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"It makes no difference who works: a man or a woman." Welder on "an unfeminine profession" and moving to the USA
- My parents, ex-boyfriend and friends laughed at me. They said: Who will hire you, you are a woman, you are just wasting your time. But I didn't care what they said, because I didn't listen to anyone.
— I found a tuning shop. And I stalked the owner of this company for a long time. I just convinced him. I wrote, called and persuaded them to at least meet for an interview. That’s why they hired me with great difficulty. I can understand the men who didn’t believe me then. The girl was young. Who knows! She might want to cook today, but she won’t want to cook tomorrow. And people need work,” says Elizaveta.
— It made no difference whether it was a man or a woman working. The only thing is that in 10 years of work I was always there to help with difficult tasks. If I physically cannot remove, disassemble or assemble something, men do it for me. I am not tall, I am 163 cm. Men understand this and help me with those parts that I physically cannot handle.
"Many of my customers were nice to me and even asked me to do exhaust work." But there were also skeptics. It happened once or twice. I was working, and my boss came up to me and told me to step back and pretend I was working on another car. The customer was told that some Vanya was doing the work, but in fact it was me," the welder recalls.
"They started writing and calling and saying, 'Oh, this is so great.'"
— A man found me on the Internet and suggested that I move to the US and work with him. As a result, we met in person. It turned out that he was also a welder. And suddenly our love began. I was no longer so scared because I got to know him better. I moved in with him as a guy and worked with him at first. Now I am married to this man.
— Of course, especially when I moved to the US for work, they started texting me and calling me and saying, “Oh, you’re so amazing.” Yeah, of course. But where were you before? It’s always like that. At first you laugh, but when you reach a certain level, you start saying, “Oh, I know this guy.” It’s normal and standard.
According to Elizaveta, the salary of a welder in the US is higher than in Russia, but the cost of living there is also much higher, so there is no fundamental difference in earnings. Everything depends on experience and qualifications. She advises those who are thinking of moving to the US to earn money as a welder to learn English. If you do not know English, you will not be hired by a good company.
— Men think more broadly. And women are very meticulous. That is, it’s not even a problem with welding, but everything in general. For example, if you look at who assembles aircraft engines? This is what women do. This is because their attention to detail is such that they do not miss a single moment that a man might miss. This is not because he is bad or lazy. No, it’s just that we women are much more fixated on details,” says the welder.