Career choices and best way to start myself off
I spent most of my life in a bodyshop from age 14 after school. Started as floor sweeper then graduated to bathroom cleaner. Earned that apprenticeship. Paid my dues. Did some post secondary vo-tech(parents idea) after high school, but dropped out because I was much further advanced then what they were teaching. Later on other training through employment, BMW, Benz, Gm, I-car, paint school, and a few others. With that being said, in 30 plus years have seen quite a few kids come into the shop out of vo-tech schools, and don't take it the wrong way and I mean no disrespect. They all want to be on Tv, they all think they should be top dog, they all think they know everything, and all they say is we did it like this in school. Welcome to the real word. Keep your mind open because you can learn something from every person you work alongside and the shop you just walked into might do a different way. Walking in a shop you're the new guy, the young gun, and you have to earn the respect and trust of your employer and co-workers one step/job at a time. Do it right the first time and no comebacks because that cost's everybody money. There's politics, ethics, favorites in every shop. It's best not to get involved. Do your work, keep your head down, and go on to the next work order. The ones that stirs the pot is usually the one that ends up going down the road and that decision is not always handed down from management. Get in over your head on a job and a shop full of guys will laugh as you suffer and die. Things don't always go as easy as class props that have been disassembled 100 times. Shop owners can be gunshy. Myself and another tech watched a vo-tech grad destroy an Audi on the frame machine. He wouldn't listen, and despite us telling him differently, was taught to pull everything square. Audi's are asymmetrical so he destroyed 2 frame rails and shocktowers in the process.
Work hard, act like your serious, build on your on the job skills and experience, build your toolbox, and build a resume that looks like you can stay somewhere for a while. When you feel you've learned as much as you can or stagnated then bounce.
Tv, Most of those guys already had established businesses of their own, the right connections, capitol, being in the right place at the right time, and a fair amount of luck before they were a TV star. Taking guitar lessons doesn't make for a rock star.