The Bobby Bones Show - (Sponsored) Concrete Plans: An Unconventional Journey

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

Liz Nichols had a checklist - she wanted to work outdoors, and make good money to support her family. After a few false starts, she found just the right fit as a concrete mason. Even though she was often the only woman on the job, she learned to navigate that new world with grace and will pass along to her son, the lessons that hard work and perseverance are rewarded. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Get anything done? This is my margin travel, and you always know a finisher, because we've got them in our back pocket sticking out. And it's such a small tool, but you just use this all the time. When you're pouring concrete, you use it to scrape your forms, use it to get in little corners that maybe your other trowels are too big for. So you can always tell a finisher by the margin trowel. When Liz Nichols was in her 20s, she knew that she wanted two things,

financial stability and to start a family. But she had no roadmap to help her achieve those goals. That is, until the day she met a guide who would show her a new world of work. In this episode of On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals, we'll hear a story about shattering expectations in order to find meaningful work. If you want to find your next job, or if you're a company hoping to grow your workforce, Express Employment Professionals is for you. Find more information at expressprose.com.

Now, producer Chris Siegel has the story of Liz Nichols. It's early in the morning. I'm in northwest Portland in a neighborhood where new developments are springing up like dandelions. I park behind a beat-up old truck, a 1988 Toyota that belongs to my friend Liz. How's where going so far this morning? So far so good. While most of Portland is waking up, Liz has been at work for a couple hours. She greets me in her loose, dirty jeans and union hoodie.

Under her chin, she has what's called a particulate respirator. It's like the construction worker's version of a. a surgical mask. Liz is a journeyman cement mason, and today she's working in a half-finished building. There's some sheet metal guys, some electricians running wire. But yeah, we've got just different trades people.

We're kind of working around. As a woman in the trades, Liz has certainly taken an unusual path. Only 3% of people working on construction sites are women. That means, for every 100 plumbers or carpenters or mechanics, only about three of them are women. But since she was a child growing up in Massachusetts, she's always been a bit of a contrarian. This one time my father took me and my siblings to the fire station in Waltham, because one of my mom's cousins was a firefighter.

And it was a bunch of guys. And I remember very clearly, I was nine or ten asking if there were any women firefighters. And they said there had never been a woman firefighter in the history of Waltham firefighting. and at that moment I wanted to be a firefighter really badly. But the expectations that were placed on Liz, by her family, by society and culture, they had her pointing in a different direction. You go to college and then magically you figure it out. You go to college and you come out and people will pay you good money to do things.

And so I didn't think twice. It just go to college, go to college. I wasn't very academically motivated or talented in high school. And now that I know there's all these great jobs out there that you don't need a college degree for, if I could go back in time. If I had a time machine, I would not have attended college. Liz was an English and history major, and while she dreamed of a career in writing, she struggled to pass her classes.

She couldn't stay focused. She'd fall asleep during lectures and then have trouble catching up. But she learned one thing. The summer before my senior year of college, I worked on a fruit and vegetable farm on Martha's Vineyard. And it was awesome, and it was sort of my first taste of manual labor. And I loved it. I loved working outdoors. I, you know, loved feeling strong and muscular from busting ass all day.

It was a minor miracle that she made it through college. She tells me an advisor of hers basically dragged her to graduation day. After college, she got by on a combination of gardening and landscaping jobs and serving coffee. It wasn't going to make her rich, but she was content. She had a good life and a loving partner. But then... I was suddenly 28. I was in my late 20s, and I knew I wanted a kid.

And that was sort of the aha moment of like, I need health insurance. I need benefits. I need a wage that will support a family. I've always loved sports. So I found a physical therapy assistant program. And it was a two-year program, and you'd come out making $40,000 a year a year, which sounded like so much money to me at the time. And I thought, okay, yeah, that's something I can do. And I took one anatomy and physiology class. She thought maybe this time she'd be

successful at school. But I ended up frying in my car one day after class and realizing that it's, you know, it wasn't that I was immature. It wasn't that I was lazy. It's that I'm just not, I just don't do well in an academic setting. And that's not how I live. learn and I dropped the class and then really started to panic. To Liz, there was no way forward. The life where she starts a family, where she has financial stability, she couldn't see that life. She spent about a year in this cycle, comfortable, but feeling like there was a hole and she could be doing more. But when she least expected it, a short, white-haired woman named Dolores would walk into a coffee shop Liz was working at

and change everything. There was a regular customer who was an electrician, and she was a woman, and I was talking to her one day, and she told me about Oregon tradeswoman, and she talked about how being an electrician had changed her life, and the quality of life she was able to provide for her two children and her partner. And this was someone telling me,

she worked in construction and made $80,000 a year and had health insurance. and would receive a pension when she retired. And it just sort of like bells were going off. And I was like, that's what I want. That's what I want to do. Dolores brought the change Liz was searching for. After a Google search for Oregon tradeswomen, Liz was sold.

A world of meaningful work was starting to open up to her. Jobs like welder or electrician or crane operator or wind turbine technician were all of a sudden jobs that she could see herself doing. Shortly after the coffee shop conversation, she signed up. for the training with Oregon Trades Women. I met Liz a few years ago when she went through our program. That's Amy Jane Neal. She runs the training program at Oregon Tradeswomen.

The mission of Oregon Trades Women is to serve women and girls, to think about careers in the skilled trades. And that's their executive director, Kelly Kupchak. I met Kelly and Amy at their office on a busy street in northeast Portland, located half a block from my favorite hardware store. When Liz arrived at Oregon Trades Women, she had a lot to learn. Day one was like, let's look at a tape measure. If someone says five and three, it's like you can find five and three hits on the tape measure really quickly.

And hitting a nail with a hammer and not missing the nail. You know, there was lots of no tap, tap, tap, tapping. I don't want to hear the tap, tap, tapping, like swing and hit that nail. But Amy and Kelly recognize that for a woman to make it in the trades, she needs to have training with a variety of tools, and not just the physical ones they use on the job. Men are better equipped for this male-dominated industry to succeed. So our program sort of bridges that divide.

So we equip our students, graduates of our program, with tools to fit into this male-dominated culture and to succeed. Throughout the program, Amy saw Liz transform. And she was a really different person than than she is now. She's got the same heart. She's got the same drive. But her level of confidence, her understanding of her own value and worth, and she was, She's ripped now. She's strong. After the training, Liz was excited to work.

The next step for her was finding an apprenticeship, only she didn't know what apprenticeship program to join. It just so happened that the Cement Mason's Union, the tradespeople who make our sidewalks and building floors possible, was hosting an apprentice recruitment training. So she thought, why not? And signed up. I spent a week at the Cement Mason's Training Center

where we built forms and we poured concrete and I was just trying to impress everyone. I just really, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted everyone to want to hire me. So I was, you know, filling up the wheelbarrel twice as full as everyone else and running them back and forth. And at one point during the class, I smashed my thumb with a sledgehammer and was bleeding everywhere

and just kept working and they didn't notice until I just very casually asked for a Band-Aid. saw that my thumb was just black and blue and bleeding. Her hard work and grit didn't go unnoticed by the leaders of the union. At the end of the training, they pulled her aside. And they offered me a job. They said, we want you in our apprenticeship. You can go to work Monday if this is what you want. The door was finally opening for Liz.

A rewarding job with good pay? The pieces of the puzzle that she needed to start a family. She accepted the job with a sense. cement mason union, and then? Once I had an apprenticeship and it was scheduled, like, okay, you're going to work Monday. That was sort of like, I'm going to walk on the job and they're going to know I'm a fraud. They're going to know, like, I've never done anything like this. It's time for Liz to go to work.

How does she fare on the job? Find out after a short break. You're listening to independent producer Chris Siegel and the story of cement mason Liz Nichols. On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professional. One company is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Sounds like a big number, doesn't it? Not to Express Employment Professionals, seeking a skilled labor position, or administrative work. Maybe you are an executive looking for a career that fits.

We take pride in connecting the right people with the right company. Express Employment Professionals is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Let us help. We'll open doors for you. Go to ExpressPros.com to find a location near you. Now, back to the story of Liz Nichols. Before the break, she'd finished cement mason training and was gearing up for her first day at work. I get nervous standing around.

Like, you always want to be doing something, grab something, clean something. Liz feels right at home amongst the various tradespeople putting together with this building. While talking with me, she continually scans for jobs to do. I ask her questions in between mixing concrete, sweeping and priming the floor. So how does work? Do you see a job and you just do it, or were you like assigned to do that room? Today it's kind of, we all know what needs to get done. So I thought it needed to be primed and just jumped on it.

At one point, she leaves me mid-sentence to carry a couple 50-pound bags of cement over to the mixer. But when she first started as an apprentice, work wasn't always this smooth. There's this one day we were pouring a section of a street. and there was rebar in the concrete. So you're walking on the rebar, you're balancing on the rebar, and we're pouring the concrete, you know, a couple feet deep. And at some point the rebar is covered. So you're just walking in the concrete.

You can't see where your feet are going and you're balancing on this rebar. And I was wearing this backpack vibrator. So we have these, you know, vibrators. It's this long wand. And it, you know, you dip it into the concrete. You're consolidating the concrete around the rebar. And it's, you know, it's like this 50-pound backpack I'm wearing. Yeah, this is going where you think it's going.

And I just tripped and fell backwards, just wiped out, laying there like a snow angel on the concrete. And my foreman came up and he put his arm out to pull me up. And I just pulled him down into the concrete too. So now we're both laying in the concrete. And, you know, someone else has to come and they help us. So I'm just soaked through. and my boss was like, you know, just go home. You're covering it.

So I, you know, got in my car, and I'm just so humiliated. And I spent all weekend, like, oh, they're going to fire me. They're going to think I'm an idiot, this and that. Despite her belief that she would soon be out of work, Liz was in for a surprise first thing Monday morning when she returned to the job site. And a guy from another crew came up and said, hey, I heard you fall in the concrete and proceeded to tell me his first falling in the concrete store. and then I realized it was this rite of passage.

As an apprentice, she was the new person on the job. But on top of that, she'd be on construction sites where she'd meet guys who had never worked with a woman. She received a lot of attention. I definitely felt more like I was under an X-ray, like just walking across the job site and feeling like every single person is staring at me. Sometimes it just makes me feel like I'm a unicorn,

or I'm something like mythological creature. And some of the things that she heard while at work? Let me do that for you. Hey, you look good when you're doing that. What does your husband think of you doing this work? Oh, I heard about you. I would never let my wife do this. Oh, I'm joking. I'm joking.

Oh, you can take a joke. I had a foreman once tell me, like, sure, you can handle this work now, but your body's going to break down faster than our bodies because you don't have testosterone. And if you look at the science, like women live longer than men. You know, it's just like, where was he even pulling that out of? So we got into it a little bit. We got into a fight about that one.

What she could use in those tough situations is support from some of the guys on the crew. The next day, one of my coworkers came up to me and said, hey, you know, what he said to you yesterday? That wasn't right. None of us feel that way. And when I went home that day, I just kept thinking, why didn't you tell him? Why, in the moment, why didn't you stand up and say that? If you want to be on my team, be on my team. hopefully the next time he witnesses something like that.

He'll feel more comfortable saying, hey, that's not right. She pushed back against this foreman, but Liz doesn't always feel like she can speak her mind. If you let things roll off your shoulders, people like you more. Like the crew accepts you more. Oh, she's cool. Oh, no, no. She's cool. You know, I hear that all time. Oh, she's cool. You can say stuff in front of Liz. And it leads to this awkward place where I want to be accepted and I want to fit in. I want to feel like one of the crew, but, you know, where do you draw the line of, like,

actually, you can't say that to me. And you can't just pass it off as a joke. Experiences like these, they touch Liz now more than ever after a recent development in her life. Her dream of having a baby? Well, she's accomplished that. She gave birth to her son, Seamus Nichols-Kirk, near the end of her three-year apprenticeship. Hi, baby. I thought I was going to have a daughter, and I thought I was going to have a daughter.

and I thought I was going to raise this little tomboy Helian. And I realized if I had a daughter, I would dress her, you know, I'd dress her in blue, I'd dress her in green. I would very proudly have like this gender neutral girl and try and teach her to be an empowered woman. And I had a son. She had a son, who she knows will eventually grow up to be a man. She doesn't have the manufacturer's instructions on how to raise a sensitive, thoughtful son, so she looks back to her experience on the construction site for ideas.

I'm going to try and teach him to speak out if he sees something that makes him uncomfortable, to not be the guy who comes up to me the day after something happens and says he's sorry. And, you know, it's not right. I want Seamus to be the type of person who in the moment says, hey, that's not right. As Seamus grows up, she wants to teach him the value of hard work. I really want him to I want him to know that my job is crying right now I want him to know that my job is hard

but satisfying and that I can provide the life that I'm providing for him through that hard work There was an occasion for Liz where her two lives Her life as a worker and her life as a mother came together She was at the end of her apprenticeship and needed to take a test to graduate and become a journeyman cement mason

I took it this July and I was still on maternity leave, so I actually had to bring Seamus with me to the hall and the apprentice instructor and all of the office guys babysat for me while I was taking the exam. So I was building forms and pouring concrete and finishing and then, you know, all these guys were just moaning over my baby. Liz passed the exam. They have a door that they have all the new journeymen sign and I got to hold Seamus. while I was signing the door, and it was this wonderful, full circle moment of I got into this trade because I wanted to have a baby one day and to journey out, holding my child, that this job and this, you know, living wage made possible was just a really cool moment. That's Liz Nichols, a journeyman's cement mason and mother, living and working in Portland, Oregon.

That was independent producer Chris Siegel with the story of cement, Mason, Liz Nichols. And that's all for this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at ExpressPros.com. And you can listen to every podcast this season at ExpressPros.com slash podcast. This podcast is produced by your host, Steve Menscher, for MenchMedia, IHeartRadio, and Red Seat Ventures. You can subscribe on IHeart Radio and iTunes, where we hope you'll leave a nice review, which helps other folks find us.

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