I was a full stack web dev and Linux sysadmin for about a decade. Switched to welding and machining - I wanted to make something tangible for a change. The work itself was awesome (legos for grownups) but the industry is fairly toxic IME.
Right now I'm working on getting back into IT (Network security).
I guess fumes coming out when you do welding are toxic. I have done it myself a few times and remember thinking about smell and if it can indicate I will get cancer frim it..
Based on my experience with machinists I think they might mean on a personal level (although the fumes are toxic too). The machinists I've met have been pretty hard to deal with. I can imagine the work environment being unpleasant, especially if you aren't prepared for that.
This is correct. Eventually people can be very nice, once you get to know them, but you either have to be a certain type or simply have guts to tell people to sod off, as then they would start showing respect:) I think this is very similar to construction and some other related industries.
Both actually. Employers are stingy with PPE and you're constantly surrounded by dust, fumes and potentially harmful chemicals. Keep in mind this wasn't some tiny shop that made fences, I was working on military prototypes and aerospace projects.
I switch to the industry during the Obama administration, but after 2016 people were feeling a little too comfortable with their misogeny and racism.
To final straw was my direct supervisor becoming more radicalized into the far right. Not a comfortable feeling when they guy you report too leaves a 9mm with hollow points on top of his toolbox every day. The guy hadn't read a book except for the bible in 20 years, got all his news from Facebook and Fox.
> I was working on military prototypes and aerospace projects.
How does one get into that? And is the money better or worse than software? I've been looking at switching to welding and machining for a while now, but the pay in my area isn't great.
The rest doesn't bother me. I even hear my local pastor is a racist now[0]!
Location, location, location. Well, and skillset of course.
I would strongly recommend against it though. The pay is terrible. There was a strong push for a few years to get people into the trades, and there was a strong misrepresentation of what the opportunities are really like.
Keep in mind that government contracts are a race to the bottom. The contracts go to the lowest bidder and since materials, etc. are a given, employee pay has really suffered. Being a machinist is not the path to a middle class life anymore for most people.
Actually, this is what I thought might be meant. But I am used to the phrase "industry is toxic" to mean basically "not nice", as opposed to literally toxic.
I kind of did the opposite- went from working in construction and ended up doing development as part of my job.
I briefly worked for a pipeline installation company ( oil,gas,etc), where welders were making fantastic money. So a few things on health:
Welding electrode design has been improving,so welders get less toxic fumes than they used to a decade ago.
People working in fields with pipelines often get joint problems because of extensive time spent in poor weather. Lots of awkward positions- which is harmful long term and etc. Also high end welding isn't something quick to get into: it does require a lot of experience and few people progress enough to become really good at it.
I'm the sole IT tech for a small manufacturing facility - I was already part time and just got the request to reduce my hours even further for now. The local job market is already subpar here, so I'm definitely concerned about the months to come.
The Benzomatic takes a long time to develop a good sear. It's fun but not terribly effective in my experience. I should point out that I'm using it with the Searzall.
I'm currently taking some classes at my community college.
Besides the insane prices, one things I've noticed is that students don't get their student aid paid out until weeks into the semester, so you either have the choice to buy books at incredibly high prices at the college bookstore (higher even brand new compared to Amazon), or you have to wait 6 weeks before the aid is available for students to shop elsewhere.
I teach at a community college, and as it was explained to me by our financial aid office, student aid isn't paid out until a few weeks in as a mechanism to prevent financial aid fraud. Every year people sign up for classes, collecting their financial aid money, and then never show up. Community colleges are the primary target for this type of fraud, since we have open admissions.
The federal government is not okay with this, so they instituted a system of mandatory reporting where we have to keep track of whether or not a student shows up during the first few weeks. That way they know who not to send aid to when that time is up. If we fail to properly report this then the college is expected to send money to the federal government to make up the difference.
So it's not a trick on our part to get you to use the campus bookstore. I personally encourage my students not to use the bookstore, since I think marking up the prices on textbooks is inappropriate. I've also pushed hard for the adoption of open textbooks in my department, but it looks like that's going to be at least two years away.
My very first programming experience was on an MSX. At least in my small circle, MSX (and the MSX-2) were at least as popular as Spectrum or the Commodore 64 in Europe. In the 90s (not sure what the current status is) the retro scene interest for MSX computers was quite active as well.
Me too. We had a MSX II (with tape drive, Floppy disk, green monitor etc.) I suppose it was the mid/late 80s, I was just a kid and I was using it to play games, use some programs (and MSX-DOS) and also do some experiments with MSX BASIC.
I remember it as a nice machine, and I was sad that it was not as popular as Commodore 64
Hi! right now since it's still the early set of people for the team and we're establishing the culture, we're looking primarily for people who will be fully on board full-time. in the future I think we might reach a point where part-time could start to work. Hope that helps, let me know if I can answer anything else :-)
