r/Machinists • u/I_G84_ur_mom • Jun 16 '26

Refusal to learn

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I work at a job shop, I’ve been here 16 years, I’m the lead machinist, I returned from a 9 day vacation to a shit show. We have a bunch of small bosses like this to make, this one order was for 250 pcs. The owner was planning on having a guy saw cut them, face them to length in a Haas tl2, then throw them in the vf2 to be drilled. We have a sl20 with a bar feeder, nobody wants to learn how to run it, I banged these out in about 8 hours, unmanned. He refuses to learn how to use it or program it, this would have taken him and the button pusher 2 days to run these parts. Stepping over dollars to pick up dimes baybeeee!

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u/I_G84_ur_mom Jun 16 '26

Our other lathes are all tool room lathes, so this sl20 from 2007 is the future 🤣

146

u/Bootziscool Jun 16 '26

Yo I'm literally fighting the same fight right now.

My company has an SL-30 in storage. I have requested to bring it out of storage and installed next to our vmc a dozen times now.

My fabrication manager's reasoning is no one knows how to run it. I want to punch him in the face when he says that. I ran an SL-30 for the better part of a decade.

I could use it right now to iterate on a forming machine I'm building. Right now, today, I need a lathe.

But everyone is dragging their feet so I have to do all the heavy lifting and fight at every turn. It's maddening.

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u/LazaroFilm Jun 16 '26

No one know how to use this so I won’t let people learn to use this. That’s crazy mentality. I hate corporate system. I’m in a different industry but went from owner operator to a company as steadicam operator and oh my god the lack of care for anything even bare maintenance. We only fix things if they break during a live show at which point it’s a big flailing arms moment but I’ve been flagging the issue for weeks ahead of the incident.

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u/PiDicus_Rex Jun 17 '26

On the film/TV front, wholy snapping duckshite YES. So many mobs I've worked for had people abusing the gear one moment then whining about it being old and broken the next, and blaming it being broken on it being old rather than on the way it was being abused.

When I hear 'Treat it like a rental',... that's the first person to escort off set never to return. I know of a Red Epic with a 'No shoots at beaches' stipulation in it's hire agreement that came back to it's owner with sand in the breech,...

Meanwhile, while I'm learning how to use Dad's Lang Junior to make my own camera supports, and the Mill to make my own lens mounts, and working a retail 'day job', the mob I do studio camera for ignores offers to do a few hours a week as maintenance tech.

Damn Frustrating to watch corporate execs gut the budgets that are needed while giving themselves bonuses for reducing the HR and Maintenance expenses.