Mechanic Girl Tinker Tonka

"Screw this...!..."
 
Finishing school, I had made some decisions, I hated school apart from my friends.
I was either going to go to Mexico to follow the dream of finding out more about The Maya, the ancient people of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, to see what mysteries they might still have going on as a people.
OR to become a Mechanic, not really a common goal for a girl, but having a lifelong affinity with a particular type of car, and motor racing I thought it the appropriate way to go... so I got a job as a Parts Courier at a vehicle dealership, they seemed to like me so much after the temporary position ended, that they offered me any role in the company... that was the easy part, deciding what I was going to do next, I said M-E-C-H-A-N-I-C!... they took me on-board...
I loved it, getting grubby, hands on, working hard. I use to smear oil and grease all over my overalls to show how proud I was to be doing what I was doing... one of the mechanics I was studying under for my apprenticeship told me "staying clean was the sign of a good mechanic" not one who was always covered in oil!... it was a good lesson, as from that day forward, I didn’t need to prove that I was working hard by covering myself in grease (I never thought of the poor cleaners that had to wash my overalls either!!)
I was nicknamed "The Boy" as in most of the other mechanics minds, I was just another apprentice, learning the ropes, and boy was right if I got something like a lunch order wrong... Anyone had their head flush down a toilet? haha, not much fun if you have hair down to your bum like I did, but I very quickly got use to making sure the lunch orders were right!
I also became the master of getting changed in the locker room without showing an inch of skin, they didn’t have a girls changing room, as of course I was the only girl around
I ended up becoming great friends with a lot of the guys I worked with, that initially couldn’t get past the concept of me being a girl in a "blokes" environment... I won them all over with shear hard work, determination - for example if a bolt was on too tight, I would have to figure ways of getting it undone just like they did, I used a lot of initiative to make sure that I could do everything one of the guys could do...
It was hard work, sometimes painful (when I cut the top of two fingers off in an engine bay - don’t worry they got sewn back on and work fine and dandy!!), but the rewards of persevering paid off, not in my pay packet, but in the way I felt...
I talk about this part of my life a lot when talking to new people as it always seems to inspire. I couldn’t wish for anything more!...
so what happened next?...
...and one thing you can ask yourself today - what makes you tick?...do you love your job?