[palmotea]

> As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff.

Probably because the Chinese are working 996. I know people who work 996, in China, and they dislike it as much as I would.

That's "jumping at the chance."

[fragmede]

You don't have to work 996 to have an attitude of let's help the customer take their product to market. The American machine shop will laugh at you for not being a machinist, and tell you oh we don't do powder coating, we don't make cardboard boxes or styrofoam inserts. So then you, as the customer trying to get a product to market gotta run around town figuring it all out.

Meanwhile, you start talking to the Chinese machine shop guy, and he's all yeah my brother's does powder coating, his uncle does cardboard boxes and styrofoam inserts are another relative. The American attitude could go that and not work 996, but that's why it's not just about the money.

[palmotea]

So basically you're blaming American workers for an attitude problem, when the real issue is, due to offshoring, the supply chain either doesn't exist here or isn't so centralized/expansive enough that someone has random relatives in related manufacturing businesses they're motivated to send work to?

So basically, you're being unfair.

And, from personal experience, while it's not exactly the same, when I've worked with American tradesmen, they've always had someone they could refer me to for related work.

[shimman]

These people will never stop to think that they are the problem in society, society has been molded in their neoliberal image where everyone is a savvy consumer and worker. We have 40 years of living in such a society and income inequality is worse than the gilded age, life expectancy is regressing, and children are doing worse in school; people don't even have the time to enjoy themselves and are forced to consume to be part of culture. Why we took all this for granted because a couple of MBA fuckups thought they knew better than the rest of us, I'll never know. Well actually I do know, because they were so greedy they wanted to make slightly more money rather than provide Americans good jobs.

It's disgusting on so many levels.

[Loughla]

So your argument is that because machine shops don't do the leg work for you in finding suppliers for the things you need, they're worse?

[fragmede]

Yes. It's a fundamental attitude problem of "that's not my job, it's your problem". It's like after your car gets into a crash. You just want your car back the way it was before the crash, assuming you don't take the insurance pay out. You want to be taken care of. But no, you gotta take it to a mechanic, then a body shop, and then a glass place. Or for software "well, it works on my machine". Even if we take the attitude out of the picture, if you're operating a business, you don't have time to spare. Having to find vendors for each step of the process takes time that could be better spent working on the product.

[Loughla]

First off, if you have a car accident and one shop doesn't do everything to fix it, you went to a terrible shop. I've never seen a body repair shop that didn't do all that.

But that's beside the point.

Do you honestly expect a machine shop, a place that specializes in creating or fixing or modifying pieces of metal, to find you packaging and fluff for inside the package and then ship it to your customers? Why?

I'm absolutely confused on why you would expect a company that has literally nothing to do with an area of business to just do that thing for you for your convenience.

Do you expect your plumber to also put your floors down? Do you expect your doctor to also clean your teeth or do your taxes?

This isn't an 'attitude problem', this is a 'you have irrational expectations' problem.

[fragmede]

And now you're calling me irrational. Can you see why all those jobs moved to China?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZThGL1ngx/