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For those willing to share I'm curious on what everyone's profession, ballpark annual income, education and work experience is. No bragging, just laying down the facts.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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BA and two years graduate school, but no master. Currently a manager in commercial/industrial real estate, at low 6 figures, prior work experience was a small business owner for 16 years, before that worked as a supervising management analyst at a major utility, after 5 promotions over 17 years, starting as a clerical temp.
Analyst in health care (admin), enough to live as head of household in a house, B.A. in psychology, worked in 25 temp job assignments, answering service, pharmacy clerk, receptionist, newspaper copy editor for 10 years.
Learned most on the job. I'm not sure that there are vocational programs specific to the tool maker profession, but there are plenty of CNC machining programs around. Even still, candidates go through a weeding out period. Many don't make the cut. Most is learned on the job, so you either learn fast, or you find something else to do for work.
I will probably pull 45K-50K this year. I've been laid off twice last year, and left 3 jobs. Very unstable. Michigan is a very bad state to work as a machinist. Most shops pay crap and have not invested in efficient machinery. Many of the good paying places only hire machinists for the short term, when work builds up. When it drops, they lay everyone off. I'm really thinking about starting my own business though. That's the only reason I would consider staying in this state, which has more toolmakers per capita than any other.
What comes around, goes around though. There are not many people left with the skills necessary to do the work, and the young kids want nothing to do with the trade. Wages are rising, though not fast enough. And workers have made huge sacrifices years ago. If the companies don't pay, they don't get the worker, and they can whine all they want about it.
I program CNC grinders, run boring mills, lathes, and an assortment of manual grinding equipment. Most of my work is one off, and no margin for error. At other jobs, I have worked mostly on mills, though spent a fair bit of time working on highly automated equipment, like swiss lathes. There is no shortage of things that can be learned in this business.
I would say, someone smart enough to be a good machinist can do better in another line of work. At the same time, a good machinist/toolmaker never has to look far for work. It takes me a grand total of 5 minutes to drive to work. Right now, you can quite your job in the morning and have on by lunch time. Not exaggerating either. If I wanted more money, I would eat the OT like everybody else. I'm not everybody else though. You have to fight for your fair share in this line of work.
I think being a machinist is a solid career, all things considered. If anyone wants to whine about the downsides, and there are many, I say get the heck out. No sense polluting the already rotten/bitter pool of talent. I'm a machinist because it's what I'm good at, and what I love to do. When it starts to feel like just another job though, I'm out, like any other sensible person.
High school, a little college and near 40 years experience where experience is valued above everything else.
Below is from 2010 salary survey... I am in the purple which is pretty good for living in rural Georgia.
I'm 67 and will be retiring soon. Next year I hope to work three days a week dropping down to two days the year after that.
Wow, that is extremely good for rural Georgia where wages tend to be lower, especially for the lower cost of living in those areas. I like reading stories like this.
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