Hello everyone, I’m currently a 23yo forklift operator, I have a pretty decent job unloading trucks for cbsa officers doing commercial inspections. $25/hr 37.5 a week paid weekly, with $700 allowance for all medical cus it’s just a permanent position with a temp contract company, so I don’t work for the cbsa but I have level 1 security clearance for federally protected facilities, so I sit in the warehouse all day.

The job is really boring I barely do any offloads, many days I do nothing at all, just a lot of free time. I didn’t mind it at first but now it’s starting to affect me mentally I think. My previous job was forklift operator and order picker at Rona and it was very fast paced. I have never gone to school for anything to this day, I worked to get here simply by experience and then I decided to take the next step at Rona by getting my actual forklift certificate from Levitt and then I moved up. $7 pay increase, not to mention better vacation.

I don’t have my full license yet I still have to wait a year before I can do the full test for that, and I was going to go towards customs but I’ve realized I don’t like the looks of the environment or policies that the government has created here.

I’m already an unofficial heavy equipment operator but my dad seems to think going one step up in this same path would be the best option, the only problem is I don’t really know what that next step is, and I’m also indecisive as my truest passion is fixing things, like cars. I figured fixing cars should maybe stay a hobby as the pay isn’t as good being a service tech.

I need some advice from people with experience possibly even with my exact situation if any of you start out in forklift and branched out, or just how you got into heavy equipment operations. I’m a bit nervous operating a bigger machine as I’m only used to the forklift, I’ve driven a 10k lbs forklift but it’s not as big as an excavator that’s for sure.

Hopefully you guys can give me some good insight here I’m just kinda stuck right now,

Thank you brothers