Ha! That's rough, man. Honestly, that reminds me of a buddy who swore by those pricey eco-brand work pants. He'd be on the job site going on about how they use recycled plastic or whatever. Then one day he bent down to grab a shovel and the whole crotch ripped out, right up the seam. He never mentioned them again and just went back to the cheap rugged ones from the gas station. @the_simon, your buddy's story sounds like the exact same deal, just with boots instead of pants.

Take the opposite side for a second though... all those "fun" distractions just make it harder to focus, and the ping pong table is a huge noise generator that kills productivity. Standing desks might help some people, but they also lead to more clutter and people leaving coffee cups everywhere, which just makes the whole office feel gross. Those bean bags getting "well loved" just means they're full of crumbs and bacteria, which is more of a sanitation problem than a sign of a thriving workplace.

Funny you say that, I've seen the opposite happen more times than I can count. A guy gets obsessed with his phone and going frame by frame and overcomplicates everything. His welds get worse because he's second-guessing his muscle memory. That guy you mentioned probably just hit his stride naturally and the phone thing was a coincidence. Real improvement comes from burning rod after rod, not from analyzing video like a film critic. I've watched dudes with zero tech habits get good twice as fast as the analysis crowd.

My old man taught me on a 6 inch chef's knife back in the day, and he'd smack my hand if I pulled it the wrong way. Took me a solid month to break the habit of dragging the blade away from the steel, but now I just keep a sharpie on the counter and mark the edge angle every time I start.

The_harper makes it sound like those 150 were a waste, but I think you're both being too hard on yourselves. Every one of those cheap experiments taught you something you wouldn't have learned otherwise, and that's what makes the milestone mean something even if the books aren't showroom quality.