I've been out of the machine shop fer a month now, 8 years in the making.
Wouldn't go back if i had too.
Insurance is ****ed, period. Life ins is cheap though, i suggest that at least. Health ins... we're ****ed left and right so i dont have any. But the i dont have kids.
As for sticking with machining? Thats on you, however, wages have gone down with automation, the programmers are getting dumber as less and less feed back comes from the floor. The fact is they think they dont need us to keep thier machines running good... india and china can and will do it cheaper and frankley better.
Far as I'm concerned machining and factory skilled labor in general is a dying breed in this country, purely from automation and simple corporate greed.
An old machinist I knew once told me "you'll never get rich working for someone else"
As for logging, play it safe, stay out of debt, and keep work infront of you, diversify, learn to run any heavy equipment, dozers, excavators, loaders, anything and everything, cause logging eventually uses any thing to get the job done. and look into getting a cdl, trucking jobs are everywhere and not going away any time soon.
A short history of me, spotted owl, woods shut down when i was 12-13, I'd already been pulling choker with my uncle fer a couple years off and on, so i got into machining through high school vocational classes.... 15 or do years later machining sucked, and i was still in the woods when i could, started falling trees for fire firewood, but it got out of hand and i needed equipment to keep up... that turned into a few loads of logs... and the hook was firmly set..
Was a lead/manager/supervisor at half a dozen mach shops, i can program fanuc yasnac, mitsubishi and fadal, run lathes and mills, tooling i did it all regardless of the machine,
Decided in 2013 i was finally done machining and it was just a way to keep ins and let me build my business, april 1st i became a small biz owner...
It took longer than i would have liked but im full time logging now, and i own all of my equipment outright, i owe the bank only for a mortgage.
For what its worth, i've had migraines since i was a kid, nearly daily fer the last 14 years or so... think ive had 2 since nov 10th, the shop mentality is no longer one of inovation, but blind acceptance of fate, and ass kissing your way to the top, all things i detest, i would rather work with you to make you better then to step on your face to better myself... but alas... no one else thinks that way anymore.
So **** em, i'll keep my knowledge to myself and go logging.
