Thank you for the encouraging words. I try and check HN every day before my shift but I usually never have time to comment until much later, at which point there isn't much activity in the threads, so I sometimes wonder whether or not my posts add any value or if I'm just writing for myself.

With regards to how I ended up in my current job I'll do my best to offer a succinct timeline. My prior work experience consisted mostly of manual labor or retail/customer service type jobs. I never enjoyed customer service, I'm too shy, but through circumstance and my own apathy and lack of ambition that's were I ended up. After some time my dissatisfaction with my work and my own wasted potential led me to reevaluate the seriousness with which I needed to focus on my career. Machining/welding and general manufacturing was something that always interested me even though I had limited experience with any of those fields. I've always been good with my hands and I'm obsessively detail oriented and like fixing things. I love following well delineated procedures and checklists actually make me smile so I felt something in aerospace might be a good fit.

I was fortunate to be living in an area with a ton of aerospace/manufacturing companies and I ended up applying to a number of them. I got hired for a very entry level low skill position having nothing to do with the manufacturing side of things. But, it got my foot in the door and I eventually moved into a role closer to the factory floor and from there worked my way into an apprenticeship that led to my current position.

As to how I found HN, I'm not entirely sure. While I've been reading HN for a number of years I've only relatively recently started posting, largely in an attempt to improve my writing, which is something I'm very self conscious about. I find this one of the few places online were I'm confident that if I say something stupid or make an argument lacking clarity, that I'll be called out on it in a civil and constructive manner. It's possible that I came about HN through one of those "We act like HackerNews" threads on /g/ but that would be slightly embarrassing so I hope it was through some other avenue.

I've worked with a number of brands like Haas, Fanuc, Mazak and recently some 3d printers from EOS. Haas stuff breaks all the time which can be infuriating.