brainstorming.

It's been 10 weeks since I was laid off. All in all I've enjoyed my time off and relished Portland's spring/summer that blesses us for such a short time. I finished a term of school in mid-June and kicked the summer off right with my 30th birthday. I've sewed a bunch, barbequed with friends and had some great finds at yard sales. F-unemployment at it's finest.

As this week rolls by it has also been 5 months since I hurt my hand. Being laid off has granted me more than enough time to devote to my 3x a week physical therapy (and by "physical therapy" I mean hand torture: think The Rack for my fingers). After all this time what is the progress? We've had my two fingers in casts for about 6 weeks. I am celebrating that they are straighter than the have been since Feb. They tend to hover around the 20 degree mark (0 degerees is straight). We've been able to push them straighter but this is not their resting state. How about bending them? Ummmm....no not really. I can wiggle them a little. Bending them is painful and seems to reverse all the straightening I have been working so hard for.

All this struggle is starting to weigh on me a little. I have walked in three times a week to the PT office with a smile on my face and hope that things with time will get better. The reality is typing alone is difficult, opening a twist off beer cap, almost impossible, and using tools...ummmm... I am starting to wonder, where does this leave me in the world of manual labor? I love my job and really felt like I'd figured something out for awhile. I never thought I'd be a career electrician, but assumed it would take me into new places in 10 years. I was ready for that. But what happens when I can't use my hand? I run the risk or re-injurying myself or hurting myself (or god-forbid someone else) in a new way because I can't use my right hand correctly. I am not ready to discover another career path, but it's looking more and more like my reality. Thinking about it is like a fog has descended on my world.

So, I need your help. I want ideas thrown at me. None are too wacky. Give me some non-conventional ideas for ways to make a living. Or give me convential (engineering has been brought up more times than I can count, so I want some ideas outside of that box). Maybe you know someone who loves their job and think I might benefit from an informational interview. Send them my way. It's like standing at a crossroads facing hundreds of pathways but not having a map or any idea of where I really want to go. Should I go back to school or not? Can I work my way into a job? Build a job? Here's some of my thoughts so far (not in any particular order or related in any way in particular):

-something flexible.
-something that changes all the time.
-something food related (I love me some local, organic food!)
-consulting on something (this requires specialized knowledge on something though....I've got a lot of general knowledge about a lot of different things...will that take me anywhere? how would I go about getting there?)
-something with travel involved or allows me the freedom to travel.
-something involving problem-solving. figuring out how things work. strategy.
-grad school for sustainability like this one.
-grad school for building science like this one.
-construction management.

So let's hear it.

how people are coping in the recession.

shift.

my job has been boring for about a month now. there has been continuous sitting on my ass for way too many hours each day. i know i'm some how not supposed to complain especially since i'm getting paid for those hours, but you have to understand that one reason i stepped into the trades was to be B-U-S-Y. like bust-your-ass busy. a good signifier of how slow it's been was a couple of weeks ago, we actually did real work. i think i may have had at least one bead of sweat role down my face. gratifying. but the kicker was that the next day i was sore. wow. i'm getting weak. not good.

the slow time came as a warning of what may lay down the road. i've known that there was little work on the horizon for over a month. my favorite journeyman got laid off six weeks ago, and i've been grasping at hours ever since. i know my foreman has been searching for ways to keep me busy which is a vote of confidence for sure, but seriously, i was going nuts! on friday, relief came: i was laid off. the recession has been all around me for awhile. i know my architecture buddies have probably been feeling the pain for some time. my moment has come to serve my stint in unemployment-land. i am no stranger to unemployment (long stint without a job after my "layoff" in 2007). i know that it can actually be nice to catch up on all the books i haven't read (lots of visits to the library) and pick up a new craft or two (making some badass earrings to sell). hell, the weather is entering fantastic time in portland, so i'll have plenty of time to ride my bike and garden to my heart's content. in reality i see it like this: funemployment. i'll enjoy my break, and savor that being part of a union with a hiring hall means i'll be working in 6-8 weeks.

work attire.

i remember the days of having to collect proper biz casual attire. i hated almost everything i amassed over the years and, since starting working construction, have donated most of it to a better cause. i now appreciate being able to role out of bed and throw on whatever t-shirt looks clean and the same overalls i wore yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. i rarely think about it. so simple.

however, there are times when what you wear to the jobsite should be thought through. such as when the site is a mostly finished and occupied facility. the client is everywhere all the time. i about laughed my ass off when i saw a big, fat dude wearing this shirt on the site. nice choice, i say.

cooking with bearcat.

hello my friends! my apprenticeship has been good. in 6 months i'm getting better at my job all the time, learning constantly and, i say that overall, i am happy. things have been a little crazy this month....

i work with a good crew of guys. small. ranging from 3-7 people. they tease me constantly, which sometimes is annoying, and sometimes just plain goofy, but it is typically the way things go for apprentices. in the world of construction, nicknames run rampant. i've worked with No Vise and Playa on my current job. i made the mistake of saying that nicknames never stick to me and one of the guys made it his mission to find the perfect name. i have an old ratty hoodie from my college days that i wear when i'm working on grungy tasks. usually this means cleaning my bathroom, but sometimes i wear it to work. it has a huge cincinnati decal with an embroidered "bearcat" below the decal. the guys latched on and now they call me bearcat, which of course is madly funny because i am the smallest person on the crew making me the least intimidating person. it's endless amusement for them.

"watch out! bearcat's getting into the panel! she'll rip it up!"

one of their favorites is to talk about what it would be like to get a call to report to a job and the contact name you have for the foreman is "bearcat". they would get there and i would walk out. commence belly-laughing. it's also immensely amusing to them that i cook all the time and bring in delicious food to eat for lunch. most guys eat a pb&j sandwich or a microwave meal. i take the time on sun nights to plan out my meals for the week. i like trying new recipes and eat a lot of veggies, so my lunches are extremely diverse.

"katie you should get your own show. cooking with bearcat! we could come and sit in the audience and yell bearcat. but you'll have gotten so big you'd probably kick us out."

the guys have constructed a whole life for me surrounding this nickname. when i started going back to the gym regularly, one of the guys comments that i'm going to get ripped. this lead to a constructed scenario of me posing for swimsuit illustrated wearing a hard hat, holding a pie in one hand and a drill in the other with the title "bearcat!" splashed across the front. they have even got the foreman calling me bearcat. it's definitely an official nickname. so much for not sticking.

a couple of weeks ago the foreman lent me out to another job to help them meet a deadline. i got there and the foreman showed me what he needed and walked away. there wasn't an orientation to the site or any guidance for what he wanted. if i were a journeyman this would be a normal occurrence, but i am a baby apprentice and really should be working closely with a journeyman. i decided that i would just push through and figure it out. i asked questions where i needed to and pushed my comfort zone. in reality, the work wasn't crazy hard, i just had never done it before and so there was a small amount of nervousness in my stomach the whole time. the tool that scares me the most of the job is the sawzall (picture shown is not what i normally do with a sawzall...). it can jump around a lot when cutting through pipe and your hands are always close trying to hold the pipe and sawzall steady. i struggle with the strength to hold it steady. but on this day i pushed myself and rocked it.

but things do not always go so well with all the tools. about 4 hours into the job i was mounting metal junction boxes in a framed metal stud wall. i was on a ladder trying to screw the box through the side from the left. first i tried holding the drill with my right hand but couldn't get the leverage to get the screw started so i moved it to my left hand and held the box steady against the stud with my right. while going full speed ahead the drill came in contact with the glove (kevlar gloves to keep from cutting yourself on the metal parts. my company has a 100% glove policy) on the back of my right hand and sucked it in taking my fingers with it in a clockwise motion. i screamed at the top of my lungs and when all the guys on the job site came running they found me standing on a ladder with a drill in my left hand and a mangled mess of a glove that should have been my right hand wrapped around the drill. i was freaked that my fingers were a mess inside the glove. i couldn't feel anything nor could i make out a definable shape of a hand so i was sure that i would find something horrible. after the journeyman unwrapped my glove from the drill, i turned around and pulled it off. to my surprise my fingers were intact however they were bent back farther than i can take them normally.

from there the workman's comp/safety person took over. i had xrays and spent hours in urgent care. as the adrenaline wore off i began to freak out. i kept picturing the glove/drill/mangled mess. i can't remember exactly what happened at the very moment the drill caught the glove, but shudder when i hypothesize. i run it in slow motion through my head. i waited for at least an hour for the doctor in a little room by myself and had nothing to distract my horrible thoughts (why do they never have magazines in those little rooms when you need one). by the time the doctor got there i began instantly sobbing while telling her what happened. i couldn't get the details out of my mouth. this was my moment of panic and i thank god that i didn't have it on the job site with a crew of guys i don't know.

my hand had swelled like a balloon instantly, but the middle and ring finger on my right hand were definitely in worse shape than the others. the diagnosis was two hyper-extended fingers. they mentioned something looked suspicious on the xray, but after a second opinion, they concluded nothing was broken. they threw a splint on it told me to take some advil and ice it and sent me home.

fast forward to now. the accident was investigated and i was found to have been doing everything right. it was freak accident. i've been working like usual and really the pain in my fingers isn't that bad unless i bend them back at all. by wed i made the decision at my boss's urging to see another doctor because even though they look better the swelling hasn't gone down and i can't straighten my fingers. after another set of xrays the doctor came in to tell me that my fingers are indeed broken. i broke the bone on the underside of the knuckle where the tendon attaches. just when i'd started to feel better about the accident i was thrown right back into a scary place. hand therapy here i come. hopefully from here everything will work out ok.

overall, i feel lucky. i did not lose a finger. my company has been extremely helpful. my boss has been super supportive. and i got a new doctor who saw what could have been a crippling condition and jumped at getting me help. the pain has been minimal (so far....enter hand therapy) and i can still do most things normally. it's actually going to be difficult for me to slow down a bit and let it heal.

my regular crew was so upset about my accident; there's nothing worse than a bearcat with a mangled claw.

an uncomfortable position.

everyone always wants to know what it's like to work in a field dominated by men. how do they treat you? I've worked a number of jobs in the last ten years. some with a good ratio of diversity and some not so much. in most of them, i've been treated as another worker. i would say fairly. however, i've also seen discrimination in jobs that appear to be the most professional and require the highest levels of education. I also seen sexual harassment in a educational setting that was meant to be a safe space to learn and grow. I was not scared of harassment and discrimination on the job site. i was most nervous about proving myself as a worker.

the guys i work with on my current job are all around extremely helpful and eager to share their knowledge. they have taught me so much in a short amount of time. they have a lot of stories and recognize that i am hard worker. i feel a lot of respect for their experience and amazing personalities. they tell stories and love to razz each other. i love it.

that's the good. then there is a flip side. i have a tough skin so i'm barely phased by a lot of things. however, within the first day, i was the shocked recipient of classic sexual harassment. it came in form of sexually loaded comments about my body. i almost didn't believe it at first and i was left with a dilemma - how do i handle it? I've sat through so many corporate seminars about how to handle it. "call this number." "talk to your supervisor or hr." "we have an open door policy." "we will not tolerate it." you all know the "talks" i'm talking about. but it's never as clear cut as sounds and i never imagined i'd be someone in that position. i mean, it's my first day. i don't know any of the crew or the dynamics between them. he's a journeyman, i'm an apprentice. i just want to do a good job and prove that i'm capable without drawing attention to myself for other reasons. but instead of just going straight to work without any hassles, i encounter a guy that starts making slimy comments to me, about me. i knew i needed to do something about it, but how was i supposed to handle it? so i waited. timing is everything. and more comments came. so i started writing them down. i was lucky enough to not have to work with the guy often, and with every comment he gave i didn't react. he weirded me out though. i was nervous to be alone with him and worried about him following me into spaces while i was alone. theses are the situations that scream classic harassment. but i also had a feeling that he didn't mean harm as well. i thought that it was possible his statements came from a place of not knowing how to communicate appropriately with women. professionally communicate. he only knows the sexual level. i figured i needed to let him know it wasn't ok, but how?

overall the comments had tapered off a little bit. a couple of weeks ago he made a small comment in front of another guy apprentice on our walk to our cars. i saw my moment to set my disapproval. "you know, sometimes you're really creepy." the apprentice laughed. the journeymen looked shocked.

then last week i was partnered to work with him. alone. the morning went well. then afternoon came and went. no problems. day two, and almost immediately he made a comment. now was my moment. "you know, that was creepy."

"you really think i'm creepy?"

"ummmm...." a long pause. work continues. "you know, i don't necessarily think you're a creep, but some of the things you say to me are inappropriate at times and what you said before is a good example."

"oh." he scratches his head.

"i've got a tough skin, but there is a boundary that shouldn't be crossed and you moved past it." i felt like i had finally said it, but had he heard what I was saying?

silence followed for awhile. we worked and conversation went to other topics. finally, as we were wrapping things up for the day..."i want to thank you for saying something to me earlier. i didn't mean anything..."

i had been heard! "no problem. no hard feelings." i was amazed that i had approached that icky situation and been successful without getting anyone in trouble or making it more uncomfortable. i followed my gut feeling that he didn't mean anything malicious by his comments even if they did make me nervous.

the next day i ran into him alone before work started. "you know, i told my girlfriend about you last night and what you said to me about....you know...and she asked me what i had said. i told her and she told me i was an idiot. i just wanted to say thank you for having the balls to say something to me."

god, i can't believe i handled it! and then he thanked me for saying something to him! twice! unbelievable. i know that people can't always handle sexual harassment and discrimination in that way, but i found that once i established myself as a good worker and gave him the benefit of the doubt (despite being totally creeped out) and a chance to right the situation it worked out in the end. this guy wasn't a complete asshole, just clueless and tactless. it gave me strength and the next time i encounter anything like that i know i can handle it, maybe not in the same way, but it's possible. we are all capable of so much more than we are.

the long awaited update.

update: after attending a two week "boot camp" to condition me for the rigors of the electrical field, i went to work construction. i learn new things everyday and the stories of my everyday life are never ending. it's time to end my procrastination and flood your email inbox with my wordy diatribe.

boot camp.

this intense two week class sought to prep a group of green soon-to-be apprentices to start work. we skimmed over the basics of electricity (watched a archaic "how electricity works" video), read the code book (a real snorer), wired circuits in a booth with a sample wood framed wall, and bent conduit (with our bare hands...grrrrrrrrr....and a bender). we got licensed to drive a fork lift, scissor lift and 60' boom lift. with every task we did we were evaluated to determine if we could hack it on the job. in other words our teacher had the discretion of excusing anyone who wasn't good enough. as if going through a year long process of applying, taking a test, interviewing, reapplying and re-interviewing wasn't enough, i had to quit my job and perform well in a class for two weeks without pay to prove i was capable to go to work in the electrical field. it makes sense in a crazy way, but it adds a level of intensity to the group that is almost unbearable. for the first four days, no one in my group said a word or cracked as much as a smile. we were sweating it. then it occurred to me, that we were the creme de la creme. the top dogs. we were the top 15 people on a list of 360 people who interviewed. i had faith that, unless someone couldn't use a wrench (got that skill down), didn't do their homework (a personal problem) or didn't show up for class on time (another personal problem) then there are no worries. i wouldn't say my classmates ever truly relaxed, but i wasn't worried. at the end of two weeks no one was dismissed and we received a job assignment and hung out at the union hall with the union organizers. they bought us pizza and we talked union talk.

our teacher in boot camp had a dry sense of humor and years of stories to tell. he constantly talked about the lack of common sense in new apprentices these days. "how am i supposed to teach you that? you should learn that stuff before you get here." for our labs he bought light sockets with 6" wires hanging out the back (also called a pigtail) so we could easily connect and disconnect the light for each lab. "some bozo cut the pigtail. i went to the trouble of getting the more expensive light sockets to save time and some stupid kid cuts the most important part off. that is lack of common sense. i should have failed him in boot camp....ugh." before moving to the training center our teacher was an organizer for 12 years. he had worked as an electrician for almost 20 years before that. one of the most interesting conversations i had with him one on one was about his organizing experience. i wasn't an organizer for nearly as long as him (god, 12 years...i can't even imagine) but both of our organizing careers ended in union politics and posturing. i felt for him. i gave him my short explanation how my time came to an end, "I was laid off with a gag order," and he read between the lines and felt my pain and frustration. i don't meet people often who can read between the lines of my stock response. it's comforting.

my first job.

i am working construction. get down and dirty, physically challenging, skilled construction. for now i am commuting to a job renovating a space for a new top-notch solar panel facility in hillsboro, or (about 21 miles from my house). driving is a portion my job that i am least jazzed about. my commute can by anywhere from half and hour to and hour and a half. my little subaru wagon is making the long haul every day like a champ, but i worry how long that will last. maybe i should start performing a ritual to appease the gas-guzzling car gods. what kind of sacrifice does that require? does anyone know of a patron saint of driving or cars? i need one seeing as i am a poor, poor apprentice and I won't be making good money for at least a year. pray for that subaru.

every day at work is different. normally, a first term (out of ten terms) apprentice such as myself would be doing deliveries, organizing material, and cleaning up after journeymen electricians. the crew i'm with is small, so i am fortunate enough to be needed more for labor than for organizing supplies and pushing a broom. i am immensely grateful. the company i work for has developed a mentor program and assigns each new apprentice to a specific journeyman who can show the apprentice the ropes. i know it seems as if that would be normal, but the reality is much different. i get the impression that you typically learn stuff from every journeyman who work with. i jumped right in. the first space i worked in was the subfloor of the plant. it's where all the pipes and mechanical systems run. the space height fluctuates between 5' and 6'. then add in pipes, cable trays (like riverways for wire), lights, and all the support coming from every surface to support it all. it's like the pipes screensaver and i have to move through it to pull wire. it's like yoga meets twister meets limbo. it's also like caving. climb/crawl/squeeze through that space. position yourself in a weird position for hours to help pull the cable through.

i immediately needed good knee pads. my body is taking a beating. in my first week i amassed more bruises than i have in the last year (as most of you know, i bruise exceptionally easy (anyone remember my bike "wreck" of 2005 - gnarly!). one night i lay in bed and counted them: 70. crawling around in not-so-smooth carhartts has also caused me to develop calluses on my knees. i am not super thrilled with the idea of losing my smooth lady knees, but it beats chaffed tender knees. turning a screwdiver a million times = popeye forearms. i am also in the process if developing good hand muscles. this will be good for my bowling game and my thumb wrestling career. job skills can definitely translate into my hobbies.

start time, breaks, lunch, and quitting time are strict. i follow the journeymen's lead on everything, but there is never a worry that we are going to miss our breaks because they are on top of it. the plan is to be in your car and driving out of the parking lot at 3:30pm. no later. it's 12. stop what you are doing and eat. in response to working hard and strict timing of breaks, my body is becoming fine tuned like a clock. gggrrrrroooowwwllll. it's 9 o'clock. time for break. gggrrrrroooowwwllll. it's noon. time for lunch. gggrrrrroooowwwllll. it's 3:30. time to go home and eat some more. I think sometimes my day revolves more around food than anything else. i wake up, make coffee and breakfast, and pack a lunchbox with two snacks and a lunch. along with the ice pack, the thing weighs about 10lbs. i feel like i'm constantly cooking breakfast and meals for lunch and dinner. i envy the old men i work with who's wives/girlfriends pack their lunch. man oh man, why won't my dog get up early and make me a sandwich? there are some men who obviously don't have it so good. they are the ones who either don't eat at all during lunch (i can't even imagine this. my stomach would revolt) or nuke two hamburger patties in a tupperware. "do you have buns for those (thinking that's a new idea)?" "nope." "ketchup?" "nope." "oh." i have upped my food intake considerably starting my job. i think i'm eating well-balanced meals. i'm changing the way i prepare my meals so i can eat them on a jobsite with or without a microwave. i hope my food routine will become easier and more natural (ie. i hope i will become less obsessed with my daily intake of food).

more to come.....

ps. i love my job!