Challenges and rewards

- Am Rachael, am a fourth year apprentice I've been in the trades for approximately six years and I had a little inner mission pursuing the elevator trade and found that my real passion is sheet metal and recently came back and am going to journey out in an year I had a dream of working in the forest service and I took a job in Genetic Engineering and Bio Technology still based with plants and my field but not really the natural side that I loved so when I met the contractors that were helping with our facility I was intrigued by what they were doing they were fixing air conditioners which is a very mundane thing but the maths and the science behind refrigeration it was fascinating I've always been a tactal builder and when they told me about this program its like I can use this things I love, building and creating and my science and maths in one all encompassing career and I discovered that not only would my pay increase as a first year apprentice, but I would have tremendous benefits including pension full family healthcare. So the process I went online and found their application times and it was, it was rather straightforward It's getting your transcripts, getting standardized testing to make sure you fulfill the requirements and handing it in didn't think much of it, wasn't sure when in if I'd hear from them and then about nine months later that Leeton that summer I get the call like, hey, you ready to work? and it's like oh I can escape. I can escape and make money So I told my boss and then I was leaving and I ended up taking my first job through the apprenticeship long before I started school they had an emergency need for our apprentices I went directly to work making more money than I ever had before and getting on the job training in a amazing trade It's Origami with iron is what it is and being able to design layout cutout and build a three dimensional object from a sheet of metal with my own hands and knowing properly how to do that so it's exactly to Spec dimensionally is like it blows my mind that I can do that, you know, square to round with all these facets and just the pure metal working is something I really enjoy you can be the worker bee you can be in the shop fabricating the material that goes to the job site. You can be in an industrial position where you're working with heavy steel and stuff but there's also this whole support network within the companies back of the office. We need drafting and we need cad we need that design and computer technology support to make our bids, to design our systems So my day starts early typically I generally leave the house and at six in the morning, our job site begins work around six Our crew starts at seven and we start the day with stretch and flex so we're physically prepared for the day it's a really simple way to warm yourself up for physical demanding jobs and we go through we have a safety round table every morning to make sure we know where we are, what we're doing what hazards around the job today So we manage that every morning and then we get divided up into our work groups for the day which involves typically two or three people getting teamed up to install an area so we might work on different types of duct in different zones. and we do that all day long pack up and leave for the day being on a specific site through its construction is incredibly satisfying from the beginning where you're setting large air handlers to fulfilling the duct work throughout the building and then finally the finish work and then you get to see everything in action the heart start to beat of the building and it's like, and especially if you do architectural work your gutters and flashing and everything's perfectly lined up and you're like I did that, I made that beautiful structure my card well me and I really succeeded then I was able to ...which like my degree it's like I did it, I completed it but it also means that I'm at a level now where I can I have enough knowledge to train someone else but I'm really just beginning my training as a sheet metal worker because you never stop learning and the technology is ever evolving and we're always trying to keep on top of that and learn everything new