What are your long-term goals?
Are you planning to move or stay where you are? If memory serves, you live near extended family and the family homestead.
Would you want to open your own shop? This might have greater financial rewards, but it would also mean less wrench work and more wrangling the same knuckleheads you were disparaging.
Do you want to move beyond transmissions to engine work, or remain a specialist? What about heavy industry like mining, or long-haul trucking?
Does this add more confusion, or help focus your thinking?
Well the long term goal is to open my own shop, but that's something I'll have to work hard for. It's a risky thing starting a business from scratch here in South Africa and especially so in the town I am currently living in... the town is sort of dying so I wont be opening one here... however me and the Betty are planning to move down to the seaside within the next 10- max 15 years...
I don't at all want to move over to engines, I like drive trains. Not that I mind learning about engines but I feel the market is saturated with oaks that can work on engines.. transmissions is a totally different ball game that's why I'm dedicating so much towards it. (But as I said I do want the knowledge around engines, but you've got to pick your poison because gaining knowledge around engines means I have to actually start working more on them, I mean I understand the fundementals quite good. The other thing is you can't just pick up a good book and learn about engines... the only way you can truely learn stuff in this trade is through hard earned experience.)
As for heavy equipment, that game is also a little different here... that's a nasty direction to go... the reason for that is because most techies just patch them up, as long as the wheels turn it's the next guys problem... yes you can argue that I can do a better job of things but people wont pay for a better job when there is someone cheaper.
So all in all, yes I would like to stick to transmission (Mainly automatics) and yes I am planning on moving out of town and then starting my own thing in a more upclass town.
It's a touchy subject about the farm/homestead I would be far away from it then and it'll be like losing a loved one 😅 I'll miss it. But I have a whole lot of siblings that can manage it and build that up on it's own. (I would very much like to retire next to the seaside somewhere! Very much!)
Ill come back to this later tonight, going to be busy today.