Why does nobody talk about hitting 10,000 hours in this trade?

I just passed 10,000 hours logged on my welding certs last Tuesday and it hit me harder than I expected. A guy in the union hall said that number is the mark of a real journeyman, but nobody mentioned how it changes the way you think about your work. When I started out, I figured experience was just about getting faster or cleaner beads. But now I catch myself reading a joint before I even strike an arc, knowing exactly where the stress points will hit. That milestone taught me that the real value isn't the time itself, it's the pattern recognition you can't get from any book. Has anyone else here crossed a specific hour count and felt like something clicked differently?

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