My warehouse/shop neighbor is a metal fab guy and and excellent welder, not surprising. He builds some pretty impressive components for various small industries. I'd guess his actual welding time is an hour or so a day. A lot of it is cutting, fitting, grinding.

He didn't do that off the bat though. A good welder is worth some money. It's a real art form.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Perhaps a good fit between welding and your IT training would be NC machining. Pretty amazing what an NC machine will do. I built a clean room for a client who does prototype and plastic injection mold machining. He has two of the machines with the sliding see-through window/doors. You get everything set up, close the doors and start it up. Several streams of the milky looking cutting fluid stream onto the cutting area continually. It's a trip to watch it change bits and attack the work anew.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Every time some former student comes back to visit and tells me he's/she's looking at education as a career I wince. In this day and age I really have to pump myself up to recommend it to anyone I care about. We need good teachers now more than ever, but you gotta go in with your eyes wide open and not looking through rosy lenses.

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

I agree- keep your job until you find another one. However the perfect job is not being born to "the right parents". Plenty of kids are born to "the right parents" and do nothing. Or less than nothing. Or waste the parents money on stupid ****. Being born to "the right parents" is a idiotic leftist meme.

Teaching is tough- and it's low paying. You had better really like it or you won't last. If you do last and don't like it you'll be a horrible teacher. Find something which you can do, you can learn to like and pays the bills. Some folks look their whole lives for this position, some find it after decades and some are happy no matter what. Do what you gotta do.

I told them that is make them sweep the shop with a toothbrush. The administration asked if I was serious( took that as a hint) and said naaaaah it was a joke...

I don't trust them enough to have them sort my storeroom. Tried to have them sort Legos. But that didn't work out. The lazy kids stayed lazy, the idiots stayed idiots and the good kids did what I asked.


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I hear ya and have told him it's more than just summers off. Both in-laws were teachers in a not great but not terrible town, my FIL retired from the school system but still teaches as an adjunct at a state college.

History is something that does really interest him and I'm loath to discourage him from anything academic. He's been tested at a very high IQ and took the SATs (not PSATs) in 8th grade with the HS juniors and seniors and did well enough to get into most selective state schools. That hasn't carried over to the rest of his academics, though.

We do have a number of friends who are teachers, including one female who has been teaching at a state correctional facility and will be retiring next year with full benefits and pension at 45yo after 20 years. We're going to have him talk with all of them to hear all of the ups and downs. Of course, he is 17 and that could all change by tomorrow or next week.

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

Don't do it.....that's my advice.


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This is sad but true.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Duly noted.

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

You have to enjoy helping the kids who are there to learn something.
My brother in law said it took him at least a year to learn how to command a class room. Especially with tons of kids acting out and who have no discipline at home.

He and several of his friends started out in the teach for america program being sent to problem schools. My sister did that as well.

One of her favorite stories is wittnessing a teacher discuss dinosaurs. "Have you seen jurassic park?" Assent from the class "like that". End of the lesson

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im just so overwhelmed that I cant get a foothold anywhere. I never have time to do anything. I get home and I have to immediatly go back into teaching mode and make lessons and crap, I don't want to do that. I have other items that need my attention that arent school related. I am not sleeping regularly, my weekends are always packed full of stuff to do. Sundays I always have to go to church and do my weekly chores and after all of that what energy do I have left to put towards teaching crap... none, just like when I get home.

its too much for me.. I'm fighting fires every day with a spray bottle. I quit.. I quit I quit I quit I quit.

Don if one thing you are not it is a quitter. Life for short periods can seem overwhelming. This is part and parcel of increasing your tolerance and stress threshold.

People that do not pass through this type of thing in many variations have limited abilities. It really never stops and as you get experience. Your tolerance and stress level activation modes trigger points rise much higher. Your self confidence has also gotten a boost by then as well.

Now if you miss all this not so good stuff it seriously limits you. All part of becoming a well rounded high functioning person. If something is too easy usually we are not growing.

Easier will arrive in some form. Actually it really is no easier but seems so because your tolerance and stress levels are not triggered any more at that level. .

Decisions I have to make and execute today would be impossible if I had not passed through so many previous situations. Some people would think I lead a very complex life. The reality is it is not complex for me as my stress and tolerance threshold level is now so high. When emotions get into the mix it inhibits or stops you thinking. You just become more emotional instead.

Don. There is light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train coming at you. I know I am not you but all us humans do have some common issues.

All us fellows have limits for example. They can fortunately be expanded through adversary and experience basically . It is never an easy passage. At times I wonder if the destination was worth the passage. In hindsight I think it was for myself.

It either makes you or breaks you as well I suppose. At 73 I visualize myself just sitting in a rocking chair doing fundamentally nothing and perhaps unhappy if I had not taken those many passages and challenges. There were many nights I got little sleep in the worse of them.

Teaching is not for the faint of heart! I never taught at that level but in my bus driving days I found the junior high level were the biggest pain to deal with.

I taught in college juniors and seniors....pretty ideal as for mental attitude, though there were a couple who were very very lazy.

Several also would come to my desk and lean way over to talk to me...(college women now). It was a bit of a distraction, but I never gave them any better grades for it....that I know of.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Class prep time will get shorter after the first year so if that's your main problem, I'd put up with it for a while. By my 20th yr of teaching, prep times was 1/100th of the prep time the first time around.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Most real jobs require a dues paying period and working 12 hours a day is not surprising.

My average work day is 7-8 am start with a 4-7 pm finish, and an hour or two of office work and book keeping after that, and to us Yankees at least Saturday is a work day.

This is why I had to got rid of fun hobbies like my vintage Mercedes no more time for stuff like that sadly, I have not touched my poor guns in 6 months either.

Make some time for yourself, it will be hard but just do it. One way that helped me was I hired a cleaning lady for my condo, a $100 every two weeks frees up my time on the weekends.

As you get further along you will probably become more efficient and have less prep hours.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200