The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
When Cat Marriott's father ignited a spark in her with his love for motorcycle building, little did she know it would fan into a flame that would light her path through the welding world. Our latest guest, a Red Seal Welder from the scenic East Coast, takes us on her journey through Apprenticeship, adversity, and achievement. Cat's story isn't just about the sparks from the torch; it's a testament to the fire of determination within her. Transitioning from student to professional welder, Cat shares the nuanced details of her time at Irving Shipbuilding, where she swapped small practice plates for massive shipbuilding projects. Her experiences are a riveting reminder that it is the passion and growth of tradespeople like her that truly forge the industry's path forward.
Follow Catherine:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-marriott-34a196145/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
WeldReady: https://weld-ready.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
When Cat Marriott's father ignited a spark in her with his love for motorcycle building, little did she know it would fan into a flame that would light her path through the welding world. Our latest guest, a Red Seal Welder from the scenic East Coast, takes us on her journey through Apprenticeship, adversity, and achievement. Cat's story isn't just about the sparks from the torch; it's a testament to the fire of determination within her. Transitioning from student to professional welder, Cat shares the nuanced details of her time at Irving Shipbuilding, where she swapped small practice plates for massive shipbuilding projects. Her experiences are a riveting reminder that it is the passion and growth of tradespeople like her that truly forge the industry's path forward.
Follow Catherine:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-marriott-34a196145/
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
WeldReady: https://weld-ready.ca/
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
Alright, I checked, checked, I'm good. So I'm Max Ron. Max Max Ron, shitwb Association welding podcast podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWBE Association podcast. My name is Max Ron and I'm out there digging and grinding and looking and searching for people to bring on the show. And today we have a wonderful guest coming from the east coast of Canada, where we just were a few months ago for Canwelled except we were in New Brunswick, but we were kind of close. We have Kat Marriott here, coming to us from Nova Scotia. Is that where you are right now, kat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in Truro actually, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool. So, kat, are you a local lifer Nova Scotian?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely local lifer. I did travel for work a little bit, but this is always going to be my home, so I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting thing like the east coast, it's beautiful. I love it out there. I always hear people like looking to retire in the west coast. I'm like I feel like if you had to pick a coast to retire, I would pick east over west. But everyone there seems to have like a time of their life where they like leave the east coast to work. It's something. I heard a lot of right. Is that pretty standard for your area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's quite a few people that I know that have done the same thing. I don't know if it's just like a point in your life where you feel like you need to explore more options. Work was kind of I don't want to say scarce, but not well paying for a while in a lot of fields. So most people that wanted to dabble into the trades they took off out west, got some experience out there and came back.
Speaker 1:You know that when I was in northern Alberta a million years ago there was more people working in the steel trades from Newfoundland in Alberta than there was in Newfoundland.
Speaker 2:And I don't think you're wrong.
Speaker 1:I remember reading that stat and I was like that's wild. But I don't think it's like that, like that anymore. I was like during the big boom. I think it's kind of leveled out a bit and there's quite a bit of big industry. Now that's kind of come back to these coast there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're definitely calling quite a few people back home. It's a little bit of a push pull now because I constantly hear advertisements for jobs out west even on like the radio, just in the city. But then I mean Irving also has a big pull to bring all those people back because they're hiring a ton of trades right now. Yeah, it's a bit of a battle.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about you and your career path. So you're a welder by trade. That's what you are, Yep and Red Seal journey person.
Speaker 2:I am yeah Red Seal.
Speaker 1:All right. So when did you start down this path, like were you a kid and you already knew you wanted to be a welder? Or how did you find the trade of welding?
Speaker 2:I did kind of know I wanted to be a welder when I was a kid. I really didn't know how to get there. I did spend a lot of years trying to figure out that path. I've fallen into the traditional roles of like retail. I did a little bit of like fast food service. I always worked a lot of jobs and I found that I couldn't really kind of get those types of connections to be able to get into welding. I think the reason I really wanted to do it was because my dad and one of his good friends growing up they used to build motorcycles in our garage. So I would see that and even though they weren't welding, I kind of like had this visual in my mind of like, okay, well, I don't want to just put the puzzle pieces together, I want to make the puzzle pieces that they're putting together. So I think that's kind of where it started for me.
Speaker 2:But I kind of hit a bit of a roadblock. I was trying to get into any type of construction trade just to kind of have that base of a skill set. I was given an opportunity by a gentleman who put me with some insulators, which was really, I mean, to each their own If you like. That that's great. I didn't enjoy it very much but I stuck through it because there were a lot of connections on the road, there were a lot of connections on the job sites and I moved on from that. I must have applied to a job out West for five months straight, I think I applied every week. They were probably like this girl obviously needs a job, let's just give her a job. So I started working out there Again, not anything to do with welding, but I kind of figured I'm working this hard here in Nova Scotia, I'm not making the amount of money to even be able to pay for school, so I need to go make some money.
Speaker 2:So that's when I went out West. I was climbing inside pressure vessels on the oil fields removing catalyst from them. It was a very dirty, physical job but I mean it paid for school in a sense. I guess I came back home, I did shutdowns, turnarounds for three years and then I came back home and I joined the women unlimited group, which was like a pre-course into trades. You get to kind of dabble into a few different things. I picked metal trades and I wasn't really sure if I wanted to continue on with metal fabrication at the end of it. So I knew I wanted to weld. So that was my first choice. Metal fabrication was my second. So women unlimited was about three months and then I started the weld diploma program right after that. So I didn't even actually get to strike an arc until I started in women unlimited. That was the first time I welded and that was in 2017.
Speaker 1:So all these years of trying to get into welding for me, it's hard to wrap my head around why it was so difficult for you to do it. You know, like we are always talking about the barriers, what are the barriers people have that stops them from getting into where we need them, which is in the welding world. We need welders like crazy. So you know, coming out West, I live out West, I live in Saskatchewan, out here, if I want to be a welder it might be generalizing a bit, but really I just got to, like, walk out to the street. So there's always welding work that I can just kind of fall into. You know, I started welding a shop without an apprenticeship at all, just as a laborer, and worked my way up. That's very common in the West. But what was stopping you from being able to walk into a shop in Nova Scotia or the community college Like you know, tony Rose is there, the program head at NSCC they got welding programs, they got apprenticeship. What was stopping you know, kat, from being able to pursue those angles?
Speaker 2:So I actually tried that and I got chuckled at quite a few times. I got some weird looks. I walked out to shops, I applied to jobs. I handed out resumes personally, I applied online. Basically, what I was told was that the experience just isn't there, and I was pretty much begging for someone to just you know, give me an opportunity and I can show you that.
Speaker 2:you know I'll work and I will be a good welder. I'll do whatever you say. I'll work for next to nothing if you'll teach me. But they're just like I don't know if it's, and I hate to say like, oh, it's because you're a girl, but I don't know if they kind of had that weird feeling of like, well, I don't really know if it's going to work out Like it's kind of a coin toss for them in a sense. But I did get a lot of like go back to school a little girl and maybe get some experience and then come back Like anybody like.
Speaker 1:I mean guy or girl or them, they, whatever. It's always a coin toss hiring someone. I don't see what the difference would be, but I mean that's. That's my frustration with the world. But you know what about the college programs in Nova Scotia? You know, like we, we hear about the funding that's going into the Maritimes. We hear about all this money and that's going into the trades programs. Why couldn't you just sign up for an apprenticeship program there and just get it kicked off right off the top?
Speaker 2:So when I got into NSCC we still had to pay tuition. I know now that's changed and they're really trying to get trades people into the school, get them the skills that they need to get out into the work field. But we didn't. That wasn't an option for us and on top of that there was probably like a three to four year waiting list for welders at that time.
Speaker 2:So I was like, okay, well, I have X amount of years to wait for school, save some money and pay for school at the same time. Like I, another big thing for me was I've been on my own since I was 15. So I lived alone. I paid my rent, I paid my car payment, so taking funds away from that to pay for school there was no section is extra there's no, saving. There's no, no, nothing. So I had to leave.
Speaker 2:I felt like I worked two, three jobs at one point for a long period and I still didn't really feel like I was getting any further ahead. I was burning the candle at both ends. So, yeah, I took off, I saved up a little bit of money and I paid for school. I felt like if I didn't go to school I wouldn't have gotten hired by anybody.
Speaker 1:And what was the experience for you coming out West, Cause I have the bias of being a Westerner where work is always plentiful. You know we always got piles of work out here in the West. It's always good paying jobs Like we complain about wages out here and we're getting paid double what the rest of the country is getting paid and we're, you know, complaining about it. What was it like for you from Nova Scotia coming out? I assume you went to Alberta. I'm not sure which batch you went to, but you know, yeah, I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was a crazy experience for me, honestly, because I'm used to pretty much working like a dog for pennies. So when I went out there, even though our pay wasn't as great as other people, like we weren't a trade, we were considered technicians. So that bumped us down the list immediately. But for me, I felt like I hit a goldmine. I was like what is this place Like? Are you kidding me? So I would literally like there was no moment in time where I would stop working. I would be picking up duct tape off the ground. I didn't want to get caught not doing something, because working here, you really like they're paying you very little, but like you're nonstop. So I did get a sense of like, wow, people stand around a lot and I just didn't want to get caught doing that. So I thought I don't know.
Speaker 1:You hear that Westerners Don't get caught standing around.
Speaker 2:But it was, the experience for me was great. I met a lot of really great people out there and it's just. The culture was totally different and I feel like I needed that. But also in the sense of like safety, I had no clue like how stringent that was, how important it is to be on top of that stuff on a regular basis, until I went out there and they explained the why behind it, based on your position and what you're doing, and then I came back to Halifax and I was like man, we are in the stone ages.
Speaker 1:Well, it goes with the money right, Like the money brings the safety.
Speaker 1:It brings the systems right and it's an ebb and flow Like if people were out here in the West prior to the 90s. It was Wild West out here too. And then the big boom hit, right Cause we came out of a drought in the 80s and gas was worth nothing and it was like it wasn't great out here then. And then the boom hit and all of a sudden the 100 year old mine has to get rebuilt because now it's gotta be safe.
Speaker 1:So like when people started showing up in the 2000s. They're like, wow, everything out here is brand new. It's like, well, it is now Like you know now that the boom hit. But I guess the East coast hasn't really had that boom moment where the money just floods in right.
Speaker 2:No, I think the only place that's even comparable to that is like Irving, where it's a nice new facility. I mean they do preach safety, but that's a whole other. That's a whole other can of words, but yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:There's not a lot of places like that around here we are building. I noticed there's a lot of things that are changing here. I think Nova Scotia pretty much got a swift kick in the air for a lot of things and now they're trying to be a little bit more sophisticated and on par with the rest of the country. But we are behind. We're definitely behind in a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:Why didn't? You why didn't you think about getting into the welding program in Alberta while you were there, cause they always had lots of spots there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't really have an answer for that.
Speaker 2:I guess I just kind of was like doing my time and then, like I was, yeah, I was just kind of on that track of like this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go home, save up X amount of dollars. Go home, not have to be like a starving student while I go to school and just finish my program. And when I went into the women unlimited program, one of the biggest things that they had mentioned was if you pass the program and you're in good standings, you don't have to wait on that waiting list anymore. At NSCC there's a reserved seat for you, so that like kind of you know, like that's a nice carrot on a stick, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time. So I was able to immediately start right into the diploma program and I got hired at Irving the day after graduation. So they kind of had to deal with them, like if you can bring in X amount of women, they pull the certain standard and they graduate, then we'll take them on.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's what we did. The two year program that you took at Nova Scotia community college. What was that? Like you know, you finally got past the waiting program, finally get into the classes. You know, were you one of a few women? Was it pretty, even classes? Was there lots of representation? Like well, tell us about that journey.
Speaker 2:So after women unlimited we were just basically thrown into like the normal class. There was about five of us girls that moved on from women unlimited into welding, and then there were two other girls that had just regularly enrolled into the diploma program. So there were actually more of us than I thought there were going to be which was kind of nice.
Speaker 1:It's like a. Usually it's class of 14 or something like that per group or something. So you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we actually had a class of pretty sure. It was close to 30 almost. We had a pretty big class.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was great, like pretty much everybody got along. Everyone was super helpful. Our teachers were awesome. They were just very down to earth. They had obviously their own life experiences with welding so they kind of had little tidbits of information that they could give you and some people were able to fast track in the actual welding aspect of it. But we're kind of struggling with the book side of things. I feel like I kind of fell in that category too, because I mean I graduated from high school in 09. I didn't even go back to school until the women on limited program in 2017.
Speaker 2:So I was like what is studying? What is taking notes? What am I doing here? But it was. I found that the teachers were extremely helpful and it was very focused on your trade. It wasn't like this stuff that you see in high school and it's like, oh, we're learning about parallelograms. When are we going to use that in my life? But it pertains to your trade, so you stay more engaged and you're more interested in that and I feel like that's where you have more successful people coming out on the other end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to defend parallelograms. I've used you many times, mr Parallelogram. We're not. No parallelograms were hurt in the making of this episode, but algebra is important, kids. Come on, so you got, you're getting through the program, your two years. Now you're telling me that the two years was easy sailing. You struggled with a little bit of the theory. I think that's very common for students. I taught for a number of years and that was generally out of a class of. I'd say if I had 20 students I'd have 10. That would not really dig the theory and then I'd always have one or two like incredibly good at theory students and it was good cause. Then you get them to help the other kids too, and I try to get them all to like play nice and help each other. You know what was it like for you in the community during your schooling.
Speaker 2:We did have little study groups so, just like you said, the smart kids were helping the not so smart kids and we all kind of mesh together. Regardless. I started out really struggling. I came out with honors. So that changed over time and it was a very short period of time too, because I don't know what it was, I feel like in the beginning I kind of didn't really know whether I was coming or going.
Speaker 2:I was still working several jobs at the time outside of going to school. Even though they said it's not a good idea, I still needed to keep a roof over my head. I tried to make my main focus the program, but I found I was constantly taking my binder and all my notes and stuff to my job and I'm like sneaking studying in the back and it was a little crazy and I did a lot of back shift for my job too. Like I worked for two different security companies. My first year weld teacher actually hired me to do some work for him. He runs a weld company outside of school so I did a little bit of work with him and I was working down at the container pier.
Speaker 2:It's basically just as a laborer. So whenever I had some spare time, I would go down, sit on the bench Hopefully they have a job for me and I think that was me trying to manage my time in the beginning of where I'm really struggled. And then, once I figured out, okay I can do these shifts at these times, study at this time, go to school at this time and everything's gonna work out, and it all did. It all just kind of panned out the way I had hoped and dreamed it would and it just, I don't know. For me it was a struggle in the beginning. Just I felt like I was a mess of a person, not knowing what was even happening.
Speaker 1:Now, how frustrating was it for you to have been this? You know, you were a young girl looking at your dad and your uncle building things and you're like I wanna be a builder. And then you start deciding I wanna be a welder. You go off, travel to another province make your money, come back for school. Okay, I'm in school, I'm gonna be what I've always wanted to be. And then it's not easy. You struggle Like I'm sure you would have had thoughts in your head like imagining over the last number of years that you're gonna start school and it's just gonna like you're just gonna kick. You know what I mean. And it didn't really panned out that way. How did that feel?
Speaker 2:It was cut at the knees. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2:Especially like thinking about how hard I worked to get there, but I just kept reassuring myself like it's not over yet. I still have to work hard, to continue through this to get the job not only to get the job, to keep the job If I get it when I'm there, you know. So it's just like a mental game that I have to keep saying over and over again that it's always gonna be hard, it's never gonna come easy, and you kind of create your own environment that way and it's just. I found it a lot less stressful once. I kind of done that for myself and I was like okay, you know, getting into school, yeah, I thought it was gonna be this, it's not. But you know what, here we go.
Speaker 2:We're still taking steps forward. We're still studying. We're still doing it. Dropping out for me wasn't an option. I'm too stubborn. I'm way too stubborn. There was no way I was leaving that place. It was like you have no idea what I went through to get here.
Speaker 1:I am staying. And you know it's even frustrating sometimes to have such a dream of doing something. And then it's not easy, it's hard, and you realize that it's gonna be hard. And then you look around you and there's someone who doesn't even really even wanna be there, or they didn't care and it's easy for them. And you're like okay, like why is this so easy for you? And you don't even care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a couple of those, especially people that just didn't even care, to the point that they stopped showing up to theory, to shop, to everything, and it was like I considered myself a pretty, like a fairly decent welder at the time and I felt like if I wasn't there every single day like I would drop off in a second. So, I couldn't understand how this was coming so naturally for them and they're just like yeah, whatever my parents said, I have to be here and it's like what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that is always a tricky thing and I love your point where you're like well, this is the next stage and it's gonna be hard, because I have kids ask me all the time when does it get easier, bro, never never, never.
Speaker 1:Life's not meant to be easy. That's not the thing. It's not easy for the birdies outside, it's not easy for the caterpillar, it's not easy for any living thing on this planet. It's a struggle for everything to eat, they survive, they warm, have water. You know like these are the things that we need and in our society, as humans, to do that, we need to work, get educated, have jobs. It just it doesn't. It doesn't get easier. I mean, maybe, maybe if I was born into like the Kardashian family or something, or like if I was born super rich, it'd be easy. But I bet, even I bet, even super rich, spoiled people still got weird problems that we don't even understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. I don't think I want to understand. Oh no, this is the wrong toothpaste.
Speaker 1:I don't like this one. I don't know like weird rich people issues yeah definitely. So you finished the program two years, which is a long. That's a long program. You know most of the programs around the country are one year max, like that's usually what it is. So as a two year program, do you come out with your level one and two or are you like already like right to level three? How does it work?
Speaker 2:You come out as a second year apprentice and then you collect your hours until you're ready for your third block.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and then I was just looking at the numbers. How many hours is it for journey person in Nova Scotia?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, you got me 5,400.
Speaker 1:Is it 5,400? I think it's 54. Most of them are around that. But oh, let's see, I think I might have my little chart right in front of me. It's 8,100 hours If you don't go to school, 5,400 hours If you do. Oh, and it's expensive it's 740 bucks to challenge for these. Yeah, so, so sorry. So you, you finished, you went back to work. What was the first job? Like, this is level two. You went straight derving from there.
Speaker 2:Straight derving from there and they kind of like put you through a series of tests. They have a testing facility there so you can update your tickets and do all that stuff. But when they hire new people, that's kind of like their little trial period and they throw a couple of projects at you and they're like well, this, and they don't really say anything on like what they want, what kind of quality or standard they're looking for. They're just like here's this, you weld it and you bring it out and you see what they have to say about it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of stuff that I had no idea coming out of school and I was just like man, am I even meant to like, am I welder? Like this is pretty bad, but you, you get the hang of things pretty quick. I finished my projects and I was out on the floor. I I wasn't really partnered up with a red seal ever in my career, but I was put on a crew where, like, red seals were available, so if I had questions I could go to people. But there was never a situation that it was like hey, you're going to do a leadership, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was literally like you're a welder now Go weld, weld, weld, weld, weld, weld. So that's pretty much.
Speaker 1:And for the people that are listening, can you explain what Irving is? What do they do there?
Speaker 2:We build ships for Canada. So we're doing the Arctic offshore patrol vessels. We have the CSC ships that are going to be coming soon. We just actually did a ship launch I think on Saturday is when they they launched it. So, yeah, we're doing a lot of stuff and it's a lot of crazy welding too that I couldn't even imagine doing unless I work there. Like I had no idea what that place was all about. I was just like, yeah, I'm getting hired with Irving. And I got there and I was like, holy, this stuff is huge. There's a lot of one inch plates.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of like thick, thick. You know I've done some shipbuilding test plates on both sides as a welder and then as an invigilator. And you know there's one that was like a 14 inch coupon, one inch plates with 30 degree included angles and it was open route. You had to do a flux core open route with a fill and cap but you could back out so you can back, gouge that test plate. And then I thought, like it's going to take all day just to fill this. Well, like I mean, once you get the route, you get the route. That's fine. But I got an inch of weld, I got a fill here, like I'm just going to pile a spool into this thing and that that takes a long time.
Speaker 2:They told me that a lot of the shipbuilding welds are multi pass thick welds, big joints yeah they are, and we do a lot of ceramic welding too, so that kind of saves you from the back outing. But it's a lot like you. You go through a lot of gloves let's just say that gloves and heat shields. You go through a lot of those.
Speaker 2:It's starting to get the old leather knuckles yet oh it's brutal, they shrivel up to nothing and it's just crazy. But I mean I've had my knuckles blister through my gloves at one point because it's just you're like, I just got to finish the weld. I don't care how long it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get in that zone and it's crazy the things you'll do to yourself to finish that job. But yeah, it's pretty intense there. But I like, I like the challenge, I like the workload.
Speaker 1:What was the biggest, I guess, shock going from school and let's break this into two pieces. What was the biggest shock for you going from school to Irving? Like going from learning to weld on these little safe six inch plates and you do them all day to getting into a shop where there's all these crazy welds. So what was that first experience like for you? Like, were you like this is mind blowing, or this is awesome, or I want to run away?
Speaker 2:You just said it, those little six inch plates. I could not weld more than six inches because of those plates. And I was just like man, what is that? I would stop and then scooch my butt over and then continue again and then scooch over. And the guy behind me was like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to go like three feet and one sought here. Yeah, you got to do a meter.
Speaker 2:I felt a little under experience there for the first few weeks, but I because there is so much welding, it's so steady and it's all day, every day Like you picked that stuff up pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. I was feeling pretty good after a little bit, but not so good in the beginning at all.
Speaker 1:And the second part of this question, same question, but as a woman in the trades. So going as a female student, where you had seven girls in a class, which was a that's a pretty good number, you know, finishing out the program to going to Irving, which I assume is probably like the rest of the country with like less than 5% women, you know was did you find any obstacles or issues as a female entering the workforce?
Speaker 2:Honestly, everyone was pretty great. I actually found there were more girls there than I expected. Good, I mean, it does get kind of clicky sometimes because we weren't the only group of women unlimited girls that went in there, so there was like a previous group that had gone in a couple years before us.
Speaker 1:So you know, they kind of that was team alpha, your team beta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were like the trial period and then we were like, okay, maybe we'll let one more group in, but it's because they built those relationships with each other throughout women, unlimited through school and into hiring and working together. I don't want to say it's clicky, but you can tell how close they are and how they still cherish those friendships, which is great, but they're all fantastic. Women Like I don't really think that there are a lot of issues in that place. Like obviously there is. There are in every single place. I'm maybe it's like maybe it's just not.
Speaker 1:You depends on the person.
Speaker 2:No, I feel like I have serious resting face. So people are like I'm not even, no way, but I don't know if that's just the vibe I give off or what Like maybe I just have a look that burns into people's soul and they're like I'm not. No, no eye contact, but I like walking by the tiger cage at the zoo.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh he's looking at me, yeah.
Speaker 2:But maybe or maybe it's just me and I usually have my lid down and I'm not really paying attention to what's going on around me. Well, click for work.
Speaker 1:Like as a supervisor, manager, foreman for so many years, there was always that, oh, I hate the clicks at work. What are we going to do about them? And honestly, from my experience, nothing. You're not going to do anything about them because friendships happen, groups happen, humans, naturally, are going to do this and you can't expect everyone at work to get along with each other. That's just not realistic. You just got to be professional, like if you don't get along, you don't get along, doesn't matter, you're not going home with them.
Speaker 1:You know like I mean, it's like see a work by work, leave work at work right, but some people struggle with that a little bit more than others, so yeah, well, I think some of them do hang out with each other outside of work too, so that might be just friends where they can't leave certain things at the door. But yeah, whatever, I just yeah my priorities have changed there.
Speaker 2:I've got a little guy now, so I am literally like work home. Now I boogie home because I want to snuggle that little boy, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, let's take a break right now for our sponsors and then we'll talk after the break to talk about. I want to hear about the family, I want to hear about the little boy, what that's like in your life as a welder, and I also want to hear about some of the some of the things that you got going on, you know, with welding, but not necessarily at Irving, just curious, so don't go anywhere. We're here with with Kat and we're going to be right back after these messages. Did you know that more than 80% of welders are unsatisfied with their current vendors with exceptional customer service? Weld ready is here to help grow your business and expand your hobby with expert knowledge and the products you count on. Well ready is here for you. Well, readyca is your premier source for in stock welding supplies delivered to your door fast and I mean fast. Well ready offers the products you need, such as helmets, TIG torches, welders, plasmas, fixture tables and custom starter packages for educational programs. We stock all brands your metal working heart desires, such as ESAB, Miller, CK, Worldwide Edge Welding Cups, Optrell, 3M, Speedglass and many, many more. Visit weld-readyca now to get weld ready. And that's no bull.
Speaker 1:And we are back here on the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Rohn. Thanks for tuning in. We have Kat Marriott here coming us to us from Truro, Nova Scotia. Isn't someone famous from Truro? Isn't like somebody like hockey player or something? Isn't it somebody?
Speaker 2:There's, like some country, singer or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's that name. That name rings a bell Straight from Truro, Nova Scotia.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to Google that now.
Speaker 1:But I'm just doing the timeline in my head here. Kat, you had started your apprenticeship in 2017, or women's unlimited. It's a two-year program that would have led to 2019. So you got hit with COVID during your apprenticeship, right Right between block two and three. So how did you finish, wasn't it? Everyone stay home? No one was moving, or how did you deal with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got shut down in March and they were calling certain trades back based on seniority, because of union and all that stuff which obviously at the bottom of the totem pole, because I had just gotten hired, so I didn't get that call anytime soon. I stayed off until August is when I got called back. So I was off for quite a bit.
Speaker 1:You would have gotten the EI, though, still, wouldn't you? Or the COVID cast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or that server or whatever they call it. Yeah, the trick money. Yeah, we did get that. But I was more concerned about my hours. I was so gung-ho with my apprenticeship I was like, yeah, you know, I had a timeline built.
Speaker 1:Go to work at the hours. Do your third block, get it done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was pretty shot down after that, but once I got back, I hunkered down on the overtime. I applied for everything I could get Early starts, stay-lates, weekends, like anything I could get my hands on, I would work it and I think I got my hours and September, October of 2021. And I ended up getting my Red Seal in November 2021.
Speaker 1:So you got your hours, you went back for your third block and then wrote the IP right after, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did them back to back. So, yeah, it was stressful.
Speaker 1:Well, the Red Seal exam, the interim IP, for the people and for the people in the US that listen, you know our apprenticeship Red Seal, which is like the highest standard of welding, is three years of school. Basically, you know how was that third block for you after being out for a year, going back for those that last seven, eight week block and I'm not sure what the block length is in Nova Scotia. But that's basically just practicing for the IP, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is seven weeks. I found it hard because we would test every week on the modules that we were going over, plus trying to study for the level three exam. So it's like, okay, I'm studying for all these little tests that are happening every Friday and but even some of that wasn't really pertaining to the exam. So I was kind of like in that realm of like, do I care about these little weekly tests or do I just hone in on this exam? But it's like you gotta get through the tests to get to the exam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you fail the test, you can't write the exam, you know.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So it kind of went back to my like I don't know how to study, I can't do this anymore. And I went through that little phase again and I was like nope, no, we've got to hunker down, we gotta do this. So I did a lot of note taking. I downloaded a couple programs on my iPad. Actually that really helped me with notes visually because I find I can read like the same sentence or even paragraph over and over and over again and not process anything. So I was able to like color code stuff.
Speaker 1:I use a lot of color in my notes too, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I uploaded a lot of the modules and I was able to like, highlight those in a program on the iPad as well, so I could have the different colors, the module, right there. I wasn't flipping through a book, I don't know why that was, just didn't work for me, but it didn't. And I emailed myself notes so that anytime I wanted to look at them I could just open my phone, open my iPad, take a look at them. No matter what I was doing, I didn't have to be like, oh, I don't have my book on me or I didn't bring my notepad or I didn't bring this, so it was always available. I made sure that, regardless of what I was doing, it was available to me at all times. So that was a huge game changer for me.
Speaker 2:But after that exam I was just like I think the worst of it was waiting for the results. I was like I just did the exam. This is taking so long. It took like about a week or more. Yeah, yeah. And I was like this is agony, I can't handle this. You need to tell me now.
Speaker 1:So do you, because it's different in every province. So in Nova Scotia do you do your written exam and then the practical exam the following day, or do you do the practical exam, then the written exam, or is there a space in between?
Speaker 2:We had our third block exam and then there was like a brief space in between where we had our practical and our Red Seal exam. So the practical and the Red Seal I think what was supposed to happen wasn't what actually happened, just based on COVID shop time hours like availability and stuff like that. If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure we wrote our Red Seal exam first and did our practical right after, which was like the very next day. So there wasn't even time to know if you passed your Red Seal exam or not to move on to that.
Speaker 2:So we and even the results for the Red Seal exam took several weeks after that. So that was-.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I think that's a better system, like in Saskatchewan, you do the practical first and then the next day is the written exam. So that's tough, like if you passed a practical you're over the moon because you find out right away when you pass the practical, because they bend the plates right in front of you. So you're like you know right, cause they didn't break your good.
Speaker 1:So you're like yay, I won A. You want to go out and celebrate and party. And we have to be like no, no, no, not yet. You have to do the written exam tomorrow, don't go party yet. The other side of it is, if you fail your practical exam, then they're all like oh, life sucks, I want to jump off a bridge. And they don't want to go write the exam the next day Cause they're so depressed. It's like no, you still got to write the exam because passing one of the two is still better than passing none of the two.
Speaker 1:Right Cause, you can always just you can always just come back and redo the other piece and I would rather honestly redo the practical than the written cause. That's where a lot of people get hung up on. A lot of welters get hung up on the written exam, and I'll do it over and over and over practical exam. You usually will get it first or second try, once you really know what it is Like. It's that vertical open route 60, 10 that gets people. The tie in on the TIG gets people, but the rest is pretty easy. You know like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I tried to exempt a couple of those. Actually, I already had a couple of tickets from working at the yard but I went and did that pressure ticket Like the plate, the ASMI ticket, because I was like I get overwhelmed when it comes test time. I get test time jitters, whether it's written, whether it's a weld test. I am like shaking like a leaf on a good day and I tried to test for those prior to the exam so I could exempt them from the exams. That there was very little testing, that I had to do, Another big thing that I was. I really thought I was going to fail this. I haven't touched a torch since school because you're not allowed to do that at the yard.
Speaker 2:You're there, the fitters do the burning, the welders do the welding. So I was like well we're going to see how this goes.
Speaker 1:Didn't you get time to practice your torch cutting in those seven weeks?
Speaker 2:We did. But I spent a lot of my time practicing to try and get those extra tickets to exempt. So I was like, oh, whatever, you know, it's just a cutting test, like I'll have one full day to practice it. And then when I realized they only had two torches set up and there was a bunch of people already practicing, I was like, damn, I missed my shot to practice. They're already in there all over it. So I was like, oh, we'll see what happens come test day.
Speaker 1:And how did the test go? First, try both sides, written and practical. Good job.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:What was your mark? Or do you not want to tell? The 70 is a pass. That's all that matters, right?
Speaker 2:I think I got a 71. Honestly I'm pretty sure it was like literally just passed the threshold.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm in 70 is a hundred. That's what they say. 70 is a hundred, yeah. Yeah, pass is a pass and you know out of your class of 30 years that we're going for it. How'd the class do Because you know sometimes there's classes that everyone does well sometimes or did you not really keep track to see how everyone else did?
Speaker 2:I think for the most part, like everyone in the class did fairly well. I know there was maybe one or two people that had to go back and redo the written part, but I don't think anyone failed. The actual practical Like the weld portion of it was pretty tickety-boo for a lot of people. It's that written exam. That's what gets a lot of people, A lot of people. It's crazy. And some people can't even pass the third block exam to even get to the red seal. And.
Speaker 2:I honestly did find that exam much harder than the red seal. I don't know why, but they took that exam away, I do believe. So now there is no third block exam. After I went through all that agony in the following year behind me, they take it away, so it's just a red seal now. So there's no third block exam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems a trash one, I think that's for iron workers as well. It's for a lot of the trades. They got rid of the comprehensive third year. You still have all the little module tests throughout the year and you still have to pass third year, but there's not the one massive end year end exam. Because the idea is you're gonna do this massive year end exam and then immediately do a massive red seal exam. What's the point of having two of them back to back? And I get that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, especially for tradespeople, most of us are visual and we're not that great when it comes to studying and all that little intricate stuff that's like part of the books that we don't deal with on a regular basis. So to kind of pull back and get back into the groove, that it's a lot. It is a lot, so I'm kind of happy that they got rid of it. I wish they did it for me, but I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 1:So now you know you're three years in a derving, you got your red seal. You know what is it that you do now on the daily. Are you still on your knees grinding or welding every day Like you were scooching six inches at a time, or are you a little bit higher up the ladder? You know what's going on there and what's the plan.
Speaker 2:So when I first got hired, I pretty much stayed on the same crew for the better part of three years and we were doing like all the unit joins and then, once those were built up into mega blocks, the mega blocks go outside and they get joined together to make a ship. So we were doing all pretty much all full pens, welding, tank work. I was small and I got shoved in a lot of cracks and crevices that I don't think a lot of people have even seen in that yard. But it is a lot of full pen like heavy, heavy welding. Now, since I've returned from maternity leave, I was in a bit of a different location, which is I mean, sometimes the fit ups aren't that great there either Like you're still getting stuff that it's like come on, but it's a lot easier.
Speaker 2:It's less strenuous, I would say. The places I'm at aren't nearly as tight and crazy, you know, to control, as the places I've been when I first got hired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what was like no, you got back to work and apparently your angry face didn't scare everyone away, because you have a baby. So somebody stuck it out. Somebody stuck it out, someone didn't get scared and you became a mom. So you get your red seal. You know, did you get pregnant right after, or were you already, like, pregnant during the, towards the end of that?
Speaker 2:So that was kind of like what we always chatted about was I was pretty adamant on my career just because I worked so hard to get there, I spent so many years to get to where I was that I was like you know, I want my Red Seal before. I have a baby. So I got my Red Seal November 2021,. Like I said before I found out I was pregnant, March 2022.
Speaker 1:So you were on it, you're on it, you're ready to go? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it lined up pretty good. I mean not that we were like all right, it's time now. It just kind of. It just kind of happened like that. So we were more than happy we ended up, because I was living in a bachelor at the time and we have two big dogs and a cat and I was like we're not going to fit. We're just not going to fit. This is pretty simple math here. So we had to find a host during the pandemic prices and that's how we wound up in true Is it less expensive to live in true than, say, halifax?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's still pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, that's one thing. I bet the housing prices out here are more than out there, because it's out here Like that's one thing. It's the houses have gotten crazy expensive. I'm glad I bought mine a while ago and every now and then we're thinking about let's buy a new one, it's like, but then I'd be so in debt again forever, like I don't think.
Speaker 2:I don't know, yeah, I know the feelings. I'm living that right now.
Speaker 1:While you're young. You got lots of time. Don't worry about it, it's a future cat problem. So you have a baby and you go back to work. What's it like being in a mom now? You know, with the, you know the steel toad boots on every day and out the door. What's that in mom life?
Speaker 2:I struggled. I definitely sobbed my first day going back to work. I didn't want to leave them. I mean, I love welding, but there's that pull apart Like that's, that's my child, you know. And I took the 12 months of Matt leave, so, and my pregnancy got a little rough around the end so I left just shy of a month early before giving birth. So I had to go back when he was 11 months, so he wasn't even quite a year old yet, and I was just like this is way too soon. And I found myself, like running off to the bathroom to check my phone, like what did he eat? When did he nap? Like send me pictures.
Speaker 2:What's going on? Is he smiling? Like I was just total helicopter mom for the first little while and then I had to, you know, take a town and yeah, he's in good hands. I know he's in good hands.
Speaker 1:Well, parents go through that. Like I mean the I don't. It would be a weird person to be like I'd rather be at work than with my kid. You know what I mean. Like having the day. Like I mean, if we all won the lottery the day your kid is born, it's like perfect, right. But the the the party is that you got to go to work now and you kind of have to work more now because when you're not with a kid, you're like, oh, I'm sick, I don't care, take a day off.
Speaker 1:Or you know you do the mental math. Do I got enough for rent? Do I got enough for the car? Do I got enough for beer and smokes? Yeah, all right, I can blow this Friday off, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean. But. But when you have a kid, then every day matters even more, right? So you, as much as you want to be home and be involved in kids life, to be a good parent, you have to not be. It's a weird dynamic, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely is. I saved up some vacation days so I took a couple of days off here and there. He did get sick so I spent that time with him because I again mom guilt. I was like, oh, I shouldn't be at work if my child's home sick. So I took those days off. I would take random days off here and there to just to spend time with him, because I missed him and I didn't want to be away from him.
Speaker 2:But I went back to work with three weeks vacation because after you work there for so long you get extra time off. So I had hit my four years last June, from when I was already on maternity leave. So I ended up like we do a Christmas shutdown every year. So I think the last day that the yard is open is the 20th of the 21st of December. And I talked to my supervisor and I was like hey, how much vacation do I have left me? He's like Well, actually you have three weeks and you use five days of it. So I was like, well, tomorrow's my last day, see you later and one day. And I booked the rest of vacation. So I'm off until the new year. And I was so happy that I was able to save those days Because, I mean it to me it still is too early to kind of be away from him. But it was a nice ease back into work, like I got back September 18. So I mean we're just in December now.
Speaker 2:So, like I did a little bit of time and I'm like All right, I'm done, I'm done until the new year. So it's a it's. It's a good thing for me and him. But yeah, I'm definitely looking for any and every excuse to stay home with my kids.
Speaker 1:I used to pull sick days for my kids and be like you know what kids do you guys feel like going to school? I could be a morning where I'd be like they'd be dragging their butts and they didn't want to get it ready and I was a single dad. So I was like you know what, how's it? But I just call the school and be like you know what? They're both sick and I'd call work and be like, oh, I'm sick too. And we would just go like to the movie theater and watch movies and like go to the zoo or something and be like, yeah, that's you know. Screw society. There's nothing wrong with this, this is fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so awesome. Good for you, I'm going to be that someday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just be. Like. Yeah, it's all right, we can just miss. Well, I mean grade four. My kids are four years apart, so it was like grade four and kindergarten or whatever. What are you learning? Like you don't go to school for a day. It's not like oh no, you're not going to be a doctor now. Like it's like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah, I don't take that seriously and I just I don't take any system really that seriously. So that's maybe on me, but being the weird person, I am being like man, you'll be fine, I'm sure they cherish that time with you more than anything.
Speaker 2:No, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:My daughter's a teacher now, so obviously it worked out. My son's in the trades, you know it is, it is what it is. Neither of them turned out to be a welder, though. Well, you can't win them all, I guess.
Speaker 2:Found a little disappointed.
Speaker 1:Well, my dad was a welder. I'm a welder, you know. A third generation welder would have been cool, but I got a couple nieces now that are in there. You know they're coming up on preteens, maybe I can talk to. I had one of them work with me last summer in the shop. She was pretty interested. We made some cool stuff and try to get them to not be scared of the tools you know and. But I'm waiting to be a grandpa now, bro, like I can't wait, I'm going to get a grandpa. I'm going to raise the next. That'll be the next super welder of the universe. You're going to make spaceships.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I can't wait.
Speaker 1:When you look at your little boy, are you like future welder? Are you like no, no, you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I don't know. I would love it if he was a welder. That would be great. I'm sure his dad wants him to be a pipe fitter too, but did you marry a fitter?
Speaker 1:Oh, how could you cat, I thought you were legit. Oh no, scrap the episode, scrap the episode. How could you let that happen? Oh my goodness. Oh well, at least we know he can weld in circles, that's all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I stayed on structural. I don't do the pipe, so we're very far apart from each other at the yard.
Speaker 1:Does he work at Irving too? Oh yeah, yeah, you guys should have like an Irving flag on the front lawn, like maybe you guys will be sponsored by Irving.
Speaker 2:They did send us a onesie when we, when I went on maternity leave and said future shipbuilder and I was like, oh, that's kind of cute, but I don't think he's going to wear it.
Speaker 1:I think that's awesome. I would love to. Maybe I need to send you a little onesie CWB outfit being like Canadian welding bureau approved.
Speaker 2:That would be awesome. I'll take a picture and send it to you.
Speaker 1:What size is he in baby size?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, he's pretty much two T now, only a year old, and he's in two year old clothing.
Speaker 1:I'm writing that down so he's long like a war army.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, he's definitely growing like a weed. He's tall, very tall.
Speaker 1:Is your? Is your spouse tall? Yeah, that's where he gets it from my. My ex-wife was tall, so my kids are both taller than me. But because I'm short but I like being short, I think being short's cooler than being tall, and he did.
Speaker 2:That's what all the short people say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but how often you see hear people, tall people, say I love being tall, like never Now. I usually hear they bang their heads on my head Look like yeah, they bang their heads on stuff and they, they like can't dance and they got big, weird shoe sizes and no man, I'm five, six. That's perfect, everything fits. I got normal size feet.
Speaker 1:I don't hit my head on anything. If something rolls under the couch, I'm the guy I can get that. You know like that's awesome. So what's what's future plans for cat? You know like, where do you see yourself? You got, you got the ticket. Do you see yourself moving up in getting into, like the the supervisor kind of world management role someday? Do you think about opening up your own weld shop to do art? Any side hustles Like, but what's on the game plan?
Speaker 2:I do want to switch to an iron worker and be dual ticketed. I'd like to have my red seal on that as well. I also thought about potentially. I'm not really interested in the supervisor position at that particular location for that employer, maybe if it was a different shop. Ideally I'd like to do my own thing someday. My side hustle right now has nothing to do with welding. I do like a lot of wood burning and just like crafty stuff with live edge wood. I don't know, it's like my tree therapy, I guess. But yeah, arts, artsy stuff. So I would love to be able to do welding stuff, but I don't have a garage or welder, so that's the next thing on the next step.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So once we get that, things will start rolling. But I'd like to. I'd like to be dual ticketed, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, dual tickets are the future. Like, I got my dual tickets and it helped launch me into the next tier of work. You know, I got my welding first and then I got my steel fab after and I one of my best friends, he dual ticketed a welder iron worker and he ended up being a an iron working welding instructor, which was like dream gig for him, you know, and he loved it because he was working for the hall as an instructor, still could pick up shutdowns for work and the, but he was getting the teacher pension from, like the college, so he had it like on all things. Unfortunately, he died last year in a motorcycle accident. So rip dairy. But you know, there are these awesome opportunities out there for dual tickets and in some ways I love it, in some ways I hate it, to be honest, because it's like, if I think back to when I started welding, back in like the you know, when dinosaurs roam the earth, you didn't need any tickets, to be honest, right, you could just be the awesome welder in your shop and you would get paid top dollar to do your job and that was awesome and the foreman was just a welder who had been there longer, who liked to do organizing stuff. So he got to be the foreman, cause he was better at organizing, you're better at welding, you're better at fab Everyone does their job.
Speaker 1:Then it started to be like okay, well, you need to have certifications to weld. Okay, cwbs, start getting tickets. Start getting tickets to keep the job. Fine, we always felt there's like a money grab CWB is just here to take our money so we can keep our job. Ra ra, ra.
Speaker 1:Then it was like oh, you want to be a supervisor, you need to have a red seal. So that's like. It keeps getting like, like, more difficult to climb without, like, you need some type of paper. It's not just skill anymore, right. And then for me it was like oh, you want to become a foreman, you need to get your red seal. Okay, so I got my red seal. And then it was like oh, you want to be a teacher, you need to get a university degree or a second red seal. So I went and got a second red seal. And then I got my blue seal, which was business, and it's like how hard is it going to be for kids coming up being like if you want to be a welder, yeah, you can get your welding red seal. There's three years of your life, but what if, in 10 years from now? That's not even enough.
Speaker 1:You know, what I mean Like oh, you need to be triple ticketed now to find a job. It's like six years of school or something. So I get that it's awesome to have dual tickets. I love it. I love both educations and I love what I do and it's helped me lots and I think it's a good idea for you. But I also worry about the slope. You know, like I hope we, I hope there's still jobs out there today for just people that want to weld. That's it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, Like bless. We need those people that just want to pull trigger all day. They make the world go around a lot more than a fancy welder like me that does this little doohickey for $1,000. Who cares? But we all need boats, right. We all need cars. We need these things right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I just. I just ranted there for a while.
Speaker 2:No, I warned you yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm waiting for the rent. I'm just going off here. The system, the system's bringing us down. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I honestly thought that that's where my heart was at, too. Like I was like no, I just want to weld, I don't want to do anything else, Like this is my passion, I just want to weld. Now I'm starting to realize if I want to do my own thing, it is definitely a lot easier to be able to fab, fit and weld all my own stuff, Just for my own personal gain and growth and the way I'm kind of looking at the future for myself and my family. But I mean, I would like to think that we're always going to need just welders and I don't want to say just welders, but like strictly, strictly welders, because that's it's a tough trade and not everybody can handle it. I know a lot of people are like wow, you're just pulling a trigger and following that little glow like moth to the flame and it's like well, yeah, but no, you know, yeah, those will just get tested.
Speaker 1:They're still getting QA and you try doing. You know, 600 feet of weld a day, perfectly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like people are like, look at some of the fancy things I'll make and like I'm stainless was my gig. It's like, yeah, but I had all day to do one joint because it's super fancy and expensive in production land. You don't got all day to do one joint, you got to do 6,000 joints a day and they all got to be perfect. So I feel like that's way more critical welding. You know. Then, when you have the perfect scenario with all your gases and everything's clean and no one's watching you.
Speaker 1:I worked in manufacturing for years and like I really have a big heart for, for the people that are in manufacturing jobs and they get a, I think they get a bad rap in the welding world Like I don't want to do that job, and I hear people even on this show all the time be like I would never want to make the same thing every day. That's so boring. You know I don't like to slag other trades like that. Like we need that. We need people to build our things and they're just as important of a welder as anybody else, Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I think a lot of like, a lot of comments I heard about the shipyard where Rad is like oh, you're a welder, like you must just sit on your rolly chair and weld all day, and I was like dude. If you only knew.
Speaker 1:I wish I had a rolly chair, a crate with a T-shirt on top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I'm getting sprayed with molten metal in my face because I'm jammed way up overhead in a place that no one else can fit. But yeah, I'll take a chair. I'll take a chair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially one of those fancy chairs. I always see people like all the influencers always got these fancy welding chairs. It's like man, I have like a like a milk crate with a towel tape to the top. That's 100% because I'm cheap and weird, because I probably could go buy one of those fancy chairs. But I mean, if anyone's listening out there wants to send me a fancy chair, send me a fancy chair, I'll take it.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, if it works, it works Right.
Speaker 1:Now we're what's what's. Do you have any plans to get involved on, like, the community side of welding, Like, do you have any plans on working with the Halifax or Nova Scotia chapters? We have chapters out there volunteer groups, women in trades programs, even like programs that you've worked with before, Like as a Red Seal woman. There's so many opportunities for you to give back to industry that people would be all over and pay you for, even if you ever wanted to get into that side gig. Is that something you ever thought about?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say it didn't cross my mind. It's something that I haven't really had a whole lot of time, I guess, to think about. Honestly, I'm serious Like with the mom brain stuff right now I'll think about things and I'll forget about them and I won't remember until several months later and I'm like, oh yeah, there was that thing. I do receive a few emails here and there for like conferences and stuff. I haven't actually gone to any, I would love to.
Speaker 1:We were just in Moncton in October. It was like a wild conference. You should have come.
Speaker 2:That would have been great. It's, I think. For me, the biggest thing is having the availability to take time off of your fresh mom still right Like you're still how's your?
Speaker 1:little guy 14 months. Yeah. So, like I mean, you're young, you got lots of time. But you know, just my professional advice would be you know, in a couple of years, when things settle down, once kids, especially when kids get to pre K then it gets a lot easier. And even if you have more, the first one's always a tricky one. After that the rest are easy.
Speaker 2:They just raise themselves.
Speaker 1:Well, really, the older one always helps it. Just it, just, naturally it's nature right, but I would definitely, you know, tell you to volunteer work with your local communities. It'll help your career lots, even down the line. Just see, whatever you want to do, what I've learned in my life is you're never going to get anywhere alone. It's the people you know and the and who you meet out there. And if you don't get out there, people won't come to you. You got to get out there and shake hands and do the thing right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:It's getting really dark where you are.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say, like I'm losing a lot of sunlight here, so I'm just going to click this light on real quick For the people in the East coast are listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:Canada's huge, so I think they're like a three hour time. Oh, what are you? Three, five, 36?, uh, four 34. Oh you only two hour difference for me, okay, so I'm one hour off, geron, I'm a schedule, and so, wow, yeah, I was like uh, everyone makes fun of me for being in my dark cave and you're darker.
Speaker 2:It's like slowly getting darker and darker and I was like, uh, All right.
Speaker 1:Well, you know we've had a great conversation here. For the people that are interested in learning about more what's going on in Nova Scotia, what's a good place for them to check out some information about Irving or welding or the programs you take, like, if someone's moving to Nova Scotia, what, what do they do?
Speaker 2:Um, if they're interested in taking any of the courses at NSCC, I mean, I'm sure all of that information would be available on their website. Um, irving has a massive website. They're constantly posting opportunities on there. They're on LinkedIn, they're on Facebook, twitter. They have their own webpage, they're they're everywhere. So they're looking for people all the time and they're looking for everybody, like every position you can think of. They want you there, um, but uh, yeah, for the women unlimited program Um, I believe there is still information on NSCC about that, but if not, um, feel free to reach out to me and I can uh point people in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Are you on IG or any of the socials, or do you keep a pretty low profile?
Speaker 2:Uh, I keep a pretty low profile. I have Facebook Um, my Instagram is my dog Good enough, but uh, yeah, I pretty much just use Facebook really.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right, well, any shout outs. You'd like to send any hello's to anybody or messages?
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't think so. Maybe my family, my partner Johnny, my little guy Henry. Um, yeah, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you so much, cat, today, for taking time out of your day, even though you're on holidays till January. Awesome. I'm not on holidays yet for another week, but I'm jelly. But thanks so much for taking time to talk to me today.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It was great.
Speaker 1:Awesome and for all the people that have been following and listening along to the podcast, thank you so much for making us be the success that we are. We got lots of cool shows coming up, lots of cool stuff that we're planning out. We're already planning out for next year and just put it in your calendars February the 7th we got well, industry day, online free conference. At the end of March, third week. Third week of March, we have national trivia night. So the whole country battles it out for welding trivia. That's between all the chapters where we crown the smartest chapter in the world, because now we are worldwide. So chili will be dialing in to see how them Chileans do on their trivia, and uh. And then we got the huge can weld slash fab tech coming up in Toronto in June, june 11th to 13th. So lots on the go, lots of cool stuff coming. I hope to see you at all of it. And uh. And keep uh downloading and sharing and commenting on the show. Stay tuned for the next one. Thank you, we hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association welding podcast with Max Seren. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at CWBAssociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB group, presented by Max Seren, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.