Hi I am retired from the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Civilian.
I started my career as the second female to work on the Allegheny River Locks & Dams. I was told the first one made life miserable for her team that I now was working with so I had hurdles to get over to earn their respect. My first day I was sent with another employee to pick up railroad ties. 10 I think it was. Anyway the guy I went with gave me immediate respect right after I picked up the other end of the 8 foot tie & put it in the dump truck like it was nothing! I admit I was very strong back in the day.
From that day forward over time I earned the others respect & they earned mine!
For 75 yrs this had been men only jobs so I had a lot to prove. I also was so fortunate to have a fellow employee to train me on all that I needed to learn & then some! These men became family & we had so much fun while we worked which made the day go fast. We worked hard too! Other than locking tow boats & recreational boats through the locks we did cement work such as large slab inclined walls, breaking up cement with Jack hammers, lots of painting & cleaning, maintenance on all equipment plus at the time there were construction workers doing rehab to the lock for 2 yrs so we had to work around all that. The rehab men preferred me to work the lock gates because I could open & close them without banging them so much, now this was done with 1 gate running by hand with a temporary cable winch & using the other hand to use the automated gate lever! To close the gates took finesse so they didn't bang shut & fall off into the water while putting them together in the mitered position. So I was pretty proud of myself!
Over the years I was able to work my way up to full time. From a WY5 temporary 8 month lock operator to a full time WY 9 lock operator leader to a WY10 being a Lock & Dam Equipment Mechanic. I knew a lot about the old original locks that by this time were over 100 yrs old! So I ended my career working at the old 4 upper closed locks trying to keep them in as workable condition as possible for the summer rec boat season that private boating people had fundraisers to pay for us to work them on weekends so they could travel back & forth between them.
It was the best job outside of my children I ever had. With lasting friendships made.