An Interview With My Mother, The Heavy Equipment Operator

For more than 35 years my mother worked as a heavy equipment construction worker.

She ran large heavy machinery such as backhoes, bulldozers, cranes, graders, and excavators. She would come home covered in dirt, asphalt, concrete, and clay — her face darkened with grime and exhaustion.

She was tall, slender yet strong; an attractive woman with long auburn hair pulled back in a plait and topped with a yellow hard hat standing in a group of gruff, overweight, and grungy men.

I could see that she felt defeated despite how she worked with honor, doing work she disliked but felt she had to do in order to make a good living. It was just the way of things — a hard pill that had to be swallowed no matter your aversion. This is what we’ve been taught — that life is hard, that you have to sacrifice your happiness often in order to survive.

My mother was never idle. She busied herself senselessly — cleaning and organizing, gardening and tending to our horses, and the many other chores our 10-acre plot required. She slept four hours a night at best, wearing her weariness with decorum. She never sat or relaxed because the moment she did she would quickly fall to slumber, her body shutting down at first chance.

Appreciative and wise(-ish) at a very young age, I saw the price of hard work as both gratifying and exhausting.

I remember my mother coming home, her hairline caked with dirt. She would pull her sunglasses off and reveal the extent of her filthiness by the lines of dirt that circled her eyes. She would pull off her heavy asphalt-crusted boots and shuffle to her bathroom to shower and emerge fresh and all the sudden so separate from that person who had initially greeted me at the door. Transforming from grimy laborer into housewife and mother, she would then hustle about the house for the remaining hours of the day.

In the deepest and truest sense of her being, she was an artist. She painted and filled our home with beautiful colors — cheerful flowers, detailed trees, flowing rivers.

Our home was filled with art and life because of her.

She had always been an artist, but with a lack of faith in her ability to live a fully creative life, she became an operating engineer instead. Art became a hobby instead of a profession. Everyone who knew her well knew it hurt her. We all saw her for everything she was: a hard-working capable woman who could do it all. She was the only one who didn’t.

This is her story, and by default, mine.

I had known for a while that I wanted to write about my mother’s decision to become an operator. She always made it quite clear that she was unhappy with it, and I wanted to understand why she stuck by it for so long. I began asking questions. I wanted to know how she got started and why.

I sat down at the table and propped my phone up on my teacup with the speaker on so I could listen to her and take notes. I asked her, “Are you ready for this?”

She exhaled heavily. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Anything. Everything. Anything you want to talk about,” I said open-minded and ready.

There was a pause. “Thirty-eight years,” she said. “There are so many stories I could tell you.” Another pause. I waited, letting her think on where to start

— and then it came rushing out.

“For the first four years, I was just an oiler on cranes and excavators… they wouldn’t let me near the other equipment, but then I got lucky and the operator that ran the excavator I was oiling would let me use it when he took breaks.”

She smiled, and I could feel, hear, and see her pride when she said, “I took to it like a duck to water.”

I could easily imagine her sitting in the equipment for the first time, and I could feel it. The rumbling of the machine coursing through her body, the riveting vibration that rattled her. The engine’s roar, the smell of the grease, oil and dirt. The power of it held within her grasp as she slowly learned the controls.

She was a naturally good operator. Growing up, it was like she was raised to operate heavy machinery. Incredibly dexterous, she sewed her own clothes, painted, took care of and rode horses. All of it prepared her. She was good with her hands and moving the earth around her was just another piece of artwork, a piece of fabric, or a set of reins.

It took years for her to gain her skilled expertise, of course, and it took a lot of initiative on her part. She had to go out of her way to get the opportunity to learn how to run the equipment.

It wasn’t given to her; she had to take it.

Learning how to run the equipment was one thing; learning how to deal with the men and her place on the job was another.

With calculation, she told me, “You know– the hardest thing– and it is not unheard of– but you turn into another person. I had to become this…” She tried and failed to think of the right word. “I had to fit in.” she said instead, resolutely.

She’s tried to justify herself. She’s tried to make sense of her decision to live that life.

It’s the same question that I want an answer to. Why did she keep doing it when she was so unhappy?

I realize she had been asking herself that very question but had yet to figure out the answer.

“I had to assimilate,” she continued. “I had to ‘be a man.’ I put on those work boots and transformed into a different person in order to survive the job. I hung out with men and had to become one too. I couldn’t be sexy. I couldn’t be a woman let alone an attractive one because then I was really ‘asking for it.’” I could see the frustration, feel it too.

She paused with pursed lips, and then continued.

“In order to thrive in the work of men, you have to, in a sense, become like a man. You have to be able to roll with the punches. You need thick skin and the ability to not be easily offended. With that comes a certain kind of numbing.” She explained this defiantly — telling me the ways of the world. “The numbing happens when you put a strong guard up, protecting yourself by creating a hard exterior. Men understand this. Men are taught this from a young age, and if you want to work with the big boys then you’ve got to put on your big boy pants.” Here, I could see that even though she hated it, she also understood it, and could even sympathies with it.

I know that having emotional and psychological flexibility is essential in life. Adapting and overcoming is a normal part of anyone’s life, but when you purposefully put yourself into a role that doesn’t typically suit your nature… it can get a little more complicated internally.

You can end up feeling dishonest to both yourself and those around you. As if you are putting up a front– and you end up feeling guilty. Like you have done something wrong just by living your life the best way you can.

My mother became a chameleon, blending and adapting to each separate environment she inhabited. Construction worker. Wife. Mother. Woman.

I took a large breath and exhaled, waiting for more.

I know this part. I know the part where she tried so hard to be ‘one of the guys’ but fell short. She was too pretty… she couldn’t avoid their attentions, their desires.

My mother is a good-looking woman and was drop-dead sexy in her twenties and thirties. Her sex appeal, something that should have made her feel good, feel confident, was a constant hindrance.

Exasperated as she reminisced, she said, “Every move I made was front-page news. I couldn’t lean forward in my machine to wipe my windshield without it distracting them.” Her tone was angry.

Hoping to explain the inner-workings of the construction world, she told me, “Construction work is bid for by different companies and then given to superintendents to complete. The superintendents usually keep regular foremen and then hire crew members out of the Union Hall. Some companies keep the same crews but often new members fluctuate in and out based on the size of the job.”

She slowed down and elucidated, “With each new job, the workers and operating engineers have to meet new people and learn how to work together.”

When one job finishes, you are sent to the next, and I learned that at each new site, she had to reintroduce herself and re-earn respect over and over again. I learned that, naturally, there was a certain amount of skepticism for every new member that showed up.

Of course, it took time to earn respect… but I could also easily understand that this process would be astronomically harder for a woman.

“I would get condescension and then surprise,” she explained. “When they found out that I was good at my job it was a major deal — but only because of my gender. It wasn’t a big deal when anyone else did well!” she rolled her eyes. “It was this huge thing to be good at a man’s job. I was special.” The sarcasm was laid on thick.

But then she clarified that the appreciation mostly came from the foremen and the superintendents, not usually from her coworkers who made it clear that they resented her presence.

“Even when I did get to the point that I felt like…” she searched for the right words, “that I was ‘one of the guys’…” she paused again, and I could feel her going into memory. I could already tell it’s was painful one to re-live as she clenched her lips and breathed heavily in and our of her nose, her eyes closed.

“I came around the corner one day,” she said opening her eyes and looking at me, ready to tell her story. “I had been feeling good about my place on the job, feeling like they truly respected me. I felt accepted. I felt that I had truly earned my place among the pack…” I watched the emotions flicker across her face as she told me the story.

Her mouth turned down, she said, “I had been feeling so good, only to end up overhearing them talking about me behind my back.”

The hurt was still raw even to this day. “I was on the other side of the foreman’s trailer, and they didn’t know I could hear them. The guys were heehawing over all the things they would like to do to me…descriptively.” She looked at me, left eyebrow raised. “They were describing all the different ways they would like to bend me over and fuck me,” she scoffs.

“I stood there, unable to move, and listened to them carry on.”

She continued breathing heavy. “They didn’t really respect me; they never would!” Leaning forward onto the table, her chin in her hand, with a look of defeat and resignation, she admitted, “I realized then, that I would never be accepted into the pack. No matter how I behaved, no matter how well I did my job… I would never be accepted.”

This story hits me like a hammer to the chest. I too, have had experiences like these.

She continued to describe the actual words that they used. Her voice broke, and I understood that her heart broke that day too.

“This was after five years of working with these same men,” she said sadly. “I had been an operator for more than fifteen years at this point. I thought I had earned their respect. These men treated me well.” she exasperated.

“Hearing them talk about me like that…” she shrugged, leaned back and let out a long sigh. “All the respect I had thought I had earned from them was gone in one instant… I was devastated. I didn’t want to even look at them after that.”

After a moment, she sighed and continued, changing course. “My main job was to manage the men’s self-esteem.”

Their self-worth was being triggered by her existence on the job. If she was better at running the equipment than them (and she often was) she wasn’t praised or patted on the back like the others. She was only set even further apart. “A girl” could beat them.

“When I did well, they would say, ‘You’re a good operator…for a girl.’” Their feelings were wounded she told me.

“Affirmative Action was a necessary evil,” she shrugged. “I got very used to hearing ‘she has to be here.’” she said while making air quotes with her fingers.

“They would put me on the worst equipment.” She growned, “…like the broom.” Snearing and becoming more animated in her gestures she said, “Something that not even a girl could mess up– like– ‘just go over there and let us do the real work.’”

Her voice raised and lowered with the resentment she felt and still feels.

“I hated it! I wanted to be on the big machines. I actually liked doing the work, and I was good at it!” she exclaimed, her exasperation palpable.

“But they had to get me out of the way,” she continued to explain. “I was too pretty, and I was a distraction to them.”

She was the one at fault for being distracting. In the end, it didn’t seem to matter that she was good at her job or not, but her ability to run the machines was astounding to them. She was a contradiction in their beliefs.

“When I got on a piece of equipment and not only knew how to run it but run it well, their eyes would bug out.” I watched her annoyed expression as I listened. “It was the same thing over and over again at each new job I started. With each new company I worked for, they would start off talking to me like I was a toddler.”

It drove her crazy when they would try to overly help her — thinking she was incompetent– that she didn’t know what she was doing.

“Just get out of my way! Let me do my job!” she said loudly, her hands moving with shooing gestures as if she were still there.

After another long pause, I had to ask her, “So, why stay? Why keep doing that job?” I wanted to understand… why would she continue to put up with it?

She replied slowly and I can tell she felt guilty, “I hate to admit it… but that shock factor felt good… I got it from them at work and even more from others outside of work when people found out what I did for a living.”

It was that jarring surprise she received. It felt good. Even when they didn’t want to like her, even when they didn’t want her to be there, they couldn’t help but appreciate her skill at running the equipment.

And the people on the outside, the ones without a clue, were in awe of her. They were impressed. She was a badass. “It feels good to have people look at you that way.” she admitted.

You can’t blame the work. Construction work is extremely necessary and highly commendable work. As anyone should, she had pride in herself for doing it. The problem was always feeling like she didn’t belong, that she would never fit in, and that no matter what good came from it, that she wasn’t truly living a life that honored her wellbeing.

She stuck to the belief that life was hard, that sacrifice and struggle was the way of the world, and that she just had to make the most of it and be grateful and humble in order to deal with it.

I know that when she first started working construction, she had to have found it invigorating and somewhat exciting. It was a new challenge to overcome and a way to prove herself worthy. It was hard work for a man and being able to do it as a woman was meritorious. Accomplishment feels good.

Eventually, however, that changed for her. It stemmed from multiple factors.

The way the men talked about her, how she believed she was betraying herself by not following her passions as an artist, never being home with my brother and me… I knew she was also feeling the pressure from society to be a certain type of woman.

Women are supposed to be … you fill in the blank.

That pressure, plus her already low self-esteem, warped the image she had of herself. In the 1970s and 80s, we were not yet as evolved as a society as we are becoming today. There have been major improvements and those improvements have been made by women like my mother. Women who stuck their heels into the dirt and told the world “Fuck off. I’ve got this.”

What my mother truly wanted to be, what she truly is, is an artist. So, what made the world of construction so painful for my mother wasn’t the disrespect she got from the men, but the simple fact that construction work wasn’t what she had envisioned for her life. It made it all feel wrong and like she didn’t belong long before they were telling her that she didn’t.

She put herself in that life — and yet — refused to truly belong to that life at the same time. I think the crude behaviors of some of the men, the lack of a certain society she had hoped to rise to, the forced setbacks as a creative — all played a huge role in the negative mindset she held about the construction life.

I know she felt as if she was living a double life. I don’t think she ever was able to blend together the multiple sides of herself: mother, artist, teacher, and someone willing to get dirty and work hard on a construction site. The rest of the world might look with awe and find her inspiring, but she never saw herself that way.

All my mother ever truly wanted was to live her life with passion and honor. To be an artist and to find someone to love her well. Simple stuff you would think.

If only it was easy, right?

That confusion has impacted my life. The feeling that I couldn’t possibly integrate all the different sides of myself into one cohesive way of living. My mother’s story made perfect sense to me and, at first, only solidified my personal confusions about how I might be able to be true to myself.

However, after doing some deeper reflection, and leaning away from the harsh practicalities and realities of life, I can see the truth. We are only as capable as we think; we are only as limited as our limiting beliefs.

And I am done limiting myself.

There are so many things I could write about my mother. Not only was she a heavy equipment operator, but she also rode a Harley-Davidson, got her fourth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, became a certified personal trainer, and even went to school to become an interior designer.

The impact she has on me (as any mother has on her children) is profound. Despite how talented, skilled, and versatile she is, she never believed in herself enough to truly chase her dreams because of the fear of failure, and the belief that life is hard.

But she never quit.

Today, she is retired from operating and has finally started to do the work that feels right. She paints daily and is putting her strength and determination into her true passion.

Sixty-five years old and she’ll still kick your ass.

The strength, courage, and perseverance that she possesses runs throughout my own veins.

She hasn’t given up and neither will I.