That Girl

Being a woman in an all man job is interesting. Concrete many people don't think of me a hundred and ten pound chick. But I work for one of the best guy's ever, and our crew is wonderful. They never underestimate me or try to do things for me because they think I can't.

I started out as a finisher, one who puddles and finishes the concrete after it's hauled into the forms. It's kind of funny the whole way I happened onto the job. My fiancé, Jake, has been doing concrete since he was young mainly as a laborer. But a couple summers ago My fiancé, one of our friends and I were doing side jobs. The first job we had was straight forward, just a sidewalk, the mud came and our friend who had gone to school for masonry was going to finish. Jake was running the wheelbarrow and I was on the side running tools and helping out where I could. He was about half way down the sidewalk filling it with the mud, when he saw what how our buddy was "finishing" the concrete. Grabbing the two by four and raking the mud back which would have turned out to be collapsed in the middle ruining the whole sidewalk. That's when Jake grabbed my hand and said you're going to finish now. He showed me how to see saw the two by four the make sure the mud settles down in the form, then to puddle it with the float.

We went the rest of the summer doing jobs around the range until our buddy had a little breakdown and took off to the cities to hide with his sister. Now I work with Jake's dads' friend John. Last week was my first job without Jake being there, I was a bit nervous. But it went great. John and I shot the corners on Monday, which consists of using very expensive tools to get square corners, and of course the house and garage had many different corners. Then we went about setting up forms and laying steel (or re-bar) for the footings on the house and garage. It was the next day when the home owner showed up.

I didn't think much of it, I remembered him from the local college where he teaches and he married an acquaintance of mine. Until we were jumping from the foam forms out of the hole onto the bank, I was about to jump after another guy on the crew when the home owner said he didn't want to take "that girl" to the hospital. So he made John throw a plank up for me so I didn't have to jump. After that it got continually worse, he didn't have the guts to say much to my face but referred to me as that girl the rest of the job. At one point he even called me the girlfriend of Joe one of the younger guys on the crew, although I think Joe was pleased with that I'm engaged to be married to the man of my dreams and Joe also has a long term girlfriend.

He told John three days in a row that he didn't want me to come to work the next day, because he didn't think they needed me and did not think that I was worth the measly ten bucks an hour. Which ten bucks an hour is a horrible wage for me I'm used to making three or four hundred bucks in a half day or so being a finisher, so laborer wages are weak. But John refused to leave me behind to have a laborer who he's never met, worked with, or has any experience. Plus he knew the home owner was just being a sexist prick and if I was a guy this would have never even been brought up.

I would've loved to tell that guy off so bad. He really deserved it. Another thing I noticed was that a lot of women were very interested in my job, how I got to be a finisher/laborer. I don't really understand the big deal I've always been in a "mans job" before I was an outfitter hauling canoes and kayaks for a living. I've been thinking of joining the laborer's union but I know the crap I'm going to get for doing that will come in ten fold. We'll see what happens, all I know is I don't ever want to work an inside job ever again. I love the dirt and mud, coming home exhausted, filthy dirty, and bantering with the crew all day. I couldn't ask for a better job even though I'm just "that girl."