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Hit 10,000 hours of bench time last week and I'm not celebrating
Ten thousand hours doing avionics repairs. That's a lot of wire splices. But here's the thing - I still screw up simple stuff. Yesterday I forgot to ground myself before opening a GPS unit. Lucky I didn't fry anything. The number just proves I've been doing this a long time. Not that I'm some kind of expert. Any other techs feel like the more hours you log, the more you realize what you don't know?
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carr.abby5d ago
and that's the thing about the Dunning Kruger effect nobody talks about. the more you actually know the more you see how much you don't know. like when you first start out you think you're hot stuff because you can crimp a connector without messing it up. but then ten thousand hours later you're triple checking your own work because you know exactly how many ways a single loose wire can mess up a whole system. it's humbling honestly. the guys who brag about their hours are usually the ones who don't actually know what they're doing yet. real expertise comes with that constant feeling of "wait did I actually do that right?
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tessaperry4d ago
and yeah it's wild how that plays out everywhere too, not just in work or trades. like take cooking or driving or even something simple like taking care of a houseplant. you start off thinking you're a genius because you didn't kill that succulent in a week. then a few years later you're stressing over soil pH and rotation schedules and whether that slight yellowing means root rot or just too much sun. it's like the more you learn the more you realize how much you don't even know exists to know. there's this weird shift from "I got this" to "oh no what if I don't" and honestly that second part is probably the sign you're actually getting somewhere. the people who never feel that doubt are usually stuck where they started, they just don't know it.
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