Man that sucks, been there with cheap motels and it's the worst surprise ever.

That line about reaching for the old one out of habit hits home, because the real problem here isn't the trowel, it's your muscle memory. Your hand learned that tool over 25 years of work, so no new trowel will feel right for months no matter how good it is. The fix is picking one replacement and using it on nothing but soft mud for a few weeks, same as your foreman told you back in 98, because the break in period is what makes it fit, not the tool itself.

Been there lol. My death grip has wrecked more journal pages than any pen ever did. Pretty sure my hand thinks its job is to emboss the paper, not write on it.