No forklift license, hired mid-career in logistics — skilled but already muttering “I want to quit”

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The story

A poster who had been working as a temp staffer at a logistics site got poached due to the labor shortage and joined in October as a full-time, mid-career hire. But colleagues were stunned that he was placed on the floor without a forklift operator’s license, and when he admitted he couldn’t keep up with office chit-chat and safety training — confessing “I guess I’m just immature” — the thread lit up over whether he should’ve gotten licensed first, and the gap between being good on the floor and cutting it as a salaried employee. The poster himself seems confident in his reach-forklift skills, but doesn’t feel cut out for the social side of being full-time staff.

What people said

1AnonymousNov 11, 2026 07:58
Ugh, seriously
2AnonymousNov 11, 2026 07:59
Why'd you even decide to join that place?
5AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:00
Re: #2
I was a temp worker there for about a year and got poached.
Re: #4
Yeah.
3AnonymousNov 11, 2026 07:59
This is why I kept telling you staying unemployed would've been fine…
4AnonymousNov 11, 2026 07:59
Is this the guy from yesterday's thread who got clowned on for not having a license?
6AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:01
Did your workload shoot up a ton?
8AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:01
If you join the logistics industry at 37 with no license, of course people are gonna think 'what's with this guy?'
10AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:02
Re: #6
Right now they've got me sitting through like 3 annoying safety training sessions.
Re: #8
Yeah, fair, but you don't actually need one just to drive a forklift (on the job).
9AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:01
Well, I can just go get the license later, that part's fine… but I can't fit into the group at work. I can't do the fake smiles and small talk their vibe runs on.
11AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:02
Re: #9
Honestly, on this one, the people around you deserve more sympathy than you do.
12AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:03
That's not just some guy-in-his-late-30s griping, you know.
13AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:04
Re: #11
Yeah, fair, but a job where I can just quietly grind alone is way easier and better.
Re: #12
Ugh.
14AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:04
Re: #10
I don't think they meant to mock you. They were just genuinely surprised, that's all.
17AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:05
Re: #14
But it's a company where literally everyone, even the young kids, drives one as a matter of course — isn't that kind of wild?
15AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:05
If you're coming in mid-career at that age in the first place, people will only accept you if you're either a sharp manager or basically superman on the floor.
19AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:09
Re: #15
Well, when it comes to hauling cargo on a forklift, I am superman level. It's a reach forklift, and there's hardly anyone faster or more accurate than me.
Re: #16
I was actually planning to quit already… but it's a lean, elite crew, so the company didn't want to lose my labor, which is really why they held onto me with the full-time offer. I went back and forth on it, but it came through a referral and given my age I figured I'd take it.
16AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:05
If you just got poached internally, the vibe shouldn't really be any different, no?
20AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:11
Yesterday too, I sat in on some Zoom safety training thing at the office, but I just can't keep up with the pointless small talk in there. If you've got time to chat, I keep thinking, go help out on the floor instead.
21AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:14
So yeah, I really don't think I've got what it takes to be full-time staff. I guess I'm just immature. Watching the higher-ups' expectations for me fade really stings…
22AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:14
As long as you're not being written off as useless or frozen out, your only real move is to get on upper management's good side.
24AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:42
You've got social anxiety, which is why you were doing floor work, but once you're full-time, you've got temp-staff management, dealing with affiliated companies, safety training, even compliance on your plate lol.

If you don't go through that, your pay's never going up for the rest of your life.
25AnonymousNov 11, 2026 08:44
Well, it's worth going through it at least once. Your body won't keep working forever, you know.

With the labor shortage, the company genuinely wants to develop people — stick it out for 3 years at least.
40AnonymousNov 11, 2026 10:36
With any company, the best move is just sticking around wherever's paying you.
142AnonymousNov 11, 2026 14:04
They're so short-staffed, honestly anyone would've done.

Background and key points of this discussion

In the logistics and trucking industry, a completion certificate for forklift operation training is treated as practically mandatory in most workplaces, so a mid-career hire assigned to floor duty without one is unusual. The thread split between posters defending him with “he can just get the license later” and others who felt it was only natural to be surprised someone his age didn’t have one yet — but almost no one actually attacked his competence. The other sticking point was the gap between his aptitude for floor work and the office socializing, safety training, and compliance duties expected of full-time staff, which the poster himself diagnosed as him being “probably just immature.” One easy misread for readers: this poster isn’t being frozen out because he’s incompetent — both he and the people around him rate his actual floor skills highly. Note that the original thread also had repeated, context-free monologue-style posts mixed in; this article excludes those and only pulls the exchanges relevant to the main thread of conversation.

*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News VIP) thread “I joined as a mid-career hire in October but I already want to quit lololololol.”

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