Hi all,
If this is in the wrong place, please move it. Thanks.
31 y/o disabled man here, and I refuse to spend my life on disability.
Spent the last 4 years working in the mental health and substance abuse field in numerous capacities, most recently as a Peer Support Specialist. Absolutely burned myself out to the point of a near mental breakdown. I started off very, very good at what I did. By the end I didn't care about anyone or anything. The job had drained and sapped me of every drop of compassion and empathy I had. I'm out now, and I'm staying out.
I am very interested in machining. I watch machining videos in my leisure time, admittedly. I find it fascinating. Only problem: I am GREEN GREEN GREEN. Growing up, academics were stressed and hands on things were absent. I tried a welding class some years ago. My welds looked like they were done by a stupid monkey. Took an intro to machining class back in like, 2015. Had no idea what I was doing and kept screwing things up. The textbook might as well have been written in Japanese.
I am greener than the average green student. My classmates grew up doing shop stuff. I grew up nose deep in textbooks.
What advice do you have for someone like me? Someone who, despite these challenges, wants to carve out a stable, sustainable career? "Academic" careers that interest me are few and far between. Most of the degrees I would get wouldn't lead to a job. I'm basically exploring if machining is an option, and hanging around this forum to see cool machining stuff and learn.
Thanks!
From my angle: Consider something in the Quality area of manufacturing. This could be any number of things, from Quality Assurance /Management to Quality Control inspector, to Internal Auditor (ISO or other standard).
In my opinion, and I'd be interested in other's opinions here in this thread, I feel there is a greater opportunity for insertion into "Quality" by novices. This varies by company of course, but generally speaking my experience/observations have been that if you are going to actually peel steel on either a manual machine or CNC machine, working from a blueprint, you need much more disciplined technical training first.
You are going to need a degree of "technical training" for a Quality position as well mind you, and in some cases that might be more hard core than others. What I've done is generalize. Quality inspections and practices involve a higher degree of basic organizational, tracking, reporting, auditing, etc., from a records keeping perspective.
Just over 10 years ago I made a complete jump to something different, to manufacturing. Within a couple of years I was "promoted" into the Quality Department from the floor as a CNC Operator (not a machinist) because I was reliable in paying attention, picked up what was necessary quickly, but showed the bosses evidence of my prior career in what I was doing. They realized I had overlap from my time in IT benefitting a Quality Inspector.
Looking at jobs in the Quality Assurance / Inspections side of things may be worth looking over.
You will need some basics however, make no mistake. Out of a bunch I'm sure, I'd start with looking up GD&T Blueprint symbology and how to read a blueprint.
Best of luck to you.