Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Turning ADHD Into a Strength in the Elevator Industry | Paula Neal

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Turning ADHD Into a Strength in the Elevator Industry | Paula Neal · The Elevator Careers Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I honestly I didn't even know that I had ADHD.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, is this what normal thinking feels like?
0:07
SPEAKER_01: That was when it and it still didn't hit me that my chaos wasn't normal.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: It took me years of studying.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I love to learn.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: My brain goes a thousand directions.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like all of us women maybe have ADHD a lot of times.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: But we go in a thousand directions and I love to learn.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: In this trade, there's never a day that you're gonna be bored.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: There's never a day that you shouldn't be learning something.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: There's never a day that you wonder what's next.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Matt Allred.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we talked with Paula Neal about how she found her path in the elevator industry, the challenges she faced early on, and how ADHD became her superpower.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: What may have seemed like a weakness became a real strength in helping customers solve problems, building relationships, and thriving in a complex environment.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: When talent is mission critical, call the All Red Group.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: With industry expertise, top talent, and exceptional customer service, you need the All-Red Group on your side.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Your priority is our priority.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Call now.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: 404-890-0445.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Matt.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to have you on the show.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy all of our conversations, but I'm excited to dig deeper into your career, to the things that have helped you be successful.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And first question I want to ask is tell me how you got to the elevator industry.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: What led you to go that direction?
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Actually, it was an accident.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: I had a lady that babysat for me when I was in the medical field, and her daughter came home and she was so excited.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh, I love my boss and I love this job and I love everything about it.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, man, I just want to be excited about that.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: So I was joking and not when I asked her, Hey, are you guys hiring?
2:04
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh my gosh, no, we're not.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually, we might be.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and come in, get your resume together and come in with me and we'll find out.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: So I went in with her a couple days later and they hired me on the spot at TK Parts Department back when they were in Memphis to pull pack process orders and do all of the good stuff.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: So that was the beginning.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Did it flow smoothly and you immediately loved it?
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Or what was that journey like for you?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: I think every journey that I've ever started, I'm always really nervous that I want to be perfect.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: Everything's gotta be perfect right now.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: I have to know everything right now.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: So I was always really nervous that I was gonna make mistakes.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: I was 1920s, so I didn't realize that you're a human and it's okay to make mistakes.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: I was always scared to tell my boss if I made a mistake or I never stepped up.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: For me, I feel when you're pulling parts, they're in shelves and bins and they're labeled and they have names on them, but it might be like a 5S packing silk kit and a 6S packing silk kit.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: So when you're pulling it and you just do it out of habit, either somebody put the wrong package in there, so it would happen.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: So there were mistakes.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of learning for me.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I am very grateful that I got to pull and pack parts before I jumped into the rest of it, though.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: So you told me in a different conversation that you have ADHD and that it's really helps you.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think I said that sounds like your superpower.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your superpower and maybe how this has helped you in the elevator industry.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh with ADHD, I really didn't understand it or know much about it until I got older and saw it in my own child.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: My brain goes a thousand directions.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like all of us women maybe have ADHD a lot of times, but we go in a thousand directions and I love to learn.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: So even now, even where I am today, I love new things.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: I love learning things.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I love it when my boss is like, hey, I need you to figure this out or do this, or just leaves it up to me and lets me run with stuff.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: In this trade, there's never a day that you're gonna be bored, there's never a day that you shouldn't be learning something, there's never a day that you wonder what's next.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: They're always changing codes, they're always changing what needs to be done to an elevator, different states, different countries, even different cities.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: In Washington State, which is where I'm at, Seattle, their code is actually different than Spokane's, like for the DLM Dorlof monitoring.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: They don't follow the same rules.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: California's is different than Louisiana's.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: They're in 2016 and the other ones in 2024.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: So the codes are everywhere, and you just have to figure things out and talk to people.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And if you like to learn and you that was where my ADHD takes me, is that I can follow different paths.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll start on this one and veer to this one and go here, and eventually they all get done somehow.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: How did that play out at the beginning?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Was that part of your fear of oh I'm gonna get fired because maybe I'm not thinking the way everyone else is, and I feel like I have a weakness or a deficiency, even though it really turned out to be a strength?
5:24
SPEAKER_01: I honestly didn't even know that I had ADHD.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: The only time that it ever caught me is I was a server as well.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: I've done serving.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: And a friend of mine had medicine that she had taken, and she's hey, just try this.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: And that the when I took that, I talked to my doctor about it and he was okay with it.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And when I tried that, it was the oddest thing that night, I thought the most clear that I've ever thought in my life.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: I could follow one line and finish it on every single thing I did.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, is this what a normal thinking feels like?
5:57
SPEAKER_01: That was when it and it still didn't hit me that my chaos wasn't normal.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: It took me years of studying.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I love to learn.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: So I go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: I started going into rabbit holes.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: I started talking to a therapist and a psychiatrist about different things.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: They were like, I had been diagnosed, and then I wasn't going to her anymore.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: So instead of taking medicine, I hate medicine.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: So instead of taking medicine, I started reading about ways to help myself regulate my thinking patterns.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: And I don't have them perfected by any means, but I definitely go down rabbit holes and try different things all the time.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: You were able to find ways to adapt and use different skills to harness the energy to bridle it so that you don't feel like you're scattered, your thoughts are scattered as much as you're able to apply it to what you're doing.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound fair?
6:54
SPEAKER_01: The energy part, I still have issues on keeping that reeled in.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I help with the cheerleading at 6 a.m.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: before I come and do this.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: And then I help do home health care with like my grandma, for instance, who needs it right now.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: And so I go on that path.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: But even when I was in an office setting, I think an office setting was really hard for me because I would come in the morning, I would sit down and turn on my stuff.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: I have to have a structure, like a list basically.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: I would come in, I would turn on my computer, I would go through my emails, I would get up, I would go get my coffee, go to the restroom or whatever.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: I like to talk.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: So I would find people and I would always talk.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: And I would go talk to engineers, or I would go have questions.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: So I'd go talk to the engineers and figure out how to make something work because I don't think I should have to sell this when it's this piece that needed fixed.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I would wander and then I'd come back, I'd be back.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Music helps me.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: I had a boss at one point that refused to let us have any type of head headsets.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if it's below the ears, on the ears, it doesn't matter.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: We couldn't even have a speaker at our desk.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: We weren't allowed.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: That was a really hard focus point because noise helps me stop what I'm doing.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Like even now, I put my music, I have a TV on, and it plays YouTube music for me all day while I'm just sitting at my desk.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: But I'm able to get up, use the restroom.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't have somebody monitoring my every movement.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: You were off the phone for seven minutes and 32 seconds.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: Those kind of things are really difficult because those are the times that make me feel like I'm constantly doing something wrong.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get fired.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm the next one on the chopping block.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely hate when somebody's standing over my shoulder.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: I love the way that I'm managed at this time.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Rick's really great with, hey, we need to work on this, and he'll give me what we're gonna talk about.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So then when we talk about whatever situation it is, I'm prepared for it.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I know he's not gonna just say, hey, you're fired.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're letting you go.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: He actually is a great leader when it comes to that kind of stuff.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: And that's the kind of management that I need.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: So it works really well with me.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I make my list out almost every night.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: My husband probably gets really tired of me in the middle of the night when I'm going, oh, I gotta do this and this when I wake up.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: And I repeat it to myself over and over.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: And when I wake up, those are the first things that I do.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: I make sure they are the first things because that helps control it.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: But my energy, I still have yet to figure out how to control that.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: You've definitely learned some skills, some discipline around, okay, this is gonna work well for me.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure to corral myself, create a list, create a starting point so that each day I'm heading in the right direction.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And so, how long were you in the industry before you felt like, hey, this is really working for me?
9:49
SPEAKER_00: How long did that take?
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Ironically enough, the first two years that I was in the industry, I fell in love with it because I had so much to do.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: I could go out in the warehouse and help them pulling stuff and packing it.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: I could process the orders as they came in.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: I could help set up parts.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: I learned escalator side of it.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I jumped into a thousand roles and was learning them all.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: So from the beginning, it really clicked with me.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So that was the first two years.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Did you take any breaks?
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Did you stay in and just go nonstop, or what did that look like?
10:26
SPEAKER_01: The first two years were straight at the warehouse, which is now an all a branch.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: I just pulled, packed, and helped process, but there was a layoff of three to four hundred people, and I happened to be into that layoff.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: So my heart was crushed because I was like, wow, I found something that I absolutely love doing.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: And I never thought it would be the end.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Like I just I was happy with everything in it.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: I actually, at that point, I went and worked as a cage cashier at the casino.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: I moved back up to Washington because I was in Memphis at the point.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: I moved up to Washington for six months with my two small children.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And one of my best friends, who's still with Tyson Krup today, me and her would email the bosses, talk to the bosses, were like, hey, I know how to enter parts orders.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: If you guys need somebody, I'm still here.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: I would love to get back into it.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: Sarah would go up there daily and she was letting them know, hey, she knows what she's doing.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: She can figure this out.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: She can at least help you guys catch up on orders.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: They weren't ready to hire anybody finally after about a year and a half of us pestering because I moved it, I was in Washington for six months before I moved back down south.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: And when I got back, I was in the office weekly going, Hey, David Painter, don't you need somebody?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm ready to work for you guys again.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: So I came in for an interview.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Me and Charles Hill, we started on the same day.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: They gave me a huge role, Tanya Gradick, who I still think is an amazing person over there.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: She let our GM know that I already had learned how to do setting up parts, working on escalators, and she was about to go on maternity leave.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: So she said, I don't think that it would take much to have her do that while I was out.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: So they kind of let me jump into that role as well.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: On top of researching parts now, I wasn't pulling them anymore.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't at the warehouse.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: I was now researching on little microfilm, which gives you headaches.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: If you've never used the microfilm, they definitely give you headaches and make you dizzy.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So that was fun for I've only touched that a couple of times, and it was like looking at genealogy records or something.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my gosh, if I move it this way, it goes that way.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Try doing that when you have a machine and then you have to break down each piece of that.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: So I was grateful actually that that point they were starting to scan all of our film into our systems.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: But after I would probably say six months, maybe I was there because of being laid off before.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: I had to go into my boss's office and I asked him, I said, listen, I just need to know, am I doing okay?
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Am I do I need to step it up?
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Is something going wrong?
13:25
SPEAKER_01: I need to know where I'm at with you guys.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: And he just paused and he had a frozen look on his face.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, actually, you're doing better than I ever thought you would do.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, that was like a huge really, but that drove me.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: If you tell me, hey, you're doing a great job, that drives me for whatever reason.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: The attaboys drive me.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, I want to keep doing it.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great for you.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Let me keep working on that.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: So he told me that.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: So I pushed harder.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: I learned more.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: I figured out what I could.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: I helped everybody.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: And I love to solve things.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: This kind of goes with the ADHD.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: You tell me I need a bracket.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: There's 7,000 brackets on an elevator.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Send me a picture of where it's at and tell me.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: So they would send me a cab and they would say it's on the handrail and it's this bracket.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: I knew my designers at this point.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: So I would talk to my designer.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I would break it down and I would send this all to my designer and I'd say, Listen, this is what I broke down, but I can't figure out where this bracket is.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: My designer would say, Oh, he would tell show me.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: So I was on the right track.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: So I was able to backwards compatible stuff.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: David Painter was an engineer.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: So he goes, Hey, you guys are in the parts.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I really, and he was over us.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: So he goes, I really feel like you guys should have access to our engineering part because I think it would really help you.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: I took and ran with that.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I could take a board, somebody would say, Paul, I have a 630 CF9.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else would go, that's not a 6300 number.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Say, hey, we have engineering site.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: So I could put that into the engineering and it would show me all of our, it populate all of the boards that used that board.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: So I'd say, okay, these are the numbers I need you to look for.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And then, oh, that's I saw that number.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: It's whatever.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: 6300 BP4.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: So I'd be like, all right, I can help the customer and they'd help me.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: I loved my boss told me, I need you to learn your fixtures inside and out.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Amanda knows them.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my God, there's a bajillion of them.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm never gonna know them.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: I had a book this thick, a three-inch binder full of notes, but I still to this day could close my eyes and fill their buttons, tell you any of the TK Dover or Tisson buttons that they did.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: I know where they get them from.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: I just I knew all of it.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: I fell in love with all of it.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: It was learning.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Then I had machines to learn.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Then I hydros and tractions, jacks and machine parts, you name it, learning it and the pieces and the parts to it were it was so much fun.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Crazy part was when I was ready to step away.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: I before I got picked up, when I got picked up with C's, what I had to learn now and what I'm still learning today is I knew Tiss and Dover stuff.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Now I get to sell the whole picture.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: Now I have to figure out what works with what, what goes with what controllers.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: There's so much.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you got 7,000 boards, then just multiply that by all the majors, anybody else that's manufacturing boards, and the complexity goes through the roof.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Roll electronics and access, and they all have these and they're all compatible, and then you can change this.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Look, oh my gosh.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: It's truly amazing.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: What's amazing to me is how what the world would call a disability for you, again, is I think a superpower, right?
16:43
SPEAKER_00: You're able to pull this all in and love it.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Whereas somebody somebody might just shake their head and go, oh my gosh, that's so overwhelming.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't even I don't want to try.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: You do.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: You have that a lot.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: When I was in the parts department, which is a lower platform to start in, no college, anybody can have this job.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: I would tell people, give it three years.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: After four or five months, they would never come back.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: They would walk away.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: It was too much work.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: They three years is a while to be able to get your confidence level and your competence level and feel like, oh yeah, I know what I'm doing and I feel good about it.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's a dang long time to so long.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: It clicks though.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: I had actually talked to quite a few people about this and they laugh, but they think about it and they're like, You're right.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: I had somebody else that said they tell their guys three to five years.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: One of the girls that she's still in the parts department, I love her to death, and most of the customers talk about her still.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: When I was training her, the biggest problem with the three-year part is you have to rely on other people to help you.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: So you're constantly, what's this?
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's that?
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Where's this at?
17:45
SPEAKER_01: How do I find that?
17:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's so hard to do when you have five people to go to for three years.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: It's like they're getting tired of me.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I would be feeling stupid.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Why can't I learn this?
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Why is this?
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Why what is it?
17:57
SPEAKER_01: How long it took me to find a jackpack?
17:58
SPEAKER_01: I jackpacking, I for the longest time I'm like, what is it?
18:02
SPEAKER_01: What is the jackpacking?
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Why don't they just call it a seal?
18:06
SPEAKER_01: And I never realized that the packing was all of it, not just a seal.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: It took me forever to figure that out.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: And it was funny because it was about three years that this lady, she came to me one day and she goes, Ha, I haven't had to ask you for a while for help.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, What do you think about that?
18:23
SPEAKER_01: I said, That's awesome.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: How long have you been here?
18:25
SPEAKER_01: She stops and thinks about it for a minute.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Oh, it'll be about three years and two months or something.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And I went, Three years.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, You're right, it just clicks.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Something just clicks.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know, it just makes sense.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: So now I'm at four years with everybody's stuff and only part of it's clicking.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: So tell me about that.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like the TK time was three years, and then once you were dealing with everything, even four wasn't enough to wrap your brain around all of it.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
18:52
SPEAKER_01: It's harder because I don't have engineers to ask.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't have systems that backwards compatible stuff.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: But when you have a we have a great team behind us at AES.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: So when I have a CEO who's highly involved in everything that we do, he knows the business from top to bottom.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: And then you have a purchasing department and you have people that help you with POs, and then you have me who's doing the outside part of everything, and then you have the in the office people, you rely on your team.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I've always been a do-it-myself, figure it out myself, go here myself.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: And to rely on a team, but takes a little bit longer.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: It's not, you're not doing it right now, and they're not always on your times.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes that's hard for me to navigate because that goes with that ADHD.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Now I have to put it on a list or mark it in my email with a red flag or a green flag saying, hey, I'm still working on this.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: So don't forget that you're doing it because that I will.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: If I don't do it right now and I don't get an answer right now, and then I forget that I'm working on it.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: See, you spoke to a couple of questions that had one was, yeah, once you left there, how did you find out if something is compatible or not compatible?
19:59
SPEAKER_01: So I was at TK probably a total of 18-ish years, give or take.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: I made a lot of friends.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: I did things backwards compatible.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: My brain's not normal.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: So I helped people without needing a job number and their blood type and their firstborn child.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: So I had a lot of phone numbers.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of friends in the field.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I used my cards.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: I was nervous a little bit, but a lot of times if somebody would call GAL door operators are a prime example.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: They are compatible with almost everything out there, right?
20:33
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know this, but I knew GAL was huge.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: So for instance, the first time I had that question at C's, I could ask my guys, but they're again relying on them.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: So the two things that I would do is go back to the office and say, this is what I have.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm learning.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: So I need you to find out from your mechanic if this is what he's talking.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Will this work with what you guys have?
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Your equipment, your mechanics should know that.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: Number two, I have a couple of cards in my hat.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: So I could call my friends and say, Hey, will this work?
21:09
SPEAKER_01: And they'd be like, Paula, yes, that goes with everything.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: But the only thing it doesn't work with, and they give me like the three names.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: So I'd write it down.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: So I still have notebooks on that or emails.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: And I kept up with that.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: And without an engineer, those cards in the hat, they're huge.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: And Ryan Coley, he's another huge person for myself.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: I know he's out in the field, but the funny, my funny story with him is he's one of those marine guys, right?
21:41
SPEAKER_01: So he likes to get his stuff done.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: He wants it done.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: He wants taken care of.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Don't ask him 500 questions.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: If you need something, he'll help you, but just figure it out.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: So, way back in my early days, he hooked up with me to where I was helping him and I would always help him.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: I would be on vacation and that guy would go, Paula, why do I call the parts department?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: They need a job number for this push button.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Ryan, give me the front and back of it.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm laying on the dock right now, right?
22:05
SPEAKER_01: It's sunny.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm taking a vacation.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: I ain't trying to think about elevators.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: He goes, I don't care.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I they need a million things.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for that.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: So I give him his parts.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I helped him through his years.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: So when it flipped around and I was looking for a job on the outside, I really wanted to get into sales.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: I love people.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to meet people that I talked to.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So when it flipped around, little did I know that having his name as a reference, they would call him.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Hey, call me up.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: He'd say, Yeah, I just talked to someone.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: You've already got the job.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: It was great.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: It's nice having the friends that I had or are wonderful.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: I love our industry.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: We're a huge family.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: I went international for seven years.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: I had a friend in Saudi Arabia.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: I loved he would call me, it'd be eight o'clock.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: I'd literally, we would just turn on our systems and I'd get the phone call and you knew it was Saudi Arabia.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'd go, Muhammad, me go make queen.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: He I was like, Aren't you supposed to be in bed?
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Because it'd be like 10 o'clock there.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: And he goes my queen, I'm in bed.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm smoking a joint.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: Just smoke a joint with me.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, calm down.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Muhammad, I just sat down.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Like we'd have those, but it was always bannering.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: It was things like that.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: I have friends in Mexico that I still talk to.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: My Canadian friends that I still talk to.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: I went worldwide to international.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: I did escalators throughout the whole thing.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: So it's fun because right after I left TK, I got married.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: So my last name changed from stakely to Neil.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: So there's so many times that I'll go into an office and they're like, oh my God, another sales thing.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for this.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Or oh wait, you're stakely.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: You're steak sandwich.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, wait, you're earth cleaner, Paula.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: You're taking, you know, your name's still in my book.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, cool, thanks.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And like the reactions that I get when people realize who I am and then they welcome me in.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: It's heartwarming.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: It's really heartwarming to know how hard I worked and what I did and the things that I learned never actually did go unnoticed.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like all the hard work and even maybe the nervousness of, oh hey, am I gonna get fired?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Is my ADHD gonna be a problem?
24:18
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like it really has paid off as you leaned into it, as you pushed into it, as you got to know the parts and the people and really tried to serve them.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, now it comes back in ways that you've helped me, let me help you.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: It's fantastic.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Our whole elevator industry is that way.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: My husband's, oh my gosh, you always talk to these people.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I've known her for 18 years.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I've known her for I've been in the industry now for 24 plus years.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: I've talked to these people forever.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: There was a I went through a really dark time, probably two years into my second term at take was a really dark time for me, a divorce and like my kids, and that went on for two years.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: If I hadn't built the relationships I built, I can't tell you where I would be today because there would be days somebody called me up and be like, Hey Paula, I need to get a push button for whatever.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'd say, Okay, please hold.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'd put the phone on the hold.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: I would literally start crying.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I was just that, it was that hard for me.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'd pick up my phone, I would mess up things, I would call customers and I'd say, Hey, I messed this order up.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: It was tremendous the support that I had through those two years.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a constant thing.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: I didn't do constantly screw everything up, but there were definitely more mistakes than there would have been before.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: And I am very open with my management, whether it was just a manager or Rick, who's the C CEO for us now.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm very open.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I screwed this up.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Can we pay for shipping?
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Can we take care of this?
25:45
SPEAKER_01: And then I go to my customer.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: Hey, this is on me.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: I messed this up for whatever reason.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: We're taking care of the shipping.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh, my apologies.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Here you go.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I I own my mistakes.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: That's one thing I can say that Rick has done a fabulous job.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: When I first started with Access, he said, the first thing I want you to do, it's in six months.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: You're going to Extreme Ownership by Jocko Wilnick and Leech Babin.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what is this?
26:13
SPEAKER_01: Here's the book, read it.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: That's your first step.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: So I did, and I fell in love with that.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: His leadership follows that.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: Not all the time.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: I think he veers off sometimes too with the thousand hats that guy wears.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: But his leadership definitely shows that's how he wants to run things.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: So he wants you to own it.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to take charge and lead.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to be responsible.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: He wants to make it to where if something happens in his life and he's got to be out for three months, he knows things are taken care of.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have to worry.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: And he wants his team to be that way too.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: So I work really hard at that.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of times I want to like when I ask him questions, I stop and think and reword my emails into hey, I don't mind doing this.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: This is the route I would take.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: Do you care?
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Do you have recommendations?
27:01
SPEAKER_01: I just input for the first time of ever touching that.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I'll just do it and say, This is what I did.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And it there again, it's the feedback.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: I only learn by doing it or making that mistake, or if he doesn't like it, well, he lets me know.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Hey, let's take a step back and think.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: I love the emphasis on extreme ownership.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, Rick told me about that as well, that it's a big part of your company and what you believe in.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it also goes a long way in with customers, right?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Because they recognize that, hey, they're not only willing to own their mistake, they're willing to take care of it.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And so it becomes infectious, right?
27:35
SPEAKER_00: They have to think about that next time they make a mistake, or maybe they call you with a wrong part number, or it's oh, okay, I can own my stuff too, because they've shown me how they own their stuff, and it builds enormous trust.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: It does.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: It really does.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: It helps a lot and it helps them know that if we make a mistake, we're gonna take care of what we say we're gonna take care of.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: You've obviously had a remarkable career.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: You've done a lot, you've met a lot of people.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: You're obviously you're still going strong, and you introduced me to a bunch of people last week.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's quite amazing.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: As we kind of wrap this up, I'd like to just dig into what advice would you give to someone just starting out, or maybe they're trying to decide if they should even get into the industry.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: How would you approach that?
28:17
SPEAKER_01: You can get into this industry no matter what career path you want to do.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be a mechanic, if you want to be an engineer, if you want to be a lawyer, if you want to work on a podcast, there is ways to get into this industry in any type of form, fashion that you want to.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: You can work union, you can work non-union, you can learn how to be a mechanic with the union, you can go through school for it.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: The starting point is difficult.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: I have actually talked to a few younger people seeming to get into it.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: And when we talked about it, I realized it is a little harder if you don't know somebody than family.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: This is tends to be a family-driven business.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, the shin is strong there.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Very much.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Hey, my uncle was a mechanic, so that's why I am.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, what I'm seeing sometimes now with the OEMs through colleges, they're doing different like step programs for sales, but that's just the sales side of life.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: It depends on what you're looking into.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: If you want to do engineering, if you do your two years or seven years, depending on what it is, you can always look at Google elevator industry jobs.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: That's where I would say to start.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Look for what's open.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: It never hurts to apply.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: People will tell you all the time apply for things, even if you don't think you're qualified enough for them.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: You never know.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And as far as I know, my brother did it with the electrical trade.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing it with this trade, my son did it with installing fire alarms.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: A lot of places want to train you the way they want things done.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: So coming in with no knowledge, as long as you're open about it, but willing to learn and a hard worker, most of the time, these people are going to look at you, they're going to interview, and they're going to be able to realize, hey, this is what we want.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: So they'll start you probably a little bit lower, and then they'll start you in through a training program or start you on the job training is the best to me.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: You jump in and you dig into the different things that they have, and you just start learning.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: But that goes for any trade.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: I think trades are a dying breed right now.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: I think that every job that we have makes our world turn.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: And I wish that we had a little more focus on trades.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I think to your point, that dying and the attention isn't there, but the need is, in my opinion, hasn't been greater.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: There's a huge demand, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_00: There's a demand for elevator talent.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a demand for the residential side is just growing out, growing like crazy.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: And I hear from people all the time we struggle to find people that know how to work or that are that willing or want or are good with their hands, or you can sell them all day long.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: But if you can't install them, that's a bit of a problem.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: It's not an easy thing to do.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for easy, it's definitely not the way that I would go.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: But if you want to learn and you have a drive, you love working with your hands, like you said, you don't mind getting dirty, you don't mind taking advice from other people, talk to a lot of the independents.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: The independents, a lot of those are non-union.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the union can have mechanic helpers.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: You can have one mechanic helper to one mechanic, and they do training programs throughout that help get you into the trade of becoming a mechanic.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's really dying.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: People don't know about it as much.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Sure, our kids do.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to my daughter about trying to get her into it in my son as well.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: But it's so dying because you go to a college and they're like, oh, I got to go to college.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: I have to do seven to 10 years.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: I got to be a doctor or a lawyer.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna make money.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's what all of our minds tend to be geared to.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And even schools gear us to that.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: This little baby town that I'm in right now, it's Chewila, Washington.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to them and he said, actually, I think our principal focuses too much on trades.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: And they still, they still have auto mechanics there.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: They still have instead of science, you can do horticulture, learning how to do crops and whatnot for farming.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: So some baby schools still have it, and a lot of bigger schools are getting rid of it.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: You talked about people worrying about the not making good money, but I think what they'll find as they get into the trades is there is really good pay.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: It's really rewarding from everyone that I talk to that's in it.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: They kind of like you, they love what they do, they're passionate about it.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one thing that is really hard for an outsider to comprehend.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's one reason I like talking about it on the podcast is hey, these are real people doing real jobs, and they absolutely love what they do.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: And there's so many unhappy people out there.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Here's an option.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: I actually, after my TK days, I walked away.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: I was getting my BSN.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: I was going to become a traveling pediatric nurse.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: But I really wanted to get into sales.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: PK would not hire me for sales because I didn't have a college degree.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: That was their biggest complaint, the five times that I applied.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: So C's turned around and was like, I have two college degrees.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Come work with us.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: And they gave me the opportunity that I needed.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely loved working for them as well.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: They were great to me.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: And I will forever be grateful for my TK days and for my C's days.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: And now for what Rick's offered me at AES.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: I almost thought I was gonna have to get out of it for good, but I didn't.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: And after 24 plus years, I absolutely still love what I do.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: I love the people, I love the faces, I love figuring things out and helping people.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And I I just enjoy everything about it.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Paula, for being with me today.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed the conversation.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: It's always a pleasure to talk with you.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: You also, Matt, I really appreciate it.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Please like and subscribe.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay safe.