How do I stop being scared of ruining parts or losing a finger?
You are new. You do not know yet what your hands are doing, and the men around you have stopped remembering what that felt like. So they laugh instead of teach. This is not fair, but it is not your real problem either. Your real problem is that you are alone with your fear, and fear left alone grows teeth. It starts telling you lies — that asking questions makes you weak, that slowing down makes you look bad, that the mockery means you don't belong. None of that is true. The fear itself is telling you something true: this machine can take a finger, and that part costs real money. Good. Listen to that part of it. What is in your power is not their attitude. It is your own hands, your own pace, and which questions you ask and of whom. Master that, and the fear becomes useful instead of paralyzing.
Your fear is correct information, not weakness — the machine can hurt you and the part is not yours to waste. Use the fear: slow down, ask the exact question before you touch anything, and choose the one older guy who answers straight over the ones who mock you. Skill kills fear faster than nerve does.
What changes unlock by starting
- You stop hiding what you don't know and start asking sharper questions because of it.
- You build a working list of real dangers, learned from watching, not from your own injury.
- You find one steady teacher on the floor instead of gambling on the whole crew's mood.
- Your hands move at your pace, and over weeks that pace becomes simply how you work.