I think they are mistaking a floor monkey for a CNC machinist. Which given the source and the current academic want to look down on us practical/applied skill areas, I expect as much. Now talk to a real machinist who gets to deal with setting up the machine and work in the many areas that a machinist is trained to work in beyond the feed and punch game and those folks get a whole lot less bored. They also in the US bring home a much more secure pay check. It all depends on how you look at it, what questions you ask and what biases you take into the research. Personally know more then a few who don't like the sometimes very long hours of special jobs, but they don't mind the comp' time and the pay check at the end of the week ($25/hour is nice).