Beth Szillagyi is a member of SMWIA Local 218 in Springfield, Illinois. She is also the author of Hey, Lady! Your Tin Snips are Showing! The novel started out as a short version, first published in Tradeswomen, a California-based women in the trades magazine that is now defunct. In 1991, she was contacted by Cosmopolitan magazine to write an article for the magazine. After her original story was published, Beth tried for several years to find a publisher about a full-length version and no one seemed interested. According to Beth, she had enough rejection slips to wallpaper a room.
With the advent of the internet came her break. In 2000 she got a publishing contract with SynergEbooks.com.
The book is available at: http://www.synergebooks.com/ebook_heylady.html for $18.99 which includes postage. It is also available as an e-book and on CD-ROM. A check in that amount can be sent to:
SynergEbooks
205 South Dixie Drive, Box 185
Haines City, Florida, 33844
Beth agreed to do an interview with the Journal talking about her unique experiences in the trade and her advice for other women interested in a sheet metal career. She also discussed her future plans both in her professional and personal lives.
Why did you get in the trade?
As a child I had always wanted to be a veterinarian; however, when the time approached to go to school, I didn’t have the financial fortitude to go to college for that length of time, even after joining the Illinois Army National Guard, which paid for tuition and fees. Although I was a good student and on the honor roll, it soon became apparent that I needed to find a job. This was in 1979, and I spent the entire summer perusing the want ads while in the meantime selling insurance. Or perhaps I should say “faking” selling insurance. Toward the end of summer, there IT was, “my” job in the paper. I don’t know how I knew it was my job, I just knew it. “Local 84 is taking applications for the apprenticeship. Women and minorities encouraged to apply.” I went to the union hall as a green and naïve 22-year-old and survived my first hurdle in the trades: the atypical cigar-smoking, raspy-voiced business agent. May he rest in peace, but he scared the bejesus out of me back then. The year I took the test, there were 200 applicants, 4 of them women. The entire waiting period between taking the test and getting the results back, I somehow knew that I would make it. Still, I was surprised when I got the phone call telling me to come to the hall and sign some papers, because “Dolly, you got yourself a job.” Which I needed desperately, by the way. I had already discovered that I was not the type to teeter around an office in high heels, so I had to find some other avenue of self support.
Have you seen a change in attitude over the years?
Yes, most definitely, and at the same time, not really. Hard to explain and I know it sounds ambivalent. However, I was bound and determined that no one would stop me, even though I had heard that men at the hall were actually betting money that I wouldn’t survive the apprenticeship. Now I am known well enough around the area and have a lot of old friends who would stick up for me should the need arise, but getting to that point was quite a challenge. You just have to keep showing up. There were a lot of times that I didn’t want to keep showing up, but like I mentioned earlier, I needed this job to pay for my bad habits like needing a roof over my head and food to eat.
A few examples of what was said to me back then: “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” “You are taking a job away from a man with a family to feed.” (I had a good answer for that one: SO ARE YOU.) “They oughta draft you!” ( My response: “They can’t because I’m in the National Guard” which really got to them.)
By the way, I have always believed in fighting fire with fire, and it has worked for me over the years, even though I have gotten guff for it from women’s groups and women in construction groups. A big example of this is my approach to “girlie” pictures. I have been told over the years that I must file some kind of grievance or law suit dealing with sexual harassment. My approach, however, has been to put up pictures of naked men wherever and whenever I have seen the aforementioned “girlie” pictures displayed. I firmly believe that if you want to do a lawsuit, that’s fine, but don’t rain on me because I use other methods to deal with wayward men.
A good example of how the attitude has changed for the better is my boss who is now retired and who was also my shop teacher back then. He had the faith in me a few years back to hand me prints to two difficult and need-to-be-done-right-now jobs at two hospitals two summers in a row (2007 and 2008). I have had several mentors over the years, and they have meant so much to me that I really could run to the women’s room and have a good cry. Without these fellas, the journey would have been much more difficult.
I have been around long enough now, too, that I feel like most of these guys are my real brothers, like we have grown up together over the years. Many of us are baby boomers, so we can commiserate with each other about the challenges of older bodies and how to work and not get injured. My husband is a union electrician (we knew each other in high school), and he and his friends have helped me, too.
Do you have advice to other women wanting to get in the trades?
Put your big girl pants on and never give up the ship. Get yourself some good sturdy work boots and don’t expect special privileges. Keep showing up and keep your sense of humor. You have just as much right to be there as the next guy. If you work hard and don’t put up with anything, pretty soon you may be surprised at who is in your corner.
Is there one experience that stands out?
This is a very tough question to answer. Work wise, two jobs stand out: being able to work on the dome of the capitol building in 1982 and being on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum job from day one. On the human side, my fellow workers have stood out, some good, some bad, some wonderful. I have learned much from them, not only about the trade and other trades and life in general, but about myself and what I am capable of.
I really wanted to hang around awhile longer, but the work situation is pretty dire here in the Midwest and elsewhere across the country. I signed all my papers and am 99% sure that I will be retiring on December 31st of this year. I would love to go back to school and be a veterinary technician, but the nearest school is in Champaign - several hours away. I have also toyed with the idea of HVACR classes at the technical institute here in town. Not really sure about any of it; I have had enough experience in the lay-off department, though, to never be bored. I love to fish, read, garden, bird watch, and volunteer at the no-kill shelter in Springfield. There might be another book or two in there somewhere, too. I might also take up the piano again and do something completely different like take drawing or painting classes. We’ll see.
