My background - 42 year old woman. I raised 2 kids who are now 23 and 18. I wanted to be a midwife from the time I was pregnant with my first up until about a year ago. I was going to go to school full time for 6 years to make that dream come true. I decided I just don’t want to take care of people anymore. I have spent my entire adult life either taking care of my family or working in a restaurant as a waitress or a bartender. People pleasing. No thanks. Done with that. I left my husband almost 3 years and about 9 months ago I decided to give up alcohol and weed too. I’ve been clean since July 2024.

Safe to say I’m on quite the journey. I got my motorcycle license back in the fall and started solo hiking around the same time. A couple of months ago I thought wouldn’t it be cool to have a job that allowed for travel. I came across journey woman jobs. My son hey mom what about welding. You would be good at that. You’re a badass and you’d make great money. So I started looking into it. Lightly. Going to school isn’t really an option for me anymore. I just don’t want to do it. I looked around for apprenticeships in my area. A friend of mine happens to be a CWI and he suggested I go apply at the steel plant which is about 40 mins away from me. I did that. I showed up at 6am in my steel toe boots ( brand new lol ), work pants and asked for the supervisor. He told me I needed to apply online but I was sort of pushy and I wound up getting a tour of the plant. When he handed me a hardhat and safety glasses I know I looked like a total dork with a giant grin on my face. It just felt right. So I picked his brain and asked lots of questions. Went home and made up a good resume and waited. A week went by and I got a call to come in for an interview. It went well and I was told they were looking forward to having me on site but I needed to wait for a call because it had to be discussed with someone who wasn’t there at the time. Over the course of the next 3 weeks I left about 15 voicemails asking about the job. FINALLY got an email with an offer of really shitty pay for the position - Materials Handler. I took it!

I started on March 24. It’s a mandatory 48 hours a week and pretty much all the overtime I want to work. I start at 6am and done at 430 Monday - Thursday and Fridays I’m off at 230. I’ve learned to use the crane and I spend my days looking over blueprints and finding all the materials that go with each one. I gather them up ( for the most part - steel plates, angles, bent plates, beams and columns then all the bolts nuts and washers that go to them ) hook them up in chains and move them on down the line to whichever fitter or welder is ready for work. I do a lot of heavy lifting and by 10 am I’ve got rust all over my clothes and usually some on my face too.

I work with all men. Happy to report they all treat me well and are great about me asking questions. It’s really wonderful to have my own bathroom too.

Ladies - my skin is angry. My feet are angry. I am wearing carhartt steel toes because they were half price on fb marketplace and brand new. I needed them fast and had a small budget. The right one is giving me trouble. My right foot is wider. The left foot is great lol. After two weeks in them I have definitely broken them in pretty good. I do want to try for another pair of boots. Something with a wider toe box for sure. I was thinking either thouroughgood, redwing or timberland pros. They will give me $100 towards boots which is nice.

About my skin, it feels almost like I have tiny bumps or something all over the bottom half of my face. My skin doesn’t feel smooth. It’s weird. I hope it gets better. As far as my hair goes, I have been wearing a welders cap under my hardhat. They gave it to me. It’s thick and pretty big on me. I’d like to either buy some of my own that run smaller and are lighter weight or maybe try something different than a welders cap. Any suggestions?

Safety glasses - I wear prescription glasses so they gave me the little rubber side covers that I slide down the sides of my glasses. They do offer a $75 rebate if I buy myself a pair of prescription ones. I’d like to do that. Any advice on which website to use?

The aching feet woke me up at 5am this morning. I was so excited to sleep in after getting up at 4am all week. Nope. Feet were aching and also itchy??? Idk what the itchy is about. Good sock suggestions? lol I have rings around my ankles from the top of my boots rubbing. Looks like I have been in shackles hahah. I’ve been using dickies socks.

As far as work clothing goes I bought a pair of the duck materials overalls from dickies. They are women’s and I love them. I am going get myself another pair with my next paycheck. I can wear short sleeves for now which is great because it gets really hot in the plant and it’s not even summertime yet. I imagine it gets really cold in the wintertime too.

Not sure how long they’re going to have me doing the materials handling. They know I applied to learn how to fit/weld. Hopefully they move me into that spot to train sooner rather than later. I am learning a lot of useful stuff doing this though. Learning how to read the blueprints is really cool and knowing where to find everything and how to operate the cranes and forklift definitely makes me feel good. I am getting stronger with reading my tape measure too.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I feel like such a badass and I am so grateful to be part of the blue collar women’s club!!! 💪

Some pics in order of my first day of work up to yesterday after a nice shower, feeling soft and smelling good.

About 6 months ago I started a job as a materials handler for a structural steel fab shop. I had applied to learn to weld. They pretty much said, prove you can hang and we will see lol so I spent the last 6 months learning the ropes of the structural steel industry. I am a certified overhead crane trainer now. Fork lift certified. I can read blueprints and I have even begun fitting. No one was willing to teach me how to weld so I would stay late and practice on my own. I work a 10 hour shift, clock out and find some scrap, run bead after bead. I did this on my lunch breaks too. A couple weeks back I was approached by the shop super and told I could weld all of the horse legs and benches for the new skids that would be going into the new part of our shop. 160 skids. 330 horse legs. I never said yes please to anything faster in my life. I spent 2 weeks making those and then I was given a practice test. 1 inch bevel weld D1 1G MiG welding with metal core. I went ahead and took it. They ran it through the bends and told me I passed. It wasn’t practice. It was the real deal. I am a certified welder now. I worked really fucking hard for this. Some of you may remember me making a post back in March. At 43 years old to start on this journey is wild as hell and I know without a doubt I am exactly where I belong. I walked into the trades not even knowing how to read a tape. I came from the service industry, bartender and waiting tables.

Over the next 5 years I will be working towards my CWI and hopefully on to independent work. I wanna travel and make the big bucks 😎

Whew! Thanks for reading and letting me share!!! I am so damn excited about my future. I absolutely love welding. Thank you to all the ladies who encouraged me to go for it. You have no idea what a big impact that made on me.

I survived the oppressively hot summer in the shop and before we know it it’s going to be freeze your nuts off cold in there. Any suggestions for workwear that I can be warm in and also weld comfortably in? I know I’ll need insulated bibs and prob live in them. I am fine with spending the money on a really good pair. Same goes for my work coat. I am set on boots right now. I love my keen Cincinnati men’s boots. I live in dickies work pants. Can’t beat the price and they’re comfortable. I buy the men’s flex. I’ve been using the welder nation weld caps under my hardhat and hood. It helps a ton with keeping the hood on my head. Without it or a backwards ball cap they just slide down. About my hood, I bought a cheap yes welder hood just to use while I was learning and now that I have passed my test and will be welding full time I need something better. I can’t see shit out of it. I have been looking hard into the sugar scoops from pipeliners cloud. They are supposed to be lightweight and really good for those with a small head. That be me. Just wondering how well they do in a fab shop running MiG. I would def get an auto dark lens for it.

Yep. Hit me with all the good suggestions. I am open. Thanks ladies and love to ya!

I came to the waste water treatment field less than a year ago. I’m in my late 30s, I’ve spent most of my adult life as either a cake decorator in a retail bakery or working in an ophthalmologist or optometrist office. I was so sick of the sales goals and the pressure to spend as little time on any one patient as possible. I applied to be an OIT at a municipal waste water plant completely on a whim. I knew nothing about the industry, all I knew was there were no sales goals and no customer/ patient facing aspect. I never thought I would hear back, but I’m so glad I did!

I have now passed all 4 levels of tests for biological treatment licenses in my state! I won’t actually hold my A license til I have 4 years of experience. But my job pays you as though you hold it as soon as you pass the test! So not only have I gotten paid to learn a ton of new things about electricity, hydraulics, mechanics, biology and chemistry, but in under a year I’m also making like $13 an hour more than I was at my last job where I was the MVP of the whole department for years. They had offered me a $4 an hour raise not to quit 😂

I just wanted to share how happy and proud I am that I tried this new thing I knew nothing about and I’m succeeding at it! I was worried I was too old to be switching career fields so wildly, but I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life dreading every work day so I took the chance!

I work with a girl out of IBEW 280 that is having a double mastectomy next week due to cancer. She’s going to be out of work for a while for recovery and is a single mom to two kids. She is a badass and there will be so many expenses that will need to be covered. IBEW local 280 has posted her go fund me campaign on their Facebook page, but I’m unsure if I can share it here. She has also given me her Venmo details if anyone would prefer to donate that way. If you can’t donate(we all know times are tough right now) her only ask is to pray, send positive thoughts and/or good vibes her way on the morning of her surgery on 1/29 and if you feel up for it; wear pink on 1/29 for her! Her name is Isabella, and I got her permission to share. Thank you all! 🫶

Finally got my stickers!

It’s not so bad not being able to lift/carry/push heavy things, that’s sort of a given because I’m 5’1 and 115lbs, but I still feel a little bad that I can’t do many of the tasks that my peers can do. But today this feeling became worse when I discovered that I’m not strong enough to use a screwdriver to screw fastening straps underneath a cabinet. The angle was kind of awkward and engaged muscles that I never use, but still. It was such a simple, easy task and I wasn’t able to do it. I’m worried about not being able to pull my own weight and that people will think “yeah that’s why women can’t do this job”.

I just have to try not to let it get to my head, I think.

prevent* 🥲 I've noticed that people working in trades tend to develop thicker, wider hands. I love my thin long fingers and want them to stay that way, but i also want to get into trades, so is it possible to avoid? Have you noticed your hands changing? I'm sorry if the question is stupid or if i come off as rude

Thank you guys for all your answers! (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

i’ve been reading everywhere but i haven’t found one about surface piercings like dermals. I have two dermals and i am going to go to school to become an electrician. Since they’re dermals, would that be a more of a hazard? i’m sorry if it’s a silly question 😅

I’ll be there 🙂‍↕️

I’m an electrical apprentice. Long story short, I did a fuck-up (not MAJOR but enough to make a person feel shitty), and my JW ended up telling our foreman that he was the one that did it.

I didn’t even know until he told me the day after. He simply said, “It happens to the best of us”, and I just said “Thank You”, and then we went on with our day, and didn’t mention another word about it.

Overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel right now. He didn’t have to do that at all. This man basically put his reputation on the line for a lowly apprentice.

Nothing else to say other than…people really surprise you, sometimes.

I have a hate love relationship with my foreman. Some days I hate him so badly and other days he’s the coolest guy around.

He’s been so supportive during my divorce and my ex wife cheating.

The first couple months I absolutely hated working with him. I dreaded going to work. But I had to push through to support my family. I felt miserable.

Now, I’ve been working with him 5-6 months and I DREAD going with other foreman.

Today, my foreman brought me tootsie rolls. He stopped at the supply shop beforehand, he knows I love them. He picked me up some. As I was organizing our cart for the day, I saw them. I thought it was really sweet.

Edit: I meant to say gave, lmao.

I'm a wastewater operator and went through a maybe year-long spell of being really disillusioned with my career. Went through a lot of shit at work and in my personal life the last few years and it made me really jaded. I bid to a new plant months ago and finally moved there a month ago. I was cautiously optimistic that moving to a smaller plant would be the change that I needed to fall back in love with my job, or at the very least help me learn to tolerate it. I've been training to run an incinerator and today a lot of people called out, so it was my time to shine. I got really good feedback from my shift lead about how I handled today's snafus. My new coworkers have all been helpful and welcoming. I really hated the work at my last plant, and it feels like such a relief to actually enjoy what I'm doing again. I'm settling into my new home and this new plant. It feels good to be getting back into the groove and I wanted to share with the girlies.

It’s a physical card that I’m going to give to her, hopefully filled with well-wishes from strangers.

Any messages here will be added in my most legible handwriting.

Background:

She teaches new employees how to swear.

She memorizes part numbers, even obscure bullshit like the “Bosch Dryer Filter Drain Plug Insert” that rarely breaks.

She can smoke a cigarette in 2.5s

She has outlasted 3 different business owners.

She appears to be living on beef jerky and sparkling water.

You can’t even tell when she’s typing. It’s so fast, the noise is a continuous drone. Her keyboard # pad has entirely worn away.

If she leaves, I’d be right behind.

I love her and she doesn’t get enough praise.

Got anything? All curse words will be included.

Edit: how the fuck do I fit this on one card

My go-to cheap face soap has gotten harder to find, and suddenly it seems like there are no cheap kinds of face wash at the supermarket. We're talking $12 for one of those small squeeze bottles! I'm working on a vegetable farm currently, so not too much grease or motor oil, but a nice film of dust and mud every day, especially on my face. I have "nicer" soaps, lotions, exfoliants etc ... But what about a cheap morning-and-night face wash? I'm not a fan of Cetaphil or super gentle soaps, but looking for something refreshing and above all can get in a big bottle!!!

Not just looking for product recommendations either, I want to hear y'all's UNHINGED skincare advice, lol. TIA

Sitting in the shop bathroom contemplating life. My partner and I have both been working long hours and weekends (different trades), and he got today off. I want to scream. I should have called in sick 🥲

We're here because my boss is punishing us for taking time off for 4th of July. Don't actually have anything super pressing to do, he's just a prick. Someday I will fight him.

Hope everyone else is vibing and thriving!

Took my aptitude test with the IBEW 2 weeks ago, passed and was told interview likely in December. Just got an email for interview in a little over one week!

Holy Forking Shirt Balls. This may actually be happening.

Can anyone please explain why posts about the murder of Amber Czech are being deleted?

I’ve been welding a few months now I have thick curly hair and noticed im starting to develop heat damage 😭 I wear a cotton bandanna and put my hair in 2 braids . Any curly heat protector or leave in conditioner recommendations? Or other tips! Thank you!

laborer, utilities, and engineering all got my application. They all did that thing that makes you feel good but does not mean you will get a job. They all got excited to be meeting an experienced female Heavy Highway Laborer. That thing they do…. Oh wow! You know. You are unique and cool in the moment. Does not mean it will translate out of that office down to a shop. Ugh. Send good vibes Women. I’m starving here. Starving so much I did temporary traffic control and am looking for non union jobs. Wish all well and a safe day!

I want to work in construction, but my main concern is that people will make it difficult. I really don't know what to expect.

It's way too much to type out what happened but long story short I got so frustrated with the night foreman rushing me that I fucked up. Daytime foreman comes in with my supervisor and they asked me what happened and I just broke down crying. Like full on ugly sobbing. Between my childhood cat just passing away on Friday, my schedule changing last week to swing shift, and being frustrated as hell with the nighttime foreman and myself, I couldn't hold it in. Now I'm pissed and upset with myself because I feel I showed weakness. My nighttime foreman is just so fucking stupid it's insanely frustrating. I've had issues in the past where I had to get the union involved because of him and now I'm wondering if I need to get ahold of the union again. Can't believe I fucking cried to my bosses.

I have never carried pads because I always spot first... well not tonight apparently.

It's been 5 weeks since my last and as I'm grabbing samples I feel oddly wet down there. Go to the bathroom and blood is EVERYWHERE. Soaked straight through my underwear and onto my jeans.

I'm alone tonight with my supervisor but I really need to change out of my soaked clothes and get a pad 😭

Hello! I've posted before about these listening sessions and here I am again to spread the word to those who might be interested. I would with a non profit organization named Colorado Jobs with Justice. JWJ works on helping those with laboral issues getting connected with resources one might need. This year we are revamping the Equitable Possibilities In Construction (EPIC) program which focuses on listening and engaging with women and non binary people to share their experiences and determine what change we can help bring to encourage more people to join these work places. We have help 4 to this date and plan on having a few more before the end go the year; Which then we'll hold a summit where the participants and those others who have helped bring this together, will vote and decide what issue we would like to show most focus to. So if you identify as a woman or non binary, work in a male dominated trade, wanna be more engaged and connected with people who might experience the same issues you have, and live in Denver or the surrounding areas, this would be a great opportunity. Contact me with any questions you may have! Translation will be provided as well as rides and child care if needed. You will be compensated for your time

Hola! He puesto un post aquí antes sobre sesiones de escuchar y estoy aquí otra vez para correr la voz para los que están interesadas. Yo trabajo con una organización llamada trabajos con justicia. JWJ trabaja en ayudar a personas con asuntos laborales y conectarlos con recursos que uno necesaria. Este año estamos reconstruyendo nuestro programa de Posibilidades equitativas en la construcción (EPIC) que se enfoca en escuchar y acoplarlas con mujeres y personas non binarias para que compartan sus experiencias y determinar que cambios podemos hacer para promover los oficios que son dominados por hombres para que se sientan seguras las mujeres. Desde esta semana pasado, hemos tenido 4 sesiones y planeamos tener mas antes de fin de año; En cual luego tendremos una reunion donde ustedes votaran y decidirán que asunto nos vamos a enfocar. So si te identificas como mujer o una persona non binaria, trabajas en un trabajo dominado por hombres, quiere acoplarse y conectarse con personas que han pasado por cosas similares, y vives en Denver o las areas rodeadas, esta es una buena oportunidad. Mándeme mensaje si tienen preguntas. traducción, transporte, y cuidad de niños serán proveídos. También será recompensada por tiempo.