A Master Who Has Been Working In CNC For 20 Years Tells The Truth: The Workshop Only Cares About Profit, And Being Too Honest Will Only Lead To Losses Everywhere.

A master who has been working in CNC for 20 years tells the truth: the workshop only cares about profit, and being too honest will only lead to losses everywhere.

There is a mechanical processing factory in Deyang. An old master in the factory said that he has worked here for twenty years making boring and milling machines and CNC machining. He guards the machine tools every day and has met many apprentice machine operators and masters. The longer I stay, the more I understand that there is no pure and simple friendship in the piecework workshop, and there is a pull and pull between interests everywhere.

Grab the good work and avoid the bad work.

Everyone is rushing to make workpieces that are easy to use, have a high unit price, are not prone to scrapping, and have difficulty in determining the status of scrapping; everyone is trying to avoid workpieces that are difficult to cut, prone to machine collisions, and difficult to clean up the iron filings produced. In the summer of 2024, the workshop received a batch of blanks made of high-temperature alloys. These blanks have the characteristics of high hardness and the tools are damaged quickly. In terms of consumption, the masters working in three shifts looked for various excuses to shirk. In the end, they had no choice but to arrange for the work to be done by young apprentices who had just entered the factory for only three months. As a result, three tools broke and were lost due to unskilled operation.

Many veteran technical workers will reserve key know-how in machine adjustment. They are not being cautious. If they teach new people, high-quality jobs and output will be taken away by new people, and their own income will be directly affected by this. For example, many experienced workers never set the zero-point compensation parameters in front of others, but secretly write them down in their notebooks when performing X-axis tool setting.

He said he was not tired from doing the housework

Many young people who had just joined the factory couldn't keep their things to themselves. They casually complained to their coworkers about their salary and the night shift. Their words spread very quickly, and it only took half a day to reach the supervisor. At the beginning of 2025, a young man muttered once while eating in the cafeteria, "The night shift subsidy is too little." The next day, he was transferred to the old machine tool in the corner, specializing in taking urgent orders and rectification work.

In the end, urgent lists, things that need to be corrected, and tasks that are easy to take responsibility for are all placed above your head. The team leader of the workshop will look through the chat records to see who said what and it will be very clear. After so many years, I have come up with a true saying: Don’t be sincere in the workshop, don’t go to the team, reduce gatherings to chat and complain, and act in a low-key manner. There are no real friends here. When everyone gets along, it is all about interests in the final analysis.

Don’t believe it until your salary arrives.

When we enter a factory to operate machine tools, our most important goal is to make money. Salaries that can be clocked in on time every month are real. As for the verbal promotion promises made by the leaders and the seemingly existing team camaraderie, just listen to it and don't take it seriously. At the end of 2024, the workshop director promised to give out an extra month's bonus at the end of the year. However, at the end of the year, he only gave out a red envelope containing 500 yuan. Many long-term employees waited in vain and received no benefits.

It is no problem for coworkers who can get along well to help each other when changing tools or checking dimensions; if you encounter people who love to compete for job opportunities and pass the responsibility to others when encountering problems, then keep a certain distance and each do their own thing without interfering with each other. If the CNC work you are doing can be carried out safely, then do it in a down-to-earth manner. If there are always unpaid overtime work, performance will be deducted at will, and only the lowest-level employees will be held responsible when something goes wrong, if you feel that you can't stand it anymore, you can just choose to resign. Working part-time is just to make a living, there is no need to put yourself too deeply into yourself and cause yourself internal friction because of trivial things in the workshop.

Having too much sense of responsibility is the easiest way to suffer losses

There are many young people who have suffered a loss. A CNC master who has been working for 20 years tells the truth: the workshop only cares about profits, and being too honest will only lead to losses everywhere. This is entirely because the sense of responsibility is too heavy and he likes to be the first in everything. When I first started learning how to operate the machine, I saw oil leakage from the machine tool, errors in the position of the tooling, and unreasonable shift arrangements. I immediately ran to report it to the leader. I always felt that I was seeking benefits for the workshop. But the management understands the current situation more clearly than anyone else. The vast majority of processing plants are operating on a makeshift basis, with outdated equipment and disorganized management. The bosses are well aware of many problems, but they are just unwilling to spend money to rectify them.

You take the initiative to assume the final responsibility for everything. Once the workpiece is scrapped or the delivery is delayed, all responsibilities will be recorded on your head. In July 2023, there was an honest young man in the workshop who always helped others fix the work that had gone wrong. In the end, flaws appeared, but his performance was only deducted for half a month. He was so angry that he didn't speak for three days, and finally silently chose to accept it.

It’s your skill to see through but not tell, and to act stupid

There is a lot of dust in the workshop all year round . Analysis on the prospects of the CNC turning industry , and you have to work the all-night night shift. This person's body has been wearing out, and there is no need to torture himself because of other people's calculations and unreasonable management. There are many things that I understand but don't explain clearly. I have to pretend to be stupid when I should pretend to be stupid. It's like when the machine tool's alarm light comes on, and the coworker working next to him pretends not to notice it as if nothing happened. At this time, don't rush to turn it off. First, you need to confirm whether the situation is caused by his improper operation.

Take good care of your own skills, take control of the job in hand, and get salary remuneration steadily. Reduce involvement in quarrels and disputes between work stations, do not take the initiative to take on complex tasks for extraneous matters, and ignore the so-called human conflicts in the workshop. If you go out to engage in mental and physical operations to earn income, hard work is only the basic requirement. Only by knowing how to steadily control and adjust your mental state, and using some brain power to think, judge and weigh, can you reduce the number of times you are wronged and wronged.

The future of the industry depends on yourself, don’t expect others

In the CNC turning industry, competition is becoming more and more fierce, the price of orders has been kept low, the profits obtained by the workshop are very thin, and the boss pays more and more attention to output and efficiency. For masters engaged in mechanical processing, the prospects of the industry are not something that comes by waiting, but by gradually accumulating based on their own skills and mentality. Only by learning more about programming and familiarizing yourself with the cutting parameters of different materials can you have the confidence to change jobs or negotiate salary.

There are quite a few processing plants in Deyang, and more than 30% of them will cut their day shift workers by 2024, leaving only two shifts. However, the masters who really have good skills are competed by the processing factories to stay and hire them. Therefore, do not focus on the battle for workstations. Improving your own irreplaceable characteristics is the long-term way to respond to industry changes.

Friends who are engaged in CNC work or working in factories, have you ever suffered a loss due to your excessive honesty and unusually high sense of responsibility? Share your past experiences in the comment area, click a thumbs up and share the content to benefit many friends who work part-time and avoid stepping into similar pitfalls!