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Transcript:

Welcome to the podcast. Risk is the new kale. Each episode I talk with folks who have figured out how to extract opportunity from risk. As someone who has spent a career controlling risk, I want to know those who embrace it. Risk is the new kale. Good for you, hard to take.

Thank you so much. This is so nice. This is awesome. I just can't believe we have just run into each other so many times over our career and now I'm out the other side into a totally different career. We can actually be friends as opposed to colleagues college. She's been an elevator mechanic for over 13 years. She's passionate about leadership and advocacy, is formerly a member of the Executive Board of the International Union of Elevator Constructors, a shop Steward, a founding member of BC Tradeswomen Society, and on the Governance. Committee of the BC Center for Women in Trades please welcome Nicole Wheat. Thanks OK, we're going to just jump right in here. Nicole safety breaks became standard on elevating devices in the 1850s, but for some folks that is not very comforting. So why do you think that people believe elevators are riskier than they actually are? I think it's just because people don't understand them, and people often fear what they don't fully understand. It's like a magic box that gets them from one place to another, but they actually have no idea how it works on the inside. Besides, movies like speed, of course, which dramatize it and often use incorrect information. I I heard a lot when I'm like working at when I'm at work, especially if the doors are open and we have our barricades and people often peek in to see you know what it looks like. And yeah, it's amazing how often people comment about how elevators scare them so much, and I usually respond with a little bit of information that most elevators actually fall up, not down. Yeah, exactly exactly right. The breaks are holding them against the counterweight, so magical box is amazing symbolism. OK, so I want to talk about. How you came to be a mechanic for the magical box, but I know that you went to university and you studied criminology and then you did this change and you became an elevator mechanic. So tell me how that happened. Yeah, I wanted to be an RCMP officer and things just kind of changed and my goals changed. Kind of and I was kind of just floating around. It wasn't sure what I was going to do so actually went off to Taiwan and I taught English for 2 1/2 years and Taipei loved it. Still have amazing friends. Actually went back to see some of the students a couple of years ago. They were all in their last year's university because

they were so 12 when I left it was crazy, but. I am yeah, I kind of came back and went back to university majoring in English and my dad was actually talking to my sister's boyfriend at the time and and mentioning that the elevator union was hiring and just a process you call in and get your name on a list and then write it aptitude test and I just responded with like me. I'll do it and my dad's always supported me in anything I've done. So he's like, yeah, you'd be great at this and that's so cool. Kind of just how it happened. Yeah, it's like you fell into it, but of course it was meant to be right because you went to your dad's jobs with them right through high school and I'm sure there was shop talk around the kitchen. So family probably had a big influence. Oh for sure, yeah, my grandfather passed away now, but he was also an elevator guy in the union. So I listened to the two of them and my dad's best friend. Most of my dad's friends were elevator guys growing up, but my dad's best friend and my dad used to do their time together. On Thursdays and they were always building things in the garage as well and I just used to love just hanging out with them and listening to them talk and helping out. I had my own little like old welding hat that I could put on so I could watch what they were doing when they were welding stuff and they always loved their job like they always. They were never frustrated with it, they just considered every time something wasn't working as it should. It was just a problem that they would dissect and talk about and and decide how. Let's try this and maybe tomorrow we'll try this and they just they loved it. They really did love doing it and I think that just passed on to me where I was just like this is a job that my dad loves so much and it was interesting and it's never going to be boring. It's always gonna be something new to break as technology changes and their love of it just really got passed along to me I believe. I just admire that so much I have to say. My dad was an electrician and I learned the definition of integrity

from him because he would describe a job and then he would say and this is what we did to make it work and and I knew that it was elegant the way that you know he pulled the wire through and where he tied it off like it was. Yeah it meant a lot to actually have that as a basis. What do you think today holds people back from going into trades? It's a wonderful career. It really is a wonderful career and I can't imagine doing anything else. But I think representation really matters and it's hard to picture yourself doing a job that you've never seen. Another person doing that looks like you there weren't a lot of women in the trade when I got in. There were two other at the time, but they both lived in Vancouver and worked in Vancouver where I started my career out on the island. So it wasn't till I was. Almost finishing my apprenticeship that actually met another woman in the trade and it was like Oh my goodness, I'm not alone. We call it a Unicorn trade often with those trades where there's there's so few of us around. There's also like a lot of both internalized misogyny and misogyny. Women's face on job sites we can. He could be hard to walk into that, knowing that there's things are going to have to deal with and. And just. That misconception that you have to be a big and strong to be a tradesperson. Well, I don't really think that's right. There's always going to be a time where you need to move £100.00, but do it smartly. Use a tool team lift, lift smarter, not harder. We say that one all the time. And look at what you can do well. Look at your skills and your strengths and work towards those. No one's going to be the best at everything. Just pick those things that you're going to be the best at and. And whether it be like funny or handed to a tight spot, you know troubleshooting some people really get organizing things, and that is definitely something you need in the trades organization. Those are really good tips, right? You can find your own genius. You don't have to have all of it. Yeah, for sure. I'm never going to lift as much as a guy that's 6 foot two right, but I

can do other things really well. Yeah? And then you're going to take care of your long term health because you're not going to end up having compression issues. Very important. OK, so you're a huge advocate for women in trades and we first met when we were both on a panel. You founded the BC Tradeswomen Society. And when you say that representation matters, I also believe you have to see it to be it. So how is the sector changing like do you see policy change, legislative change, culture change? Where is it evolving? It it is changing, so there is a group of women that we yeah, we work together. We created the BC Tradesman Society. We founded it in part because we wanted to get government funding to create a Center for women in the trades. Or we could really advocate for change rather than. Always having volunteers, actually having people that their job was to advocate for women in trades, it is hard to do it all off the edge of your seat wall already working 40 plus hours. Pat your career so. We created the BC Tradesman Society and actually from that we were one of the partners with another couple other groups to create the BC Center for Women the trades and they're doing great work. They are really really changing the workscape to make it more suitable for not just women but other people as well. It doesn't always have to look the same and there's not ever going to be one fix for everyone. But there's a lot of other groups though, too, so there's like the BC tradesman Society the BCC Center for women in the trades. The build together, which is part of the building trades builders code BCI B. There's all these different groups and I think everyone does things a little bit differently and I think with all those options, or really are making a shift of that culture. It's also just explaining people that people

need more than just a job. They need a place where they can like learn in a safe environment and be given the chance to actually learn the skills that they're going to need to have a successful career. You are starting to see that too with like. I know in your lines of work that you've done as well. Trying to help with diversity, like making sure the language is inclusive. Whether it be on a job listing, making sure there's diversity training, there's committees. At your work or union, that can really focus on those things to you, know grassroots as well. It just has to kind of come from all directions to make a difference. I think it's a complex problem. You're right, so it's gonna take a very wide way of solving it. Yeah, that was really nicely described. I'm interested in the language side. For me, language has it's just so important how people describe themselves seems to me that there's a generational shift in that too. The way that people are showing up and intentionally taking back language. Do you see that? I definitely see that there's actually a conversation I'd had on one of my networks just over the last couple of weeks where someone had posted an advertisement for a job, and the job used the term journeyman and I just like nicely set them like, hey, awesome that you're posting. This adds, you say it's a great company. That's what I want to hear. Maybe next time ask them if they could list the ad using the word journey person, which is been the federal language since I think And it definitely rolled into a bit of a conversation where some felt like journey. Man was the term that they want to use, and I go. That's totally fair. You can call yourself whatever you want. I go. But it when it comes to other people that might be considering the trades, they might not feel included if it's uses the language like journeyman and I bring up always the example of you don't usually hear people saying firemen anymore or police band. It's become so common.

In our language, to use the term police officer and firefighters, it's been a bit slow to get to journey person or journey. Often all people just say red seal. If that works for you. Elevator mechanic for myself, I don't actually have a gender in my title, which is nice, but it's language does matter and it's not necessary for the person using the language. It's for the people reading the language that might be considering that a place to work or a career or your. My niece, I don't. She's you know at that age where when she sees words like man or boy you know she in part of something like that means it's for men or boys. And I don't. I don't want her to think that I want her to think that she can do whatever she wants. There's not a gender to any career per se. And how old is she? She just turned 3. I bought her tools for her birthday this year. Yay she she actually loves helping. I always every time I go to my sister's house she always has a list of things for me to do and Claire my niece was a helping counting out the screws for me and passing the the little ones or the big ones and she really liked holding my impact drill. She was very excited about that. I got a really cute picture of her and her beautiful Princess outfit holding my impact drill that is a keeper right for whatever you want as long as you got your PP and you got your right tools. Yeah and so good you know we talked a lot about language, but you know a single thing that can actually improve access to people in trades. Know if there's a single thing, but I think it starts at the beginning. I posted a meme the other day that actually got a lot of conversation around it and it said.

Normalize sending kids to trade schools after high school without making them feel like they're less than four year university kids. I think it really resonated to me because. I was academically inclined in high school. It was just. Trades were never even talked about as an option, even though my dad and my grandfather had successful trade careers, it was just like you will go to university because you get good grades and.

I wish that trades would have been something that they spoke about in school and that they encouraged everyone to take shop classes and learn how to use basic tools and whatnot because I think I may have gotten to the trades younger then if I known how many amazing trades there are out there and these skills that I have now from learning how to build elevators like I use them all the time. I'm always building things at home and I have the confidence to do those things now. So I think a lot of it just comes down to. At an early age, not. Making people believe that they can't do something. That there's always going to be other options, and that you can change your options partway through. You also don't have to decide your career at the age of 14, and never look back, and that's the only thing you can do. You know you can. There's so many women that have that. I know that got into the trades in the 30s and 40s. They had other successful careers on them. They pivoted into the trades there's. There's so many options out there and not to tie yourself down with just one. Yeah, that's I think that's generous, right to say to somebody what you could be, whatever. So here's are all the choices. And you're going to come to the different choices at a different time in your life, too, right? Like you got to have some lived experience and but everything is available to you.

Learning, that's what keeps us going. OK, So what I would like to ask you about Nicole's advocacy as well as passing your knowledge on to other people. Obviously in leadership is in your veins like you are it, So what parts of leadership do you most enjoy like what? What feels like more of a risk or a stretch for you in leadership? I'm just curious. Umm? I've always just wanted to be part of the solution, so just in life since I was a kid like something's going on, I want to get in there and help work to fix it. I always had a hard time like sitting back and watching someone struggle or seeing an issue that I could help fix and just sitting back and letting things fall apart without at least trying. And I also understand that like I have a lot of privilege and I want to use that privilege to make safe spaces and help make a positive impact. And working in a group I think. Of like positive. Interesting people is just it's so amazing like our board. Currently for the BC Tradesmen Society is so diverse and there's all different ages and trades and. I just love it like there's so many ideas and things that I would never have thought of because of who I am and how I and how my life's been thus far. And I just love these ideas and all this great energy and. That's what I love about leading. I love being part of a group and just coming up with everything with this group mentality. I think it's just invigorating. It just keeps me going and gives me more energy to do more. As far as risks or hardships, I guess I find that like stepping up to be a leader in my Union that was that was scary. No one else had, as a woman had held a position in the Union and. Really, yeah, I was the first one and I remember asking one of them. One of my brothers at the time being like hey. I want to get involved. I want to make a difference in the Union. I want my voice to contribute because obviously I felt like there wasn't a lot of diversity at the time and. And they were like, yeah, you should. You should run for executive board. I'll nominate you

and I was like. Oh, that seems like a lofty goal to start off with, but I did it. I ran, I got, I was nominated, I ran and and I actually had the most votes. My first term and why? Yeah, so great. Yeah it was awesome being in that room. It is also hard being in that room. It's hard being having one voice that can be quite a bit different than the rest in the room. It's hard when you're 11 is. Yeah, I did two terms I might run again at some point. I'm not sure, but yeah, it's hard when I speak in front of my union. Membership. It's often like over 100 guys. There's been 300 people there and. And. It's intimidating and often because of some of the other women won't come to the meetings just because it is hard to walk in. To a group like that where you stand out so much and they might not recognize you. So we were like who are you? Why are you here? And I often I'll get up and I'll ask for funding for the Union to send myself and some of our sisters to trades. When build nations conference and that's hard right because I ask and then they put it forward. And then they actually have to vote with me there after I've asked and answered some questions. And yeah, you're pretty vulnerable in that position. Yeah, it's hard, but it's always gone. Well, there's always going to be someone that's not going to agree. And maybe think that I don't belong in that space, but there's so many more that are my allies. There are always louder than the rest, which is that's important. And at the end, when I step back down and I get those like yeah, good job you did great yeah you ladies are doing awesome man I love my sisters and and it's it's remembering that as scary as some things may be, it's worth it in the end and someone has to step up. So until someone else does, I'll continue doing it, yeah? So you have been accepted to the Governor General's Leadership Conference and that's happening later this year. And it's been on hold for a couple of years because of COVID and for people who

don't know about this conference, it started as a Duke of Edinburgh Commonwealth Conference back in the 50s and then Canada repatriated it under the Governor General and it is amazing. I know from experience because I went in 2008 and I loved it. So do you have a sense of? What province you're going to do you know where you're going to go? Yes, I do. Actually so I'm Co. Chairing my group and we are in Toronto. So it starts off in Huntsville ON and then I go to Toronto and then it ends in Ottawa. They've had to change things around it just a little bit because of different provinces having different rules. So I I've never actually been to Toronto. I've never been to Ontario. I've traveled all over the world, but not much in Canada, so I'm excited to learn some new things. I've met some of the people in my group and a couple of them had gone to university in Toronto, so I'm like great you can show me around and tell me about things. But I'm excited. I know yourself, Susie Skidmore. Like everyone that I know that's attended has just told me how. It's an amazing experience and there's no way to really describe it, and I can't wait like it's my biggest accomplishment so far has been being accepted into this and I can't wait to get there like it's been the longest two years. Having an extended extended, but I'm really excited about it. You're going to have an amazing time. I just I learned so much from that. Because it was private sector, labor sector and public sector all coming together and learning from one another. But then learning from the region too and. When you think about stepping into a group like that, people who are representing every part of Canada coming together in these huge forums, unbelievable people step up to speak. I think I recall that a leader from.

I think it was in Nuvet came to speak about the right to be cold so that was back in 2008 and it just seems like such an obvious thing now and back then it was like Oh yeah you do. Climate change is real so. What do you hope to take away from meeting with your leadership peers from across Canada? I think because so much of my work I do now is around tradeswomen. I think I'm really excited, like learn about all the other great things that are happening and that people are involved in like I'm think of it, really. Expand on my knowledge and my contacts. I'll probably find more things that I want to fight for and nurture and advocate for. And but I just yeah, I'm really excited just to learn all about all these people and what they care about and what matters to them and and how they've problem solved issues. Because I really think that that's there's always other ways of doing something. And I just love to learn and expand on that knowledge of other ways. I could troubleshoot issues here in. You see in here for my trades from a movement excellent. Yeah, well there's going to be so lucky to have you part of that group. So big game on the weekend, Canada accomplished something huge. Yay, the men are going to the World Cup something the women have consistently done, but the men are finally going and you are a soccer fanatic in your free time. I understand. Yes, I am. I grew up playing soccer. It was the first sport. I think. I played growing up. My dad played soccer. My sister played soccer and I never actually watched soccer. I was never one that watched. We watched hockey on TV. We watched. Racing we watch golf. We watch baseball, football, all the other sports but for some reason my dad never really watched soccer on TV and the year I moved

to Vancouver was actually the inaugural year of the Whitecaps playing in the MLS. So I actually went to that first game at the temporary Empire field and and. It was so easy to fall in love with like I was already love soccer and then just to watch it live which is just watching soccer. Live is just a whole nother thing. There's chanting there's. There is yelling everyone's like so many people are standing like there's just so much great energy and instantly. I was in a love and and got season tickets shortly after and it's just been a space that I've really loved and had a lot of fun. It was my place where I didn't have to advocate for anything. I just got to go there and enjoy it. Would just be a crazy fan. Yeah totally. And then I got. I started to volunteer a little bit. We do these things called tifos which are these hand drawn displays. Fabric that you hand paint and then you hold them up for often only like a minute at the beginning of the match. Often like poking fun at something for the other team or supporting your team. And I started doing stuff with that. That was tons of fun and. And getting more and more involved and. Making these. Good connections with other women and other supporters here in Vancouver and. Kind of where I started to see that maybe there were some issues there with inclusivity and safety for women and the LGBT two Q Plus community. It was kind of. There was a there was some incidents as a verbal, physical and even sexual assault at BC Place and some of the other supporters events. So a couple of my friends and I created the South sisters. We've actually now just called the sisters, but yeah, we created a safe space to advocate for issues that we face when supporting and. It was a. It's a fun. It's a really fun grade group and we actually worked really closely with one of the other supporters groups. The Rain City brigade and they are a great group as well. And yeah, we do a lot of good stuff, nice. OK, so let's go back to your work.

Tell me what the tools of the trade are for an elevator mechanic. So a little bit of everything because we deal with electrical and mechanical and kind of a lot of things in between. Have a lot of tools like my tool bag. Probably weighs about £80.00, so which is mostly hand tools and then we get all the fancy stuff like magnetic drills and drills and impacts and concrete drills. So it's definitely a mixed bag of everything actually. A couple of my tools in my tool bag were actually passed down from my grandfather, so I'm very attached to those ones, but they're such good quality that you just can't find that stuff anymore. So I actually have them in my tool bag and my one of my chat pairs of channel locks and my. 3/8 ratchet are both from my grandfather and they're like that's constantly in my hands, but for my job I did construction for a long time so I was in new builds and I actually made the transition recently. A couple years ago to service, so now I'm still a billing elevators from the ground up. I actually work on the ones that are old, so I get to learn a lot about old elevators and I really like that part about it. God, I walked past the building the other day and it had a cage elevator in it and. My husband said, would you get in that? And I said, no, I wouldn't. Because I might be in there for a while, so a typical job then doing elevator maintenance tell me what that's like when you drive up to a site. So doing service like right this week, I am replacing an old door operator, so it's the item that opens and closes the door when you come to the floor. And yeah, I get there. I usually try to. If they do have a building manager face to face with the building manager, see if there's any concerns that they have. I'm there if there's two elevators. If there's one that they want me to start with just because I find starting off. On a good foot with someone is always a good idea, especially with old elevators. You never

know what's going to happen when you shut them off and then turn them back on again. There's always a surprise. It seems. Last week my drive decided that it wasn't done. It was done like I'm 25 years old. You gave me a two day break. I quit. It was like I'm not running right anymore, so I usually try and touch base and let everyone know what I'm doing. Make sure my signs are up and and then. I usually actually like now with technology. I take a picture of everything before I start anything just so I have a kind of a good space of like how things looked before and how they worked before just to make sure when I put on the new pieces that everything aligns the same way and things move the same way so that you're not putting any stress on any. Bearings or joints or anything like that. When you are doing the service. You normally I'm assuming, bring the cab down to the bottom floor, but I don't know if people quite understand the structure of elevators in terms of where the machine room is or if there is one and what the pits like and the fact that it is a big shaft, but there's lots of parts in it. Do you want to sort of describe? That structure, so for most elevators that you see, they're traction, so more often than not. In that case, the machine room would usually be on the top floor, like almost like the little top that you see at the top of the buildings. That's often the top of the elevator shaft, and then on top of that, the machine room. Though there are a lot that are actually basement traction as well. You don't see those as much anymore, but there are a lot of them still out there. And so inside the elevator shaft you have your cab which where you stand and then usually either to the side or behind you have the counterweight and the counterweight actually usually weighs up round 50% of what the Max load. Of the elevator is. So often when you get into the elevator, they'll elevator is actually a lot lighter, so it's easy for the elevator

to go up because the counter is heavier pulling it down. And then the elevator has to work a little bit harder to pull that cab down to the bottom and have the heavy counterweight go up. So when I'm doing work on a break, so if I'm replacing like recently, I removed an emergency brake system and put in a new one. In that case because the counterweights so much heavier, I actually parked the car near the very top of the shaft, so that if something did happen with the other break. That the counterweight would only go a couple inches down onto the buffer. And the elevator itself, the cab would only go up a couple inches at the top, so less likely to have a free fall. If I done it the opposite direction, the counter would have had this entire hoist way to fall down if the brakes had failed, was working on the emergency brake and that could have caused the elevator cab to actually go with all that energy to go up into the overhead and cause some damage. And that has definitely happened in the past. I've never seen it happen, but I've heard about it, which is why, like whenever I'm working on the brakes. Most like. Counterweight to the bottom cab to the top. Such great risk assessment, right? Like what are the other barriers you can put in place so that if one thing doesn't work, then you know there is something else to catch it and. And that's what elevators are. There are so many safety devices for an elevator to fall like you see in some of the movies, like each one of those cables can usually hold the elevator in its own, and you might see anywhere from three to eight of those cables. And then there's. A governor which governs the speed of the elevator and and in that there is two different switches in it. There's an electronic one that's kind of like. It sees that the speeds going faster than it should, and that's one way of the elevator to stop, so it'll be like, hey, you're going too fast, you're overspeeding. We're going to stop. And then there's another governor switch. That's like, OK, now you're really going too fast and we're going to put on the brakes,

which are like kind of almost like a wedge most of the time. That wedge is into the rail and stops elevator, usually within 4 feet. It stops it pretty quick. It actually like you can when you do the testing. Of course, as you would know it leaves marks right in the rails because you have to test these elevators before you turn them over to the public and make sure that all these safety devices work as they should in order to get to that last one you have to jump out. All these safety items to even get the elevator to do what you need to do to test those safety items. So it's I always tell people like the elevators are so safe, like they are very, very safe and you should not be concerned. Absolutely. What would you say is one of your best jobs recently? Most fun or most interesting, one of the ones that like meant the most to me was it was a kind of in the downtown East side area. Strathcona of the Budzy building and so it's part of rain city housing. So I think that one specifically was for women and families. So it was like it was housing their whole goal. Rain City housing is like a home for every person like everyone deserves a home and a safe place and it just it meant a lot to me that I was like part of a big project that was going to provide. All these homes for women and families and children and and some are safe. Some are to call their own and had all these other. Things in the building to advocate for them and and just to help people along. And I really like that one. I love that that was like. It was doing so much good. I got to be a part of something that was doing good for the world versus, you know, just a regular condo building of 18 stories. That's just, you know, every unit sells to someone, right? Like this one. It felt good to be part of a solution that meant something something more to those folks for sure. Nice. How is technology changing and elevating devices? It just seems like every day we read about some new

tech device and elevating isn't any different. So what what's coming down the Pike there. There's all. There's all kinds of interesting stuff you see, lots of stuff with magnets and some of the stuff that actually stops elevators from moving faster. Is friction right? Because there's the friction of the wheels that run on the rails, and those get hot if you're moving super fast. So I've seen like some of these. The wheels for the elevator are like super big because they're trying to reduce that friction in that heat, so there is doing some interesting things with magnets, nothing's really. You know mass produced or anything yet, and there's some stuff I've seen preliminary where like they can actually change directions like they can go up and then sideways. They kind of change tracks, but again, that's not something that you're going to see here any time soon, but some of the stuff you see locally that's come up the last couple of years as destination dispatch, so you may have seen that in a hotel or some of those big commercial buildings, so you actually walk in. And instead of just pressing the up or down button. You put in your floor so 432 and on that kiosk that you input that number into. It will say go to elevator B. You walk over to elevator B and what it's done is it's grouped people together with you that are going to the same or close by floors you all get on and once you get into the elevator there's no more buttons to press besides like a door open button and an emergency button. And on top of that now they're even having fancier ones where instead of even pressing the kiosk you can just scan your phone or your key card and it'll be predetermined. You know what floor that goes to and even have to touch anything you just go in. It will stop at your floor and you get out. All these people are going to come back to the office after two years of hybrid work, and they're going to be like what? Yeah, there's so much other stuff too where, like some UV lights to sanitize buttons. And there's some interesting stuff happening. It's always changing

just like any other technology centric trade, right? There's always something new being developed and some way of making things faster, quicker, more affordable. You know fancier, so it's it's interesting. I'm never going to get bored. There's always doing some new problem to figure out. So one of my podcast interviews was with an aviation expert and I asked him about. Pilot pilotless planes. When are we going to see that and he goes? Well, there's no driver in elevators anymore and I'm like yeah, OK, so I'm going to be looking to elevator technology as kind of the bellwether for how planes are going to be automated, how vehicles are going to be automated like your industry. It comes first. That's amazing. OK, I have read that the tallest elevator on the planet is Anglo Gold's Ashanti Mponeng Gold mine in South. In Africa, in three minutes it drops 2283 meters. Which is a lot in a single descent, and the tallest freestanding building is under construction. Right now it's the Jenna Tower in Saudi Arabia and it's going to be over a kilometer tall. And I think both are amazing. I guess my question to you is because you're in this industry. Are you an elevator tourist? Like would you go on those? I don't know if I would travel somewhere specifically. To check out of an elevator, but I have definitely traveled places and checked out the elevators. I was obviously elevator sisters get together and when we go to the tradeswomen build nations conference, the host city usually does something fun for us and we actually went to the Willis Towers or Sears Towers. Now they're called and we got to see the inside of those machine rooms and ride those double Decker elevators, which was just amazing

and fun and I took 1000. Features of course. I was actually really fortunate I was in Taiwan as they were building Taipei 101, which was for a short amount of time. The tallest building in the world, but I think actually held the. It was the fastest elevator I think for about 10 years I held the world record. I think if I remember correctly, so they were building it and finished it while I lived there. So I got to ride that one and I definitely wrote it even though I wasn't in the elevator trade, I was still daddy's little girl and I loved elevators. So I think I went up or down that one like three or four times paid to like did you? Oh yeah, to go up to the observation deck. I'm like, oh, someone's visiting in town. Oh well, I have to take you here I was like, yeah, look at this elevator cool do you actually get the sensation of acceleration and deceleration in something like that but not very much? Actually they had actually have a scale model outside which I took 1000 pictures of course and they have pressurization, so they're actually able to really adjust everything as it's moving. So you barely felt it, I remember. Yeah, I actually got a piece of gum out because of the altitude change like my ears might be bothered and I didn't even get the gum out in time. I was like oh the doors are opening. We're here and you talked about like the swaying of the building at the top of Taipei 101. You can see this giant ball. I can't remember what the material it's made out of it. We can walk around at what that ball does is in. They have a lot of typhoons. Obviously there and earthquakes in Taiwan and and just windstorms too. So that's the counterweight exactly. So yeah, it sways the opposite direction of the building to try to keep that center as still as possible. It was really interesting to read about it, and then the way that they built that observation deck so you could actually see it. We could walk all the way around. It was really interesting. So while I don't think I would travel to a country specifically. To ride an elevator, if I was there, I would probably try and find the time I love it. OK, my final question for you is if you had the power to fix anything, any issue on the planet, what would it be? I think by doing one thing it might help a lot of things and that would be more diversity in leadership roles and you see some of those countries that have had women leaders and you look at New Zealand. They've done fantastic things there and I think if we had better diversity in leadership roles, I think it would help with a lot of the world issues of like climate change, war equity. Safety for all people. You know, I think that could make a big change. I agree with you, because right now there's just not a lot of diversity when you look at the leaders of the world. OK, well, work on it. We're trying, right? You gotta start somewhere. Thank you so much. You're a leadership rock star so you keep doing it.