Cummins has spat out another careers leaflet and called it wisdom. Not a word about Ram defeat devices. Not a whisper about record-breaking fines. Just a smiley advert for life on the spanners in a dying fuel economy they helped drag to this point.
The headline says Why Becoming a Diesel Technician is a Smart Career Choice.
Read: come keep our engines alive while we plan our exit. And if your body or mind breaks along the way, we will find a procedural staircase to shove you down.
They promise job security, future-proof skills and support at every stage. They do not mention what happens when your lungs, bowels, back or your brain stop playing along.
This is not a careers guide. It is a recruitment flyer for cannon fodder.
Job Security – Handcuffed To A Fuel With A Death Sentence
First sell: job security. Trucking, construction, agriculture, energy – all run on diesel, so techs will “always be in demand”.
Translation: your future only exists if the world fails to get off the stuff that is cooking it. Your security hangs off:
- governments bottling it on bans
- cities tolerating illegal NOx and particulates a bit longer
- regulators blinking first
- customers pretending “clean diesel” is not the same old shit with extra software
Cummins waves “future-proof skills” like a magic talisman while quietly telling investors about hydrogen, gas and batteries, because even they know diesel has a shelf life.
The louder they shout that your trade is safe, the more obvious the panic. If the future really adored diesel, they would not need to chant “future” like a nervous tic.
You are not getting job security. You are getting a front row seat on the Titanic engine deck, being told the water in your boots is “industry growth”.
“Competitive Pay” – And The Invoice Your Body Picks Up
They brag about solid wages, often above average for trades. Health cover, pensions, maybe tuition help if you behave.
Ok. Now add the tab they leave off the brochure:
- years of breathing exhaust, solvents and shite in barely ventilated bays
- back and knees stripped by lifting gear that should have had a crane and three people
- knuckles shredded because the job “needed turning around” and the right tools were locked in a manager’s budget spreadsheet
- sleep wrecked by call-outs and rota changes dumped on you late Friday
On paper you are “earning well”. In reality you are being dismantled like one of their engines – bit by bit, bearing by bearing. Every extra hour you give under the banner of flexibility is another turn of the spanner on your own bolts.
Cummins gets a tidy line on its careers page. You get another pack of painkillers and a shrug.
Advancement – Climbing The Ladder Into The Blast Zone
They paint a lovely ladder:
- master tech with a stack of ASE badges
- specialist in diagnostics, emissions, powertrain
- maybe shop supervisor, service manager, trainer
Sounds good until you look at what you are actually advancing into.
The higher you go, the closer you are to absorbing fallout from corporate decisions you never voted on:
- explaining why a “next gen” emissions system keeps derating trucks in live traffic
- fronting recalls dressed as “service campaigns”
- soothing angry fleets whose trucks are dying because someone in Columbus chased a percentage point too hard
When the next scandal hits – and with Cummins’ history you would be a fool to bet against it – the board will do investor calls and scrub their LinkedIn. You will be in the depot car park, face to face with the people whose business you have just helped bollocks, trying to keep them sweet with a software patch and a smile.
That is not advancement. That is promotion into the blast zone.
Training – Not A Gift, A Collar
The article coos about trade schools, apprenticeships and community colleges “backed by manufacturers like Cummins”.
Training is framed as generosity. Look closer.
You are trained:
- on their engines
- with their diagnostic kit
- in their fault trees and their “best practice”
Your CV ends up reading like a Cummins brochure. Your references sit inside Cummins systems. Your qualifications might as well have their logo watermarked through the paper.
That is not just development. It is a collar.
When things go sour – health, hours, ethics – walking away does not feel like changing jobs. It feels like jumping off a cliff, because the only professional identity they have let you build is “Cummins tech”.
They know exactly what they are doing. A trapped worker is a compliant worker.
Future-Proofed My Arse
Then comes the tech-porn list:
- clean diesel
- hybrid systems
- digital diagnostics
- ever-evolving emissions rules
Technicians, we are told, sit at the “forefront of innovation”.
If this was remotely true, they would not need to say future-proof twice a page like a nervous tic. The phrase is doing the same job “robust” does in a risk register – covering the smell.
The real picture is ugly and obvious:
- climate science screaming for radical cuts in combustion
- cities banning diesel vans while Cummins still pushes heavy rigs
- investors twitching about stranded assets
- regulators already kicking their arse for cheating on tests
None of that squares with “relax, the future loves your trade”.
You are not being future-proofed. You are being positioned as the last line of defence for hardware the planet cannot afford and the company is too addicted to walk away from yet.
When the pivot finally comes, it will not be the board that gets stranded. It will be you, with thirty years of Cummins diesel on your CV and a body that has spent those decades paying the interest.
The Bit They Never Print – When You Break
The brochure ends in Hallmark mush. Cummins will support technicians “at every stage”. Certification. Hands-on experience. Long-term success in one of today’s most secure trades.
Here is what never appears in this stuff:
- what happens when your mental health caves in under pressure, targets and the constant squeeze
- what happens when your sickness line dares to flicker upwards on someone’s spreadsheet
Security vanishes the second you become inconvenient.
In the real Cummins world, “support” has a habit of turning into surveillance:
- attendance reviews
- HR “check-ins” that feel like arraignments
- SAL staircases dressed as help while everyone quietly sharpens the knives
You go from valued to problem. The same machine that loved your overtime suddenly discovers a deep concern for policy.
Job security is not security if it only applies while you are perfectly healthy, perfectly compliant and perfectly silent. The minute you wobble, the processes come out – all “supportive”, all “objective”, all designed to vacuum you off the payroll if you do not bounce back on schedule.
That is not care. That is a slow, sanitised cull.
The “Smart Choice” – For Them, Not You
There is nothing wrong with wanting to fix things for a living. Nothing wrong with pride in craft. The world needs people who can strip, diagnose and rebuild, not just people who can fiddle a spreadsheet.
That is exactly why this pitch is so cynical.
Cummins takes that honest instinct and straps it to:
- a fuel with an expiry date
- a culture that treats bodies as consumables
- a PR machine that will weaponise your smiling face while quietly counting the days since your last absence
They get a pipeline of loyal techs to keep the dirtiest parts of their empire alive while they rehearse “transition” for investors.
You get:
- a front row seat in a sector the planet is trying to shut down
- a body that takes all the hits
- a job that is “secure” right up until the moment you dare to get ill, burned out or bloody minded enough to say this is not ok
So yes, becoming a diesel technician can be a smart move – for Cummins shareholders. They get another decade of cover while they work out how to drag their model into a world that no longer wants what they sell.
Before you sign anything, go in with your eyes open. Because when the music stops, it will not be the board left standing in a cold bay wondering how to pay the rent with a fucked back and a CV built around engines they secretly know are on the way out.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project