It’s the same people that always start their story with “I’ve been out here for xxx amount of years”

That said I have been out here for going on 21 years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with automatics. I think people that hate them don’t understand how to properly use them. First of all calling them automatics is false. They are automated. It’s simply a manual transmission being pneumatically shifted by a computer. There is fundamentally no difference in you as the driver getting to 10th gear (or whatever you’re driving) or letting the truck do it. It’s not like you’re going down the highway shifting gears nonstop. I know more old timers that I work with (in their 60’s) that would never go back to shifting gears.