[sgtnoodle]

You may enjoy reading the non-fiction book, "Hot Tech, Cold Steel", by Chuck Hutchins. It's his story of starting a tech company on the forefront of CNC machining.

One of the chapters talks about Chuck's experience in his first job after graduating from college. He accepted a relatively low compensation offer at a machine tool manufacturer, on the condition that he would spend his first year sequentially shadowing every other employee. There's an anecdote about him being handed a power tool by a machinist and told to go ahead and cut metal on a several hundred thousand dollar linear rail (in 1950s dollars), and the boss running and screaming across the shop to stop him.