I had the same prob as Tiny Digger, when at school i only ever wanted to work with machines, our careers teacher was hopeless, i ended up on the railways playing with real trains which i did for 6-7 years and got to drive lots of stuff best was a 1000 ton Foster Yeoman stone train ! After that i did a few jobs but always managed to get in the seat of a digger in my spare time, i also put myself through the Tower Crane operators course and work on them for a while boy you think digger drivers put up with some thickets !! Try moving shuttering around when the wind picks up and getting called names by subbies coz you wont do dangerous lifts etc, then along came the Polaks and romanians they make great banksmen espesially when they cant speak english and you are doing a blind lift unreal, fortunately now we have land and i have diggers (i never keep them for long) so i get to use them frequently and ocasionally take out and do jobs for other people so have gained my skills and been told i am pretty good and have even taught a few young novices, hopefully they will become machine operators at least i am doing my bit to help. But really people and Bircham Newton & the trainers need to realise a ticket does'nt make you a good operator, It's experiece and common sense and a lot of people nowadays don't have a lot of the latter!!!