiting on the "new plan" robots to do the work, and a personal monthly income check from the government for just being alive.
