After graduating from mowing lawns at 14 (I was a child laborer. My mother insisted on the lawn being mowed every Friday whether it needed it or not) I decided on a career change.

When I was 14, a family friend was the Service Manager at a local Caterpillar Dealership and got me a summer job as a shop monkey. I became an expert at pushing a broom & cleaning up oil spills around the shop. I hated it. But, it wasn't long before I was working the parts counter and mowing the lawn out front, (previous experience, see above) on a 10hp Toro riding mower. Now we're talking.

Fast forward a couple years, I'm 16, know my way around the shop now, and getting to go pick up "parts." Life is good. Making about $4.50hr. I can do this.
Then the ultimate, delivering parts to our mechanics out in the field. Sometimes the 'field' was a road trip 200 miles to BFE, 10 miles off blacktop, to find a mechanic working on a skidder or loader, up to his elbows in gear oil.

By the time I graduated HS & left the Company, I learned to drive, not operate, but drive pretty much anything made by CAT, at least around the yard. Turned out to be a pretty good gig. There was nothing like lunch time around the shop. For a 14yo kid, I learned some pretty salty language from a bunch of dirty old men, for sure.