Ladies in Leadership Focus on Construction Industry Issues: Live Panel

Live Panel is a new modern platform where leaders in the skilled trades discuss compelling issues facing the construction industry. Live Panel shares remarkable stories and points of view of how journeyman and woman build the things that make our lives work!  These lessons learned are not only valuable for those engaged in the skilled trades but frankly for all of us whether we use tools literally or figuratively in our daily lives.

Your hosts on Live Panel Sparky, Lia Lamela host of Sparky Life Podcast, Boots, Lindsay Reynold host of She Wears Work Boots and Alexis Armstrong host of the Smoko Podcast come together for an unscripted live show!


In this podcast episode, Lia Lamela introduces a new show, Live Panel with Sparky, Boots and Smoko.  Lindsay Reynolds and Alexis Armstrong join Lia to explore the challenges of working in male-dominated spaces, including communication hurdles and career advancement issues. These ladies discuss gender bias and differing communication styles between genders. Additionally, they share a quirky anecdote about giving a funeral to a pigeon named Soup, complete with a jug band. These women are on a mission to have candid conversations surrounding STEM, skilled trades and construction industry.

Connect with us:@sparkylifeoflia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRGO5tWne14

Sparky Life Supports: Raya Kenney's Foundation Women Who Worked on the Home Front Memorial

Be apart of history!
Here's the link to donate.
https://marnie-kenney-sfg2.squarespace.com/checkout/donate?donatePageId=63d1d506217f9e44111ecfea

We support financial advisement for the skilled trades community.  You can reach out to Jennifer Markwell at Platinum Wealth email Jennifer@PlatinumWealth.net
website www.PlatinumWealth.net


Music by https://www.purple-planet.com

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00:06) - Welcome to the Sparky Life podcast. I'm your host, Lia Lamela. And here I share skilled trades conversations with those I've met along the way. Originally, when I started The Sparky Life, I wanted to share the unseen heroes, the trade tales that many people aren't even privy to. And I wanted to create a safe space for women in the skilled trades. I also wanted to debunk some myths regarding the skilled trades, and open people's eyes to all of the opportunities the skilled trades has to offer. Personally, my whole life changed when I started a career in the skilled trades and I learned it's not just a career path, it holds life lessons and keys to success. But now, Sparky life has evolved much like a construction site. You never know what you're going to get with a Sparky live episode, but somehow, in the end, it all comes together, building a better understanding of the skilled trades opportunities. Join me and the Sparky Life guests every Thursday, where we are here to help you create the sparks in your life.

Speaker 1 (00:01:28) - This episode is a little preview to a new project that I created with two lovely ladies. I have the pleasure of joining Alexis Armstrong, host of the Smoko Podcast, and Lindsay Reynolds, host of She Wears Work Boots podcast in this new creation of live panel. Live panel is a new modern platform where leaders in skilled trades discuss compelling issues facing the construction industry. Live panel shares remarkable stories and points of view on how journeymen and women build the things that make our lives work. These lessons learned are not only valuable for those engaged in the skilled trades, but frankly, for all of us. Whether we use tools literally or figuratively in our daily lives. I hope you enjoy the episode and look forward to seeing you live every third Wednesday of every month with Sparky. That's me, boots and smoko on the live panel. Hey, can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (00:02:44) - Hi, yes I can. Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (00:02:46) - Yes, yes I can.

Speaker 3 (00:02:48) - You okay.

Speaker 1 (00:02:49) - Oh no, I just had some pigs like breakout.

Speaker 1 (00:02:52) - So Mike, I have to be on.

Speaker 3 (00:02:57) - Like, physical pigs. Like physical.

Speaker 1 (00:02:59) - Pigs. Like pigs.

Speaker 3 (00:03:03) - I kid you not. I kid you not. Oh my God, of course, like, right before. That's so funny.

Speaker 1 (00:03:08) - Of course I was crawling pigs, Lindsay. I was in a pig fight right now.

Speaker 3 (00:03:13) - Yes, of course you were. Hahahahaha! Okay. Did you win?

Speaker 1 (00:03:20) - I did because they are all accounted for and in their pens safely.

Speaker 3 (00:03:27) - Yeah. Oh. So, ladies.

Speaker 1 (00:03:31) - How was your day?

Speaker 3 (00:03:33) - Honestly, not as eventful as pigs like I. It was good. No pigs in my day highlight. Uh, I can't even remember where I was driving to.

Speaker 4 (00:03:46) - Because it's been that kind of a day. But as in my car and, uh, I put my little AirPods in, and I went to my podcast thing, and I listen to the both of you. You're on my.

Speaker 3 (00:03:59) - I'm just going the Alexis. Leah. Oh, yeah. My Q is just like, back and forth.

Speaker 3 (00:04:06) - Ah, that's so cute. Thank you. I have to have that day tomorrow. Yeah, that sounds lovely. Yeah. It was, it was.

Speaker 4 (00:04:15) - Your part of my day. That was lovely. The rest of it I could do without. But you know what?

Speaker 1 (00:04:21) - We're here now.

Speaker 3 (00:04:22) - We're here now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:04:25) - All right, ladies. Roundtable discussion. Right.

Speaker 3 (00:04:29) - Feeling it. Feeling the roundtable.

Speaker 1 (00:04:33) - How about we start with being in male dominated fields? Have any of you experienced having to change the way you communicate in order to be seen, in order to get that promotion, in order to be recognized as a leader?

Speaker 3 (00:04:49) - That's such a good question. Good job. Right off the hop. That's a like Gome I like it. I like the deep end. Yes for sure 100%. Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:05:02) - All day long. Yeah. Yeah. All day long. Like it's a constant navigation.

Speaker 1 (00:05:07) - Did that come naturally for you. Like I had to learn it. I had to learn how they communicate.

Speaker 1 (00:05:12) - I was getting nowhere.

Speaker 3 (00:05:14) - I think. I don't know, Lindsey jump in. I think for me, I don't think I learned it and I don't think I learned a good way to do it. I think I honestly have way more success now if I communicate just authentically and how I do so, I'm not second guessing myself or trying to be something that I'm not. I think I have far more success now, but back in the day I would try to emulate them as best I could, and I felt like it wasn't just communication, but it was full persona. But I don't think it was necessarily a good thing or I got it right, or like I had success with it. I felt like I was just spinning, spinning my tires and changing who I was, but not really getting any further in terms of communication. I felt like I tried to be a very like stereotypical masculine man, and I tried to emulate like Bubba, and I'm like, I'm not a Bubba. Like I've never been a Bubba.

Speaker 3 (00:06:08) - Like, I don't know why that was my role model. Like, you know what? I go, Bubba? No. Like I'd be like, yeah, I'm also from Texas. Like it was ridiculous. Like, no, it didn't work. But I tried.

Speaker 4 (00:06:19) - Imagining you out on one of those boats. Yeah, bunch of geologists or whatever it is that you guys did out there on the ocean. I think you go, Bubba, and that is your model for how you're going to navigate that environment. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:06:36) - Like I tried. I don't think it was good.

Speaker 4 (00:06:39) - Yeah. So I think that I've actually only it's like the opposite. I have learned recently how where um, my authentic self exists with women, but it's like I've always now I don't know that I've been successful, especially a younger version of myself in communicating effectively with men, but I my memory is so saturated in that male dominated environment that I don't know that I knew any different. So like the way that I was communicating wasn't necessarily a way.

Speaker 4 (00:07:22) - It was me being me in the only environment that I knew. But, um, but I don't know that it was it was especially successful. And now that I've spent time and found, um, some, you know, like minded, uh, women who are. Yeah. That I, that I get along with, I never expected that I would find women that I understand they get along, I get along with, you know, I don't know why that was this myth that I had, a story that I had told myself that kept me from this wonderful space for so long. But once I got there and I've started to find, um, comfort and authenticity and definitely, like, comfortable, like being comfortable in my own skin, now I notice that I'm like, oh, yeah, I have to put on a couple of things. Like, I have to think about some of these spaces in ways that I communicate that that I have two different worlds a little bit more. Now, I don't know if that makes make sense, but I'm also okay if my communication with the men doesn't really go perfectly well anymore because I'm like, oh, well, I'm just gonna go back over here with my ladies.

Speaker 4 (00:08:36) - I'll try that again later. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:38) - There you go.

Speaker 1 (00:08:40) - Yeah, I, um, I did what you did, Alexis, I did that. I over masculine myself. I went hard in that direction. Yeah. And it wasn't successful. But then I started to learn. I read a bunch of books, surprised about how men communicate and how they operate in professional fields. And so I changed the way I communicated with men in particular. So I was still me just talking their language. And that got me real far, real fast.

Speaker 3 (00:09:23) - So I need to read these books. I'm still not.

Speaker 4 (00:09:26) - Even.

Speaker 3 (00:09:28) - I'm not even conscious.

Speaker 4 (00:09:29) - And I and I'm pretty sure my failures, I still take as like a personal affront. I'm like, if I'm failing in my communication, it's like it's like me as a person is failing in communicating with other human beings as opposed to like, there's something else going on here. Oh, Leah, you please send over those book recommendations.

Speaker 1 (00:09:49) - Brenda. Brenda, tackle Barry is amazing.

Speaker 1 (00:09:53) - Brenda. Tackle. Barry. Lindsay, do. Did you speak with her at all? Do you know her? No, no. Oh my gosh Alexis. No okay I will I'm going to.

Speaker 3 (00:10:03) - Introduce about her though.

Speaker 1 (00:10:05) - Okay. I've got to send an email introduction because she started the spark in that direction. So, uh, she's a gender bias specialist, and she really understands how men and women communicate with one another and like, social society, cultural backgrounds with gender and. One thing she said that totally changed my life is the reason why I'm working. Where I'm working right now is that men will lie on their resumes. And what I mean lie. I mean, men will say things making themselves more grandiose or making it sound like they're more knowledgeable than what they really are. And they have no qualms in doing this. They they're much more comfortable peacocking or talking about their wins than women are. And women's wins. Okay. And this is the part where my audio cut out, we had some technical difficulties.

Speaker 1 (00:11:06) - And in order to fill the dead air time, you're going to hear a beautiful rendition from our very own Alexis Armstrong. And when we listened to this playback, it was so funny. We just wanted to share it with you all. And now the vocal renditions of Alexis.

Speaker 3 (00:11:28) - Come back, come back to me, baby, come back, baby, come back to me Leah. Oh, no technical difficulties. Leah come back baby come back.

Speaker 4 (00:11:44) - Since you need to sing more for sure.

Speaker 3 (00:11:47) - Okay, I'll sing more. You know what? No, I don't need any. Um. I don't need any push to go to karaoke. You know what I mean? Like that lives right here. This is a I'm at that level already. So, like you say, karaoke. I'll sing. That is an Alexis.

Speaker 4 (00:12:02) - Fun fact, I love karaoke.

Speaker 3 (00:12:05) - Oh, Leah, we were.

Speaker 4 (00:12:06) - We were just doing a little interlude. We lost you. And then Alexis was singing for everybody. We figure that if this is actually being recorded and released with just no editing whatsoever, we keep the airwaves full.

Speaker 1 (00:12:17) - Thank you for covering.

Speaker 3 (00:12:18) - You're welcome. Yes, I had technical difficulties.

Speaker 1 (00:12:21) - Pig fight today. Technical difficulties. It's going to be a day. So I was trying to say about about, uh, men and women and how we communicate and how I got this job. Was Brenda talking about how men. Peacock. Right. So women don't do this on resumes. So I applied for a job that I didn't have credentials for, and I didn't lie on my resume. I just boosted what I was already doing, and I tried to relate it to the position. And I got the job. This badass. I've never done that before in my life. I every time I looked at a job, if I didn't have something that ticked their box, I was like, oh, I don't qualify. Oh, I can't.

Speaker 4 (00:13:04) - My insides are like literally like I can feel the compression in my lungs right now listening to you tell that story. I'm like, oh.

Speaker 3 (00:13:12) - I can never do that.

Speaker 4 (00:13:14) - Oh, are you kidding? Because then they would.

Speaker 3 (00:13:16) - Ask.

Speaker 4 (00:13:16) - Ask in the interview and my tools are huge. Like, I do not play poker. You I would be like, oh well that's an interesting story. And then I don't even know it would get bad. It would get bad real fast.

Speaker 1 (00:13:29) - They asked and I was honest. They asked and I was like, well, I don't have this, but I have this, and this is how that relates to this and that. So I was it wasn't like I was. Yeah, I got these credentials.

Speaker 3 (00:13:42) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:13:43) - No no no no no I just applied for it. Curtailed the resume to fit more in line with that job, which I would have never done before. And then when they asked me straight up, do you have A, B and C said, no, but I do have, you know, f g. And this is how they relate to ABC. Um.

Speaker 4 (00:14:02) - So okay, here's a fun fact that I can't like, maybe it's not really a fun fact. It's a conversation that I've been having.

Speaker 4 (00:14:08) - It's semi related in my head. Or maybe I've just been waiting for the opportunity to bring this. Either way, conversation could be it's like.

Speaker 3 (00:14:16) - Either way, love it. Okay.

Speaker 4 (00:14:19) - This has been on like I have been thinking about this for a long time and it's bugging me. And I discovered something the other day that made me really angry about the English language. So first of all, the word emasculate. This is a word that is like it's a it describes an action that is incredibly bad. Like if you do something and you emasculate a man because you can only emasculate a man, right? Um, that is like it's it's really bad. And we like kind of all agree. If someone's like, oh, he's been emasculated like all of us go, oh no, that wasn't a nice thing to do. That person must have been a real jerk, because you're basically doing something that takes the essence of who he is and his identity, and stripping that away from him. And that's not a nice thing to do.

Speaker 4 (00:15:06) - We would all agree. What bothers me is that there is no female equivalent of that. There is no word that means the same thing for doing the same thing to a woman. Okay, this is what made me angry. Yeah. Pause. Let it sink in. Now, okay, so I had this conversation with a friend the other day, and we were talking about it, and we were trying to figure out Kayla. Well, let's make up the word. Let's make it up. Because. Because what happens when we start talking about women in trades in particular? A lot of the things that are required of us or women who work in male dominated, we are first idea is to become more masculine. Our first idea is, and we feel like what is being asked of us is that our femininity needs to be stripped away. Yeah. So I'm like, we need a word for that. We need a word for that because we've been talking about it and we don't have the language trying to find it, I went out.

Speaker 4 (00:16:05) - Mm hmm. This is what made me so angry. So angry. I looked up because I went like, uh, shoot. What's the word for the history of words? Uh.

Speaker 3 (00:16:16) - There's a voice.

Speaker 4 (00:16:17) - There. Yeah. I was like, there's a word.

Speaker 3 (00:16:19) - For that dictionary. I don't know. Yeah. The library.

Speaker 4 (00:16:24) - The the etymology.

Speaker 3 (00:16:26) - Okay. Very big word I like.

Speaker 4 (00:16:30) - Oh my God, this is like deep. I'm wearing my, my my professor glasses to like, put it the whole thing. I'll take them off after this and we'll just get dumb.

Speaker 3 (00:16:37) - But etymology.

Speaker 4 (00:16:40) - So the etymology, the etymology of the word um, emasculate is like xo and masculine, something in that range. I'm paraphrasing the Google here. Um, but exo means like to remove, right?

Speaker 3 (00:16:57) - Okay, um, to become feminine.

Speaker 4 (00:16:59) - Um, so with that. Okay. Well like let's exo feminine. Perfect. What is that? Guess what? That is effeminate. What do you think effeminate means?

Speaker 1 (00:17:09) - Educate me.

Speaker 4 (00:17:10) - Exactly the same thing as a masculine. Effeminate means a man who is got too much femininity and is also then emasculated. Both words mean the same thing, and it's only about the masculinity out of a man. They've got two.

Speaker 3 (00:17:26) - We got two, we got zero.

Speaker 4 (00:17:28) - We got zero. And they have both. They get both words.

Speaker 3 (00:17:32) - Also to like my anger with emasculate two is this idea that all of a sudden it's a bad thing to be less masculine, less stereotypical masculine and more feminine. And any increase in femininity displayed in a man is instantly a negative thing. Like, it's so binary, it's so rigid, and it also implies that being feminine is inherently bad and to be avoided. And like I always get, if someone's like, oh, that emasculated me, I don't actually feel bad for them. I'm like, good, you should like be a more fluid, like be what's wrong with being more feminine or having this this trait? Why does it have to be so rigid that it has to be masculine and you have to maintain that? And the other part of it too, is I feel like it's more danger.

Speaker 3 (00:18:19) - That's that's why I get a little bit. It's just I feel like that man has now had an ego hit and he could be dangerous and unpredictable, but it's less so of like, oh, I feel bad for him more being like, oh my goodness, this fragile ego. Ego just got bruised and I don't know what's going to happen. It could be a complete hothead right now, but like that is so annoying that they got two words and we got zero then like and just the whole concept of it drives me crazy. The whole concept of emasculation, I think it's just it's very rigid. And I think it also implies that femininity is a bad thing, whereas I think it's rigid for men as well. I think men should have the space to be able to be both feminine and masculine, same as women, right? You can choose your presentation.

Speaker 4 (00:19:00) - Oh, I completely, I completely agree. And, um, the challenge that I have been exploring lately is, is the way that our language changes, the way that we and limits the way that we can operate in the world.

Speaker 4 (00:19:15) - Because I mean, like, right, Leah, you you do this all the time, like I hear at the end of your podcast, like all the ways like you're like quick tips for how to, um, you know, improve and and it's often like little things like, like the self-talk and the way that you tell it, like how you tell yourself your own story. I mean, I'm, I'm grouping a lot of your little advice things into one thing, but I hear that often from you that you're like, I, I used to tell myself this, but now I tell myself that and like, I, I've changed the way that I look at this. And that's language that allows you to do that. And when our language doesn't even have the word that we need to describe our experience and to and to try to give it validation, um, that makes it that much more, uh, frustrating. And we take our language for granted, too. So it's one of those things that just kind of inherent, um, that's why it makes me so angry because.

Speaker 4 (00:20:11) - Because I'm one of the few people in the world that actually get excited about things like etymology. Everyone else is.

Speaker 3 (00:20:17) - I love it.

Speaker 4 (00:20:17) - These are just words. I just use them. Whatever.

Speaker 3 (00:20:21) - Hey, man. They're. I'm. For that. They have weight. So much weight.

Speaker 4 (00:20:25) - Mhm.

Speaker 1 (00:20:25) - Yeah they do. They do. And you bring up an excellent point. I used to believe that language was not important. I used to think that oh it's just words. And my thought process there was, I was very it's funny because it was an oxymoron. I was very passionate about freedom of speech and comedians and being able to say obscene things and shocking things and, and the artistic idea behind that. So my premise was like, oh, it's just words, right? Obviously, I don't think this anymore. I understand the power of language. But we should definitely come up with a word that should be like a thing we should ask people to come up with. What word? Is there such a thing as word ologist? Am I making shit up?

Speaker 3 (00:21:15) - I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (00:21:16) - There is. No. You just became one. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (00:21:19) - Makes up words. Person who names things.

Speaker 4 (00:21:24) - Yes, yes. Okay, so here's the question. What, uh, what? Where have the men that you worked with, um, surprised and encouraged you? Like, where have they kind of broken their own stereotype?

Speaker 3 (00:21:42) - Um, I was just going to say sometimes what surprised me is their ability to jump in, to become a mentor. And the fact that they're really gung ho to become a mentor. I've met some wonderful men that like, within a week, are just like they're a little bit rough, like I worked in mining, like they're not teddy bears. I'd be like, girl like, get over here and be like, this is a man that like, they'll just like, very graph, but they'll, like, take you under your wing really quickly. And I found that to be very surprising and very beautiful because it was in this very straight up way.

Speaker 3 (00:22:17) - It wasn't it wasn't done nicely, it wasn't done easily, but it was done like, hey, this is a gap in your knowledge. This is wrong. That is right. This is where you can go to learn more. This is how you do that. Like come on, tomorrow we're going here and the next day we're doing this like it was just very matter of fact. But that, um, like, passion for being a mentor really surprised me. Whereas I found I didn't expect it when I first started. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:22:44) - It's been my experience that there are some personality types, men and women, who really are passionate about educating someone and being a mentor. And I was surprised at the ones who were willing but disappointed that most of the time it would go from, I'm trying to mentor you to elicit an intimate relationship.

Speaker 3 (00:23:14) - Uh, yeah. That does sometimes does happen.

Speaker 1 (00:23:17) - And I'm disappointed that that was more often than not, I was very naive in the beginning, and I felt, I'll never forget this.

Speaker 1 (00:23:26) - This is my very first time walking into the trades. Okay? I was building automation panels. I didn't I didn't know how to do anything. I didn't know how to use a tool. Nothing. Okay. And this guy, this big guy. Okay. From Long Island's okay. Like my Jersey people. New Yorker people. All right. Mustache. Older gentleman okay. He's like, oh, come on, let me show you how to do this. And he's like breaking things down for me. And he's like, wow, you're a quick learner. You're doing great, kid. Very almost fatherly figure. Right. And I was blown away. I was like, wow, this is nothing like what stereotypes I'm told are in the trades. And then it started to creep into trying to touch the shoulder a little too long. I'm always trying to be a little too close. Never saw him pat the guys on the back. Never saw him like him. Be very interactive physically with the guys, but always with me.

Speaker 1 (00:24:39) - Then it was, let me take you out for a steak dinner. Then it was. I've done so much for you. I helped you in your career. You owe me.

Speaker 3 (00:24:50) - Disgusting.

Speaker 1 (00:24:51) - So that was a big blow. And I was disappointed. And I was disappointed that this occurs way more often now. The time that it didn't become an intimate thing. That was the shock. That was the wow. I can have this amazing colleague relationship, this mentor masculine figure who is actually rooting for me, rooting for me to root for me just as I am, doesn't want anything in return. Isn't crossing lines isn't about intimacy? We have common values and passions in our work, and one of the gentlemen that I recently interviewed, I love to steal his quote. He wanted me to stand on his shoulders so I could reach higher heights than he did.

Speaker 4 (00:25:55) - Very cute.

Speaker 1 (00:25:56) - It was really. It was great. It was great. So that blew me away. What about you, Lindsay? Did you have any experiences that you were like, wow, I never saw that coming.

Speaker 4 (00:26:06) - I asked the question.

Speaker 3 (00:26:10) - So I don't have to answer it. Classic movie. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:26:16) - All right.

Speaker 1 (00:26:17) - Tell me the funniest experience you've had on site or in the trades or surrounding the trades or a blooper? Lindsay, I know one of yours already because I've had the pleasure, but.

Speaker 3 (00:26:30) - I don't know it. Lindsay, let it rip. I'm excited and are just like.

Speaker 4 (00:26:35) - Okay, so I don't even know what we were. I was joking with my team today on our our team meeting in the afternoon. It's, uh, I don't know when anybody would ever hear us having this conversation, but while we're recording it, it's a Tuesday. And I joke with my team that, uh, that we have t shirt Tuesday because Lindsay can't bother to think about how she's dressed if she's not leaving the house, if I'm at my computer and getting work done anyway. So that's that's just the that's the baseline. This is who we're dealing with here. Um, how I appear to other people is not high on my priority list, but it probably should be because.

Speaker 4 (00:27:17) - Um, I run a business and business development and networking, meeting new people, potential clients who need to respect me and believe that I've got something to offer. Probably want a good first impression for me. Um, but one of my most recent, uh. I've got a couple. Uh, one of them is include. Includes, like, eating clams for the first time with, uh, a client. And, um, they were like, they're cooked, but they're in the shell, and, uh, I didn't really know how to do it. We were talking, and I watched him eat his clams, and I broke them off, and. Uh, the very first one that I ate, I thought I'd broken the shell off. I, like, put it in my mouth. And in the middle of talking, like he asked me a question, and I try to answer back, and I've got, like, this clamshell.

Speaker 3 (00:28:06) - Like it didn't.

Speaker 4 (00:28:08) - Release properly, and I was just like, oh, Lindsay.

Speaker 4 (00:28:11) - But the best so far, the best one from my experience was that I was meeting, um, one of the, like, presidents of the local union, um, who's got like, I live near Hamilton, Ontario, and there's a lot of union presence and like central headquarters and stuff in Hamilton. And so this guy knows a lot of people and was a really good person to meet. And I was at an event. His daughter, uh, had just won a Women of Distinction award, and, um, I went over to congratulate her. It was really cool. Very nice. It's the end of the event. I'm there with my husband. My husband is a massive introvert, so he comes to these events to be very supportive, but has no interest in doing all of it. And at the end of the night, like I just start winding up, I'm like, I'm ready to meet more people, like, let's talk more.

Speaker 3 (00:29:04) - Woo! Yeah. Like he sees.

Speaker 4 (00:29:07) - Me go over to the this like last group and I'm meeting this individual who I've been wanting to meet for a while.

Speaker 4 (00:29:14) - And there's a few other people that I know around there. He sees that one. It's going to last a few minutes longer. And two, he'd like things to wrap up. So he goes, hey, well, while you do this, why don't I go get, um, quotes from the code check? And I'm like, oh, honey, you're the best. That's amazing. So off he goes and I'm chatting with people and someone says, oh, hey, like, have you met Joe? And uh, and I'm like, oh no. And they're like, oh, Joe, this is Lindsay. And just as this is happening, my husband comes back with my coat. So my husband comes back. He's staying behind me. I wonder if I can do this justice. Um, I, I reach I'm in the. Hi, Joe. My husband is behind me with the coat. I put the coat on and then I reach to shake Joe's hand through the sleeve. Oh, it's stuck like this.

Speaker 4 (00:30:05) - Yeah, it was my arm up in the air because the people at coat check zipped my coat up.

Speaker 3 (00:30:11) - Oh, Canada.

Speaker 4 (00:30:14) - It didn't do it. Ah. What did you do? I just like, I was like, uh, I don't know, I did, I was like, I don't it's nice to meet you. This is classic. Basically, this is the first impression you need to have of me because this is how it works when you're interacting with Lindsay. She cannot pull off a good first impression. So let's get it over with.

Speaker 3 (00:30:42) - I love it. Your husband's POV. Must have been like Lindsay. Like it's zipped. It's zipped. Oh, he was totally.

Speaker 4 (00:30:50) - Losing his mind. My husband, like, I have t shirt Tuesdays in my company. I shouldn't quote that. Like, it's a real organization. I have a team. I have a company. We have T-shirt Tuesdays. My husband is an employee of this big company of all, like, web developers and stuff.

Speaker 4 (00:31:05) - And during Covid, everyone's coming to work in their pajamas on zoom. He gets upset because he's got all of these fancy colored shirts that he never gets to wear, so he tries to instill fancy Fridays.

Speaker 3 (00:31:14) - Oh, that is so cute, I can't even. That is horrible. It is adorable. But the worst day like Friday to be like, we're dressing up, man. I don't care if you guys are having a long week. We are dressing up coattails. That's hilarious.

Speaker 4 (00:31:30) - Product in the hair and the whole deal. He crawls out of bed, puts her hand on her hair in a ponytail, and I'm like, I gotta get shit done. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (00:31:39) - Going out with a bang.

Speaker 3 (00:31:41) - I love it.

Speaker 1 (00:31:43) - What about you, Alexis? You got any o tails?

Speaker 4 (00:31:47) - Oh, you must you you. I've been listening to your podcast, so I know that you spend long periods of time with the people that you work with. And so there has to be something good that's happened in there.

Speaker 3 (00:31:59) - Yeah. There's definitely. I was going to be I was like, thinking of this. I was like, how are you going to explain the like losing your mind faction of your job because like working at C. So for people who like, don't know my background, I worked on a deep sea drilling vessel, deep sea drill ship that traveled around the world. And as soon as we would leave port, we would be gone for two months at a time and we would only see like 30 faces the entire expedition for two months. Sometimes we'd be working like midnight to noon. So you would only see darkness, you would never see the sun, and you would work 12 hours a day, seven days a week for two months straight, and you would never see land. And again, only 30 faces. And like that was the environment. And so there's an aspect of it that you just start to like, physically go crazy, like actually like losing your mind crazy. And there was one expedition that we are in the South China Sea and, um, I love animals like I'm a huge, huge animal lover.

Speaker 3 (00:32:59) - And we got these pigeons that are these illegal gambling pigeons that are in Hong Kong. They got blown out to sea and they landed on on our boat. And I was like, this is the best thing that's ever fucking happened. We finally have pets. Like we have it. All right, guys, like, I finally get to have a pet. Like, I'm so excited. So I named them all. And there was like, pigeons. And every day we would go and we will grind up, like, because I worked in an X-ray lab where I have to grind rocks all day on like a rock saw and like a grinder, and I would grind up, um, corn, corn cob to give to the pigeon and like, frickin like granola, like, whatever. We had all of these crazy technicians and scientists that were, like, obsessed with the pigeon. We took photos. We put them all over the lab like they were our mascot. And like as we were caring for them, there was one called soup and soup started getting like really sick.

Speaker 3 (00:34:03) - Like soup started like kind of dragging his wing and getting like really ill. And we're like, oh no, I don't know if soup. I think soup is going to become soup. He's not going to make it at this point. Like he's gonna and and he did pass. Soup did pass. Oh, um, and this is week six at this time. So we have been out to see it for six weeks and six weeks. That mark is where everyone starts getting grumpy. They start getting like actually crazy. Six weeks is like the worst. And so soup died and we're like, okay, well, we obviously have to have a funeral for soup. And clearly, clearly, that's like what we got to do. So then that day that we were having the soup funeral, we're like, we, this might as well be our our tech photo. We take a tech photo every single expedition and we always do themes for our tech photo because why not? It's again, we have no brain cells.

Speaker 3 (00:34:59) - Everybody has a smooth baby brain at this point. So we're like, okay, let's do, um, let's do hillbillies and let's make a jug band for our tech photo. So we all dressed up as hillbillies with makeshift instruments, and we took a photo, did our little, like, doo doo doo doo, and I actually have the photo. I can send it to you guys afterwards. Oh, you. In the photo, you can see my boss, Heather, who's this like, diva. Like absolute gorgeous supermodel from Newfoundland. She looks like a complete diva, but she's just like this hilarious character. And she's holding soup like a dead bird the entire time. Like like a bully. So then after we took the photo, we're still dressed. Mind you, we are still dressed as hillbillies with our instruments and, like, blackened teeth and the whole bit like maybe hillbillies is not a correct term. I'm sorry if I'm sorry, but that's. We dressed up as a jug band and it was like very stereotypical and very ridiculous and apologies if it wasn't good, but we were wearing those costumes and we had a dead bird in a sack and we walked through the entire boat, and then we gave him a Viking funeral and slowly dropped him off the side of the boat to go down to the depths.

Speaker 3 (00:36:10) - But we also sang him songs because we wrote a bunch of songs for him, and we performed them like soup soups going down. And then we played taps and we all had a moment of silence, and then we spoke some words about how he was a good pigeon. Um, yeah. That was that was a time.

Speaker 1 (00:36:30) - That's a better funeral than some human funerals.

Speaker 3 (00:36:34) - I've been to. Oh, like. And this is an aside. This is like a another thing that happens is with this boat, we're a famous program, and it's a famous boat that's been going on since, like, the 50s. Like it's been it's a freaking legacy program. It's been there forever. It's been there for a long, long time. And because of that, scientists, it means a lot to some of our scientists that, come on, we get sent ashes. All the time to do burials at sea.

Speaker 1 (00:37:06) - Oh, wow. I'd never know that.

Speaker 3 (00:37:09) - Yeah, and it's very beautiful. Like in in theory and on paper, it's very beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:37:14) - But in practice, no one knows how to do a funeral. And it's just like. And I'd be like, I'd be having my smoke break, and my boss would be like, Alexis, you're on funeral duty. And you'd be like, okay, I'm sorry. I'm just like with a bucket being like, I'm so sorry, Bob. Like, Bob, you were probably a really nice person. Like, I'm sorry that this is me doing this, Bob. And like, we were trying to take photos of it and, like, the amount of times that we would open up and it would just be ashes gone to the wind or in people's faces or just like Big Lebowski. Oh, it was terrible. It was so bad.

Speaker 4 (00:37:53) - I love it.

Speaker 1 (00:37:55) - I love it, I love it. I am jealous that I didn't get to do it. I want to be a part of the funerals.

Speaker 3 (00:38:03) - Honestly, you could have that gig I was looking to. If you. If you want to adopt a pigeon, I'm sure you can grab one from the street.

Speaker 1 (00:38:12) - Oh my gosh, I love it. We are running out of time, ladies, with our amazing roundtable here. Is there anything that you guys want to close with?

Speaker 3 (00:38:24) - If I could ask one question for you all, because I feel like I went on for a bit is, um, what's one thing right now that you would love to accomplish? Like what's on your bucket list? It could be like career. It could be doing something, a new skill. It could be the podcast. Like what's something that you're working towards that's on your bucket list.

Speaker 1 (00:38:43) - It's nice that one and two and three. It's a it's a oh, it's a fire alarm certification. That's supposed to be a big deal.

Speaker 3 (00:38:53) - Oh, amazing.

Speaker 5 (00:38:56) - I like it. Lindsey.

Speaker 6 (00:38:58) - Oh.

Speaker 4 (00:39:01) - Well, I'll be honest, I'm kind of in that, like that entrepreneurial, like Valley crushed space. What? What the what the fuck have I done? Kind of. Um. So bucket list feel like a difficult thing, but, um, I would say.

Speaker 4 (00:39:19) - Which, honestly, when if you're like an entrepreneur, that's like, every other day is you're down there, so it's just whatever is part of the course. Anybody listening who feels bad for me don't. I chose this life. But, um, I would say that on my bucket list is.

Speaker 1 (00:39:36) - The.

Speaker 4 (00:39:37) - Is this this space with, uh, like with you guys and some of the things I'm feeling very creative this year and definitely I've got Leah in my head going like, be more fun, just relax, do drugs. Really, it's like, I think it could be really great. Like finding, um, comfort in our own skin and being able to share that and show that in this space that we all work in. I feel like that's even more inviting than just showing that we exist here in these male dominated spaces, but that we exist and we're ourselves and we're finding ourselves and we're having a good time. I want to find more spaces like this. I want to create more spaces like this, to display the great things that are happening in our industries, and the people who are finding themselves and gaining courage and, um, and just see what comes of it.

Speaker 4 (00:40:48) - I just think that there's so much potential, um, for the future. And I like this idea that telling stories and creating platforms like our podcasts, um, could be a part of, um. Yeah. Something better, something cool.

Speaker 1 (00:41:09) - Thank you for joining us. If you felt a spark in today's episode, I invite you to write a review. I'd love to hear what lit you up, take what resonates with you, and if you'd like to hear more of the spark your life, please subscribe, like, follow and share.

 Until next time. Create the sparks in your life!