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Showerthought: Passing by the empty space where Miller's machine shop once was
I took a different route home yesterday and noticed the lot where Miller's shop used to be is now just a fenced-in patch of dirt. That place was buzzing when I was a kid, full of guys running bridgeports and engine lathes, with blueprints pinned to every wall. You could smell the cutting oil from the sidewalk. Now, the few shops left in this area are all CNC cells, clean and quiet, with one person watching several machines. When I got into this work, learning meant hours on a manual mill, feeling the feed by hand. These days, my job is mostly about tweaking G-code and checking probes, which is good work but it feels different. I guess the neighborhood changed, and so did the trade. Still, sometimes I miss the rumble and grit of how things used to be.
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the_derek7mo ago
Hearing you miss the rumble and grit really hits home. That change in the trade is SO real.
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jade_gonzalez687mo ago
Miller would've fired me after my first day on the lathe.
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west.jade7mo ago
The old guard had zero patience for learning curves. You either had the touch or you were out. Modern shops let you breathe, but that raw pressure forged better hands. Miss that brutal honesty sometimes, even if it meant chewing you out over a thousandth of an inch.
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