It offended me when my HVAC instructor pulled me aside.
He asked who told me to be an HVAC technician? I stood there and looked at him before saying that no one told me to be an HVAC technician.
I wanted to be an HVAC technician. He looked at me like he didn’t think it was a wise choice, but he told me to go back to class. After that chat, I worked harder than any other student, and was at the top of the class. When it came time to go to HVAC certification classes, I knew I was just as good an HVAC technician as any man in that class. It was hard getting into HVAC when you were a woman, but it was even harder forty years ago when I went to HVAC school. My father had trained me, and I knew what I was doing, but since I was a woman, I had to go to school and prove myself. Most men didn’t have their HVAC certification back then, but I had to have it. I was sexually harassed, and they tried to make me look bad. None of that would happen now, because harassment wasn’t illegal back then. Women were just getting their voice, but there were some jobs considered inappropriate for women, and HVAC was in that class. Now, a woman can do anything job they want, and most women can do it just as well as men. I was one of those who was just as good as my colleagues and better than some. Thanks to my father’s help, I not only moved ahead in the HVAC company, but I owned the first woman-owned HVAC company in our area.