Hit 30 years in the shop last month and it snuck up on me

I was cleaning out my truck and found my old apprentice card from back in '94. Realized I've been building cabinets for 30 years come last August. Never thought I'd stick with one trade that long, but here I am still finding sawdust in places I didn't know I had. Back when I started, we did everything by hand with dado blades and a lot of elbow grease. Now I watch guys my age running CNC machines and it feels like a different world. How many years you got under your belt and does it feel like it flew by or dragged on?

3 comments

3 Comments

troyp373d ago

Funny how those milestones sneak up when you're too busy working to look at the calendar. Your buddy got it right with the first chunk crawling and the rest vanishing like sawdust in the wind.

ivan_fisher991d ago

25 years in flooring? Holy hell. That's a whole career before you even blink. My old man did 30 in construction and said the same thing about time speeding up after the first decade.

umab354d ago

Had a buddy hit his 25 year mark in the flooring trade and he told me the same thing. Said he was just looking for a tape measure in his van and found a old receipt from his first job back in '99. He said it felt like yesterday he was laying linoleum with a crooked knife and now he's arguing with clients over luxury vinyl planks lol. Told me the first 10 years crawled by but the last 15 flew so fast he almost missed it.