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Speaker 1: This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their
Speaker 1: professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's
Speaker 1: breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the
Speaker 1: reins and a family business, forging your own path with
Speaker 1: a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something
Speaker 1: you'd never before even considered. Today for on the Job
Speaker 1: producer Otis Gray travels to Southampton, Massachusetts to interview Anna Nadler.
Speaker 1: Anna is a rambunctious young woman working not one, but
Speaker 1: two jobs that by looking at her, you might not
Speaker 1: see her doing. She's five ft two, she's bubbly, and
Speaker 1: on most days is vastly outnumbered by mail co workers.
Speaker 1: While her job choices might seem at first glance non traditional,
Speaker 1: she's in no way out of place in either. Here's
Speaker 1: Otis Anna nadler Is. She's a civil engineer living in Southampton,
Speaker 1: mass And right now it's the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: She's gonna have to wake up at six am. She
Speaker 1: and her crew have a big job replacing a bridge
Speaker 1: a couple of towns over. Somewhere around two thirty am,
Speaker 1: she hears this come out of a radio that she
Speaker 1: has charging on her kitchen table. That's the fire department
Speaker 1: and the code is for a structure fire, a big one.
Speaker 1: So and leaps out of bed and she responds. Seconds later,
Speaker 1: she is dressed and running to the car. Just got
Speaker 1: toned out for a structure fire. Mutual A two East
Speaker 1: Hampton running out of the door. Now, right now it's February.
Speaker 1: There's snow on the ground, there's lots of ice. It's
Speaker 1: about fifteen degrees outside. It's gonna be a cold one.
Speaker 1: We see in my car now is actually three am.
Speaker 1: You get these calls in your heart is racing because
Speaker 1: you're so amped up. Structure fires do not come around
Speaker 1: every day, but for the last two years, Anna has
Speaker 1: been an on call firefighter here in Southampton. She's not
Speaker 1: your typical firefighter or a typical person you'd see on
Speaker 1: a roadside construction crew. She's short, she's about five to
Speaker 1: She actually describes herself as fun sized. Regardless, she says
Speaker 1: she's usually the first at the station when there's a call.
Speaker 1: The other guys they need to get up, go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. It sounds terrible to say, and I'm super
Speaker 1: excited because I love fighting fires, like it's just I'm
Speaker 1: so passionate about it. But it's terrible at the same time,
Speaker 1: because this means someone's property is on fire. Garage, barn,
Speaker 1: you don't know, but that's on fire. So well, we're
Speaker 1: about to see what it actually is. But all right,
Speaker 1: I am here to turn empty. So today we follow
Speaker 1: Anna Nadler as she juggles her life as an engineer
Speaker 1: her love for running into burning buildings and being an
Speaker 1: unexpected person to do both. An update for you now
Speaker 1: in a house fire in East Hampton that we told
Speaker 1: you about on twentyes T News this morning, according to
Speaker 1: East Hampton Fire Chief David Botter, everyone made it out safely.
Speaker 1: Three firefighters, though had minor injuries, and one had to
Speaker 1: be taken to the hospital with neck and shoulder injuries
Speaker 1: after part of the home ceiling collapsed on top of him.
Speaker 1: What you're hearing now is from a local news report
Speaker 1: on the fire that Anna just responded to, and before
Speaker 1: you get worried, she did not get hurt. Everyone was okay.
Speaker 1: One of the other firefighters she knew at the scene
Speaker 1: was transported to the hospital but was totally okay. Shortly after.
Speaker 1: It was an old home that caught fire quick. Anna
Speaker 1: was inside fighting the fire and then on the roof,
Speaker 1: ripping off siding so that the fire didn't spread. I
Speaker 1: asked her when she was a kid if she ever
Speaker 1: imagined her future self on top of a smoldering building
Speaker 1: at three in the morning. Oh God, no, I I
Speaker 1: don't know how I got here. I do, and I don't.
Speaker 1: When I was a little girl. There are two things
Speaker 1: I wanted to do in my life. I wanted to
Speaker 1: paint houses with polka dots. I painted houses in the
Speaker 1: summers and I loved it, Like I think paintings really relaxing.
Speaker 1: I never got to do the polka dots, but you know,
Speaker 1: I got past that. But definitely not what I want
Speaker 1: to do forty hours a week. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a firefighter. She says it started when she was
Speaker 1: really young. She had a deep infatuation with fire trucks.
Speaker 1: I remember, whenever you can ask my mother about this
Speaker 1: or my siblings, whenever I heard sirens, I sprinted to
Speaker 1: the window to watch it, and like prayed that they
Speaker 1: would go by on our street. I loved fire trucks.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really necessarily see me putting on gear
Speaker 1: and go into a call, but just something I was
Speaker 1: always really curious about as far as gear goes. Anna
Speaker 1: is proud to say that she has the smallest boots
Speaker 1: ever worn at the station. Anna is always smiling. She's
Speaker 1: got pale blue eyes, dark hair, and she's always been
Speaker 1: little and growing up that was a big part of
Speaker 1: her identity, especially at the Catholic school she went to
Speaker 1: in southern Vermont. I remember being picked on because I
Speaker 1: was little a lot, like girls were pissed that I
Speaker 1: could fit into like smaller size clothes, and I'm like, listen,
Speaker 1: I fit in kids size, Like I'm not even in
Speaker 1: the teen section yet, so you really shouldn't be picking
Speaker 1: on me. She also very plainly describes her younger self
Speaker 1: as a nerd. Well, I had glasses and then I braces,
Speaker 1: and I definitely had some ugly banks for a while,
Speaker 1: so definitely a nerd. I was very very quiet, so
Speaker 1: I just was kind of hiding in the corner, didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. I was a hot ticket and
Speaker 1: now I wear a hard hat, just like she couldn't
Speaker 1: really imagine being an actual firefighter when she was young.
Speaker 1: She really never saw herself in a hard hat with
Speaker 1: command over construction sites, repairing roads and demolishing bridges. And
Speaker 1: I honestly kind of accidentally made my way into engineering
Speaker 1: because Mr Hodgkins from high school shout out to him.
Speaker 1: He convinced me to take AP physics and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know a little bit about physics, but like I
Speaker 1: don't know. I took it, and I like, we'll wave
Speaker 1: my nerd flag. Hardcore right now. I'm I was fascinated
Speaker 1: that I could throw a ball in the air and
Speaker 1: figure out like when it was going to come down
Speaker 1: and where like. That was so cool to me. When
Speaker 1: she got to college at the University of Vermont, an
Speaker 1: advisor saw her love for physics and convinced her to
Speaker 1: go into engineering. She was really drawn to civil engineering,
Speaker 1: especially the transportation aspect, so she did a rotating fellowship
Speaker 1: down here in Southampton to try all the different jobs
Speaker 1: at the field, and tails, you know it was. I
Speaker 1: was stuck behind a desk a lot of it. And
Speaker 1: then finally construction came along and I was on Interstate
Speaker 1: ninety one and I was like, just in love. It
Speaker 1: was amazing. I loved going into work, I love seeing
Speaker 1: the job. I loved watching it progressed. So when that
Speaker 1: rotation finished, she chose to go into the construction side
Speaker 1: of engineering full time, and she moved here to Southampton.
Speaker 1: The day I was with her, she brought me over
Speaker 1: to her current project. She's wearing a hard hat, a
Speaker 1: white one, which is generally the color that engineers wear.
Speaker 1: She's got a neon vest on, and we're walking on
Speaker 1: an aging bridge that they're preparing to demolish so that
Speaker 1: they can put in a new one. Everything out with
Speaker 1: the old, in with the new. It was the first
Speaker 1: time that I really thought about everything that goes into
Speaker 1: a job like that. Diverting traffic alone for months on
Speaker 1: end seems like a daunting test, and it's just one
Speaker 1: of many utility relocation. We gotta do the gas main
Speaker 1: move that, We're gonna start demoing the bridge itself. Then
Speaker 1: we'll rebuild that portion of the bridge. Flip flop, demo
Speaker 1: the other half, rebuild that half, so then the bridge
Speaker 1: itself will be complete. Going from there were a lot
Speaker 1: of trees that needed to be cleared. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: to redo all the roads around the bridges completely to
Speaker 1: reach quality standards. They have to put totally new traffic
Speaker 1: signals in both intersections. The list goes on and on
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything on this job. Mhm. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people get frustrated seeing those big
Speaker 1: orange signs say construction zone ahead. It means delays and
Speaker 1: where you need to go, or you just go by
Speaker 1: not thinking much at all about what they're doing there.
Speaker 1: Anna is fine with that. She's actually got a pretty
Speaker 1: romantic view on what she does it's infectious. I kind
Speaker 1: of say a construction job is kind of like a baby.
Speaker 1: Not that I have kids, but I could. I would imagine,
Speaker 1: And it's like you just see it, and you see
Speaker 1: it from the beginning, before it's even a thing. You
Speaker 1: see it. It's just paper, and you want to grow
Speaker 1: up to be a big, beautiful job. So you know,
Speaker 1: then when it's done, you're like, you drive by it.
Speaker 1: No one else thinks about it. You know, if it
Speaker 1: saves five minutes off their trip a day, like, that's awesome,
Speaker 1: and you can look at and be like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a part of that. That's my baby, that's my baby.
Speaker 1: What we're talking. Anna is the only woman on the
Speaker 1: job site. I guess the guys there are your stereotypical
Speaker 1: construction workers men, probably between twenty and fifty years old.
Speaker 1: Everyone she talks to here clearly has a deep respect
Speaker 1: for her, but who she is is something that she
Speaker 1: has to deal with as she meets new people all
Speaker 1: the time for this job. People that don't know me
Speaker 1: often think that I'm here as an intern, or people
Speaker 1: will ask if I'm at work with my father. Um,
Speaker 1: I get that a lot, just because I guess I
Speaker 1: look young. But to me, it's just going to work
Speaker 1: like everyone else does. I go to work and I
Speaker 1: do my job. What does it matter what I look
Speaker 1: like her? If I'm a girl or a boy, you
Speaker 1: get someone um like Annon here, it kind of changes
Speaker 1: that stereotypical idea you have of an engineer. This is
Speaker 1: Anna's boss, Jim Hoy, I'm the assistant construction engineer for
Speaker 1: District two. Jim says, if people underestimate her, it really
Speaker 1: doesn't last long. She's one of the more knowledgeable people
Speaker 1: he's worked with, and she's contagiously happy in the workplace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she She definitely livens up your day. Stealing it from
Speaker 1: the old Orange Juice commercial. You know, at a day
Speaker 1: without Anna is like a day without sunshine, you know.
Speaker 1: He says he was originally worried that she would be
Speaker 1: two nice and would have trouble holding contractors to their agreements,
Speaker 1: which is a big part of the job. But he
Speaker 1: found out pretty quick and she has no problem laying
Speaker 1: down the law. Definitely, she does it in a way
Speaker 1: that you don't even know she's getting what she wants.
Speaker 1: We're walking back to the car and someone Anna knows
Speaker 1: is yelling to her from the other side of the
Speaker 1: job site. It's a local police sergeant who looks over
Speaker 1: the construction cruise around here. He and Anna worked together
Speaker 1: a lot. I asked him to tell me what he
Speaker 1: thought of Anna. Tough as a cab, smart, and she'll
Speaker 1: call you out when you're not doing your job. That's
Speaker 1: who Anna is. She ever call you out? No, because
Speaker 1: I'm always doing my job. I couldn't have enough good
Speaker 1: things to say about her. And then he said that
Speaker 1: she just made him a nice cap. Mean, she made
Speaker 1: you a nice cap. She may be a nice thin
Speaker 1: blue line of police cap like she knit it. She
Speaker 1: knit it. Yeah, she knits still, She's an engineer, she knits,
Speaker 1: she's a firefighter. She does it all. What else? What
Speaker 1: else can you ask for a woman? One day in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, Anna was parking her car for work
Speaker 1: at the fire department, which was close by to the
Speaker 1: job site she was working. The fire captain was there
Speaker 1: and they started talking and he offered her a tour
Speaker 1: of the station. He said that they were always looking
Speaker 1: for volunteers, people to train to respond to local fires
Speaker 1: whenever they could. I filled that application out broad The
Speaker 1: next day. I remember calling my sister freaking help being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Meg, and you'll never guess that just happened,
Speaker 1: like screaming, I was so excited, and she's like, that's
Speaker 1: like the least surprising thing you could have done. We'll
Speaker 1: get back to the story in a second. First, a
Speaker 1: word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic, takes
Speaker 1: pride in a job well done, sweats over the details.
Speaker 1: This is you. But to get an honest day's work,
Speaker 1: you need a response, you need a call back, you
Speaker 1: need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help because we
Speaker 1: understand what it takes to get a job. It takes
Speaker 1: more than just online searches to land a job. It
Speaker 1: takes someone who will identify your talents, a person invested
Speaker 1: in your success. At Express, we can even complete your
Speaker 1: application with you over the phone, will prepare you for interviews,
Speaker 1: and will connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll
Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express,
Speaker 1: we can put you to work with companies of all
Speaker 1: sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office.
Speaker 1: Express Nose Jobs, get to No Express. Find your location
Speaker 1: at Express pros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.
Speaker 1: And now back to our story m h two years
Speaker 1: after joining the fire department and a regularly response to
Speaker 1: calls boots, turn out pants, put on just spenders, bell girl,
Speaker 1: clip jacket, zip flap at the top, helmet, run to
Speaker 1: the truck and go oh. In case it's not clear here,
Speaker 1: that's Anna driving the fire truck. It's one of her
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the job. The people she grew up
Speaker 1: with are pretty surprised when they hear that she can
Speaker 1: drive one. Even her mom can't get used to it.
Speaker 1: When Anna's visiting back home. Yeah, I was bringing my
Speaker 1: mom to a doctor's him and I was backing into
Speaker 1: a parking spot a parking garage, and my mom is
Speaker 1: being a typical mother and she's like watch yourself, Like
Speaker 1: are you sure you have an of space? I'm like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I drive a freaking fire truck. I think I can
Speaker 1: back into a parking space with your little sedan. Yes,
Speaker 1: she's a badass. She's a badass, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Let's in his Captain Patrick Eli. He's the guy who
Speaker 1: first gave Anna the application in the parking lot and
Speaker 1: has trained and since the start, and she has been
Speaker 1: just awesome part of this fire department. She's very much
Speaker 1: involved with all aspects. She has proven herself on multiple
Speaker 1: different occasions to be dependable. You know, if somebody was down,
Speaker 1: she'd do everything she could to get you out and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't leave you. So she's very dependable, and I
Speaker 1: find her extremely tough with a with a gentle undertone.
Speaker 1: That's just the way I see her. So Pat is
Speaker 1: not the only one. Just like in her construction work,
Speaker 1: whoever knows Anna and Caesar and Action has a deep
Speaker 1: respect for her no matter who she is or what
Speaker 1: she looks like. You know, the thing is is when
Speaker 1: you put a mask on your face and you put
Speaker 1: your helmet on, you're you're just like the next guy,
Speaker 1: and no one's gonna deaf and differentiate between that. As
Speaker 1: long as you're doing the job, there is no differentiation.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't tell who's who's most of the
Speaker 1: time when you're fully geared up with your air pack
Speaker 1: on and and gloves and helmet. I mean, unless you're
Speaker 1: especially in a smoky environment and you're just hoping that
Speaker 1: person behind he knows her job. I definitely stand out
Speaker 1: because they're like, wow, that's a really little guy. Like
Speaker 1: there was one fire where they took a picture of
Speaker 1: a group of us, and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like like a child. You know, there's that, But then
Speaker 1: I could find really small spaces, so like, there's pros
Speaker 1: to it. In the last two years, Anna's responded to
Speaker 1: somewhere between a hundred fifty and two hundred calls, and
Speaker 1: when she talks about all this, she gets this really intense,
Speaker 1: slightly maniacal look in her eyes. I want to do it.
Speaker 1: I need to do it. I asked her if she
Speaker 1: remembers the first time she responded to a fire call.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I was so excited. That sounds terrible
Speaker 1: to say. I mean, I was just like, the adrenaline
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. Most of the fires, the bigger structure of fires.
Speaker 1: I've had our middle of the night, so you're passed
Speaker 1: out and you just hear the tone. You wake up
Speaker 1: and you hear structure fire. You here. You hear that,
Speaker 1: and you go from like sleepy too awake. In your
Speaker 1: heart is racing. So you're just trying to get everything together,
Speaker 1: get out the door, get there to get your engine
Speaker 1: and go. That first fire, it was a big one
Speaker 1: in a smaller town. It was a house on top
Speaker 1: of a hill. I remember looking up on the hill
Speaker 1: and you just saw the light from the fire, so
Speaker 1: you just saw it burning. You saw some of the smoke,
Speaker 1: but it was just this glow really, so it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and just kind of like almost speechless, awestruck.
Speaker 1: You watch it grow and you see it and it's
Speaker 1: almost pretty in a way, and then you're like, it's
Speaker 1: not though, because it's destroying someone's property. But you just
Speaker 1: you can see how you can lose something so quickly.
Speaker 1: You don't want those calls, but also like that's what
Speaker 1: you do. It's like an adrenaline rush to get them
Speaker 1: because you know it's gonna be chaos, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a really intense situation. But it's also heartbreaking because you
Speaker 1: see somebody that's losing everything. That house was total aws,
Speaker 1: it burned to the ground. Pretty much, when someone calls
Speaker 1: nine when one they're having the worst day of their lives.
Speaker 1: Nobody calls nine when one because they're having a good day.
Speaker 1: Fire Captain Patrick Eli again, who's in charge of training
Speaker 1: recruits like Anna for moments like that, And one thing
Speaker 1: I tell new people it's not your emergency, it's their emergency.
Speaker 1: You're the person responsible for making a difference for that
Speaker 1: person's day. That's why we do training on such a
Speaker 1: regular basis, so that we're all on the same page
Speaker 1: about things. Um. But the reason is that you're extremely
Speaker 1: proficient because you only have seconds to make a difference.
Speaker 1: A lot of work environments are collaborative, but as far
Speaker 1: as civilian jobs go, this is one where you depend
Speaker 1: on the person next to you for survival. Absolutely, you
Speaker 1: have to trust these people. It's life and death. So
Speaker 1: they are your family and you were really lucky to
Speaker 1: have each other. They welcome you in and they include
Speaker 1: you with everything. And again, I think you just see
Speaker 1: things that most people don't see, so you have that
Speaker 1: unique bond built in that you don't share with everybody.
Speaker 1: Regardless of volunteering to run into a burning building, being
Speaker 1: a firefighter has nothing to do with having a death wish.
Speaker 1: No firefighter will tell you that it does, but you're
Speaker 1: close to death. It's a job where you have to
Speaker 1: look at right in the face in order to be
Speaker 1: good at what you do. Anna knows that, and despite
Speaker 1: her job, she says she really doesn't think about it
Speaker 1: that much. The thing is, you have a choice. You're
Speaker 1: gonna go. When you go I think there's some sort
Speaker 1: of plan or whatever. So I mean, if I have
Speaker 1: to go and it's doing what I love, like, what
Speaker 1: more can I ask for? Do you think you'll ever
Speaker 1: stop fighting fires? God? I hope not. I imagine you
Speaker 1: as a like a little old granny in in full
Speaker 1: gear running into a fire. That would be so awesome.
Speaker 1: I think as far as jobs go, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stereotypes about who works different jobs or who's allowed to.
Speaker 1: We have sub conscious images in our heads of what
Speaker 1: a plumber looks like, what a secretary looks like, what
Speaker 1: a politician looks like. Anna Adler is just one of
Speaker 1: the many people who can remind us that those stereotypes
Speaker 1: are nonsense. The only thing they do is prevent people
Speaker 1: from picturing themselves in the jobs that they truly want
Speaker 1: to do and should be doing. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people along the way that tell you can't do
Speaker 1: things just go right through. You gotta you gotta keep going.
Speaker 1: Whether she's wearing a hard hat at a bridge demolition
Speaker 1: or behind the wheel of a fire truck, Anna Nadler
Speaker 1: might not be who you expect to see doing that job,
Speaker 1: but she is exactly the person that you want doing them.
Speaker 1: Not everybody wants to run into a burning building. So
Speaker 1: if I have that desire to do that and help
Speaker 1: out people, if I can, how could I not act
Speaker 1: upon that? You know, not many people want to because
Speaker 1: you sound like your nuts if you do. So, If
Speaker 1: I have that urge and that drive to do that,
Speaker 1: how could I not do that? Do you see? It's
Speaker 1: kind of a responsibility. Yeah, I feel obligated to. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to do it, So how could I not?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you want to run into a burning building?
Speaker 1: I'm curious? But if I was in front of it,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Only one way to find out. For
Speaker 1: On the Job from a comfy chair in a room
Speaker 1: that's not on fire. I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Speaker 1: Find out more at Express pros dot com. This season
Speaker 1: of On the Job is produced by Audiation and dread
Speaker 1: Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt Noble
Speaker 1: at The Loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what
Speaker 1: you're heard. Please consider rating or reviewing the show on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: For more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Audiation
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