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Why the Best Civil Engineering Is the Stuff You Never Notice · Built by People

• speaker-0: Hello and welcome to Built by People, a DFL podcast that delivers some topical industry insight with a hint of fun, chatting about all things highway infrastructure and the built environment. I'm your host, Ryan Carroll, and today we're joined by Rebecca Fletcher from Abley Letchford Partnership Consulting Engineers. Rebecca is a chartered civil engineer and leads the civil engineering team at the Abley Lechford Partnership Consulting Engineers Readin office. Our experience comes from a wide range of projects, both in the UK and overseas. So we're delighted to have her with us. Let's get straight into it. I'm delighted to have you with us today. Thank you for joining me and being my first guest on the Built by People podcast. No, that's that's fine. That's lovely. Lovely to have you here. So I think let's let's get straight into it really. in terms of your role in in the industry and as a as a chartered civil engineer. How did you how did you get there? How does it all start? speaker-1: Yeah, so it starts a while ago. This is where I end up omitting my age. So I graduated. actually, before that, whilst I was doing sixth form, I was like, what do I do next? And my physics teacher said, Bath Uni are doing this girls into engineering course over the summer. I think you might like it. And I went, yeah, why not? So I went there. So I had a week in the summer holiday at Bath Uni surrounded by other other girls of the same kind of, you know, academic background, whatever, and just an opportunity to go and see different things. We went to Rolls Royce one day, we had people come in and give us talks and we did activities. I was like, right, engineering is the right thing for me. And then I was like, well, I don't like mechanical. dad's an electrical engineer, so I'm not going to do electrical. Quite like architecture, so let's go for civil. So I civil engineering. So I did a four year degree in civil engineering at University of Nottingham and As part of that, I did my third year over in France. And so I did a, it was like kind of part of the Erasmus scheme, go over to France for a year, which was brilliant. I kind of learned to talk about concrete in French, which is interesting, not vocab I use very often anymore, but you know, speaker-0: Impressive. speaker-1: it was good fun. bit of an eye opener is to, there was a huge number of international students from all over meeting nationalities that you don't even kind of, you you know they exist, but you're like, why would I ever meet a Colombian or a Swede in the same room? It was brilliant. So did that, graduated and landed a job at Arup as a graduate engineer. So I joined there in 2002 and yeah, joined in the infrastructure team in London, but in the bridges team specifically, which I know as a civil engineer, you're supposed to want to be a bridge engineer. it fairly quickly dawned on me that I wasn't a bridge engineer. There were some phenomenal bridge engineers there doing amazing stuff. But after you've worked on long span pre-stressed concrete bridges in Hong Kong for a few years, just crunching, well few months, just crunching numbers, not really having a visualization of what you're working on. was like, no, this isn't for me. So an opportunity came up to go on site with Carillion. on what then was called Channel Tunnel Rail Link, which is the piece of rail track between St Pancras Station and the English end of the Channel Tunnel, specifically doing the tunnel bits outside of St Pancras and outside of Dagenham. It was based down in Dagenham for a year, on site, and that was brilliant. Some hands-on, I was in the commercial office, so not like really technical hands-on building stuff, but getting to see it. and the other partners were French. So there was Carillion and two French kind of joint ventures. So that was quite good. I was hearing some French in the office, which was also quite good. And yeah, that was just a brilliant experience to get some commercial experience, which you don't get normally that early in your career and just seeing things happening. It was an eye-opener from the point of view of obviously there were very, very few women on site. In the site office, There was me and a couple of girls on the procurement team and a couple of the admin team. Everyone else were men, but that didn't really make a difference until I went out on site one day with a foreman who was like, yeah, you know that I don't think women should be on site. I think they should keep their nails clean. I was like, right, you've told me great. I know where you stand. We don't need to mention it. We don't need to have this conversation again. And I was like, right, okay, fine. But that's the kind of only time that's ever really happened to me. And it was quite, quite an eye opener, I think. But yeah, so did my year there and then went back to the office and negotiated my way back into what was then known as site development. Much, much more suited to what I wanted to do than bridge engineering. So that was good. And worked there for a while. I can't remember how long, but did some great projects. So we were involved in Stratford city in the Olympic village, which was pretty cool. They did a great project in Croydon of all places. And then had the opportunity to do quite a lot of mass planning work overseas in the UAE and in Oman. So did a fair bit of travel out to the Middle East, was tiring but good, that great opportunities. And so then, where were we up to? So yeah, progressed through the kind of career ranks as it were at that point and got to sort of, what in Arab terms was an associate. sort of early management. And then my husband is with the military and he was posted up to Northumberland. I was like, well, it's an opportunity. So luckily, Arup had a Newcastle office. So I transferred up to Newcastle for a couple of years. We lived in Northumberland, that was great. And then when his post was over and we came back South, I was like, I can't go back to working in London. So looked around for other Arup offices and there's one in Winchester. It's like, brilliant. And the guy who was running the civils team in Winchester was someone I knew really well from London. And he was like, yeah, come and join us. So we then boosted the civils team in Winchester. a great time there for kind of six or so years. So I got to the point and I was like, right, I think I've done Arab now. 20 odd years later, it's time to move on and go and do something different, go and see what it's like in a smaller place. So yeah, 2024, I moved over to Abbey Letchford and that's where I am now. So yeah, that's my career in a nutshell. speaker-0: Well tour. That's incredible. It's I I there's loads of things there that you said that has sent my mind racing. And there's a couple of things that you said about the kind of the bridge structural engineering that kind of really resonates in terms of like what you don't necessarily see behind the scenes because somebody who's designing the aesthetics of the bridge is probably not really having that opportunity to crunch those numbers. speaker-1: Definitely. speaker-0: Or really understand what they look like or or how it all works and then I I guess there's elements of the aesthetic design that are an absolute headache and nightmare for the number crunching side of the engineering. speaker-1: Yeah. And it always makes me laugh that when new bridges are unveiled and there aren't so many of them these days, but it tends to be the architect's name who comes up front. And you're like, actually, no, the architects had the vision, fair enough. But it's those engineers behind it who have really put it into practice. Without them working the magic behind the scenes and trying to make elegant solutions, you just have a really clunky off the shelf bridge. So yeah, it's interesting that architects tend to get their names up front. speaker-0: Yeah. I I i i I guess it's similar to to like flip it into the theatre world where the the director of the show gets a lot of the credit, but actually it's the the technicians and the engineering behind it that kind of makes it all work and it's kind of similar overlaps. I always find that that quite interesting. So you mentioned working in in the UAE. Was that significantly different to the way that we work in the UK. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a strange old place, UAE, and this was, when was that? It'd been sort of 15 years ago. And I'm sure things have changed out, but it was like Dubai was just really on the up. Like Dubai was the place that you wanted to go to work and loads of people were moving out there and buildings were going up at a phenomenal rate. So I tended to do stuff actually in Abu Dhabi, not Dubai, and Abu Dhabi was always felt a bit more relaxed. slightly off the power, off the kind of back off, but their, their attitude to work was quite, quite, it was very high pressured. And a lot of it was because we tended to be working with kind of Western external people rather than directly with the Emiratis themselves, but there was always Emiratis overseeing work and it really felt like you had to do the right things to please them and not rock the boat in a lot of situations, which meant there was the stress that people piled on because if they didn't get the right answer from Big Boss Man, the whole project was going to go. So it was a similar working environment, but a lot more pressure generally. And it was just a given that you would work the hours that you needed to work to get it done. There's no like I'm going home at five o'clock. was like, speaker-0: No. speaker-1: yeah. And so working, so I didn't actually I was sort of not moved, I was based, always based in the UK, but flying out quite a bit. So we went, there was a stage when we were doing big master planning project. And at that time, the Emirati working week was Sunday to Thursday. So Friday and Saturday was their weekend. So we'd work all week in the UK. We do a Monday to Friday week in the UK. You'd travel on Saturday, because all the flights were on Saturday. And then you'd work again on Sunday and you'd do your Emirati week, Sunday to Thursday. get the red eye back on Friday morning, try to not have to go into the office on Friday and start all over again. It was quite an experience going back and forth. speaker-0: It sounds like something you do it to experience it but wouldn't want to do it for a a long time. speaker-1: And you can do it like before you have children, you can do all these kinds of things and then you realise it's just not tenable after that. So yeah, it was an experience and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do it because those sorts of things don't happen all the time. speaker-0: What would you say the the sort of favourite part of your your role is? Have you got a favourite part of your role? speaker-1: really difficult one because it probably changes day to day depending on what I'm doing. Delivering projects and seeing things being built is always great. when little solutions that you've come up with, actually you see them on the ground, that's always really satisfying. And being able to take people back and go, yeah, so I did bore people as I went to something at the Olympic park and I went underneath where we're walking right now, there's something. massive cooling pipes. It's amazing, but you wouldn't know would you? No, because we designed it really well. So yeah, being able to sort of showcase what you do is nice, particularly when a lot of what we do as civil engineers is either underground or just underneath your feet and you're not really paying much attention to it. So yeah, it's nice to see that happen. speaker-0: Again, there's the the kind of element of being able to sort of I guess experience what you've what you've designed and had the the kind of engineering input into as well. And and I think you're right what you say that I think sometimes the best designs are the ones that are the least noticeable speaker-1: Exactly, yeah. I think you start to realise, like I realise that I look down a lot when I'm walking around somewhere trying to see how, see if I can work out what they've done with curbs and with drainage and that sort of stuff. And you realise every so often you go somewhere and you're like, God, this is just really clever. It just really works really well. It flows really nicely or whatever. And then you go to other places and you're like, yeah, that didn't go down quite well. That's not quite right. And that just doesn't quite... Yeah, so you sort of, can see the good design and you try and then bring that back into what you do. speaker-0: Yeah, exact and and what do you think there's a a main driver behind the stuff that doesn't work so well? speaker-1: Good question. think sometimes you can see that it's coordination. It just hasn't quite worked out. And then I think what I'm realising more and more with what I do now, more in the sort of residential sector, that the balance that you're trying to tread between what the planning layouts look like and what people want to see then to the actual practical, what's going to get approved, what the highway authority wants to see can be quite different. And so you don't always get necessarily the best solution for both because you're trying to sort of shoehorn in someone else's requirements with someone else's vision. speaker-0: Yeah. I and I think moving on to sort of some of the projects that we're involved together and and on on sort of new build residential schemes and you know, the the new towns is is the kind of phrase of the moment which is which is I guess all in the media and branded around quite a lot. But I think there's a from from what we see and I guess you you see it as well, there's kind of quite a few disconnects along the way between that kind of vision led and the policy side of things to then the more practical implementation of that. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that is, that's really hitting the nail on the head there. It's the practical implementation that sort of seems to not meet up with match up, speed up at the same time as the vision. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And yeah, think it's, yeah, the amount of effort that goes into the planning and the vision, it's then really disappointing when you have to row back just because you know that it's not going to work. It's not going to be adopted. not the highways authorities is going to know, don't like that detail. speaker-0: No. Okay. So I guess there's there's a few ways in which that can be approached, isn't there? And we we kind of we see it in in in lighting design. And I don't know if it's similar for the works that that you're involved in. but it doesn't matter how many design codes, how many strategies, how many, you know, flood risk assessments, w whatever, that kind of almost should come back to that bridge that you speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: It just needs that kind of connection, doesn't it? To connect the two the two sides of planning really. And and I I guess from a a highways point of view or a or whichever kind of discipline it is on the on the adoption side, they've got their reasons for various elements of their their spec, but does that need to be woven more into planning at the front end, or does planning need to have a bit more influence over their their specifications? It's a tough one. speaker-1: And yeah, I think ultimately it comes down to left-hand and right-hand speaking to each other. Like so often it's the planning department against the technical department. It's like you're in the same council. There shouldn't be a difference. I should be able to get something approved at planning that I know you're going to accept from a technical point of view or vice versa. I should be able to say no to the planners because I know that your technical department, there's X number of reasons why they're not going to accept it. And there's very robust reasons. But yeah, that seems to be that it all comes down to the communication. There's always a bit of a breakdown between those two very important elements from what we do on a day-to-day basis. speaker-0: Yeah, I I guess from a planning point of view, everything is obviously policy driven and policy led and being able to prove that development is in line with all of their various development management policies and and all the policies in the local plan and the obviously the there's the political sphere as well. And I just wonder if actually from a policy level there's a there's a kind of there's a missing amount of policy that joins up speaker-1: Yeah, I think you're right though, yeah. speaker-0: So I I don't I don't know what the answers are in speaker-1: No, and I haven't come across any particular authority that does it really, really well. think you find similarities across a lot of the planning authorities. Some do some bits better and some bits less well and yeah, no one's got the magic answer yet. speaker-0: No. Well, hopefully, hopefully it it kind of doesn't derail new towns too much because I think that's looking like one of the one of the things that might hamper the deliverability of new towns when you consider how well they're designed and how well they're built in comparison to what the overall vision was. And I think there's there's there's real opportunity for that to kind of almost water down. What the the vision is, isn't there? speaker-1: think that's the challenge, isn't it? You want to start off with the very best. It's bringing everybody up to the very best rather than watering down the very best to sort of mediocre okay. speaker-0: Make it f speaker-1: Make it work. Make it look like we've always done it. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Sometimes planning can be quite almost I guess there's a there's a bar for planning to to hold in terms of how how well the development's going to be designed and and how well it's going to operate once it's once it's complete. that actually from a viability perspective the the developer's got to build in the planning costs to the viability as well as the costs of actually constructing it. So There's there's every opportunity. we've had a couple of projects recently where the developers got all the way through planning and then the viability's fallen out of it completely because of the amount of costs they've had to incur on on various reports and different pieces and back and forth and the the infinite loop. And I think the bit that we kind of not necessarily don't necessarily struggle with it, but we see it on on projects when we're working with other disciplines is the the sort of constant comment loop and I think you have to question is it are sometimes the comments that are coming a a principal comment in terms of is it principally sound, then yes, then then obvious is that comment more of a design based comment or a nice to have or we would this is our sort of stamp on it, as it were. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think that then comes back to the kind of policy debate is like, if you're making all these comments, well, it's obviously not clear in your policy what you're wanting or what you're expecting to see. So give us better policy and therefore we can answer your questions better. and you wouldn't have, it's like you say, the infinite loop and there's no, the statutory timeframes for replying has gone. So you can get comments back months after you've done it, which then from the design point of view is difficult because you're like, I want the same design team back on it, but they're doing something else now. So how are we going to field these comments? How are we going to, you know, do the most efficiently and respond and update designs and get things done and do the collaboration again with those other people that. you pull the stuff together with and yeah, I think that's always a challenge. speaker-0: And that's the difficult part. That's the other side of the the role, isn't it? In in that as much as it is about the engineering and the and and the end solution and engineering that end solution, there's a whole team of people, you know, working with you that that you know that effectively you you're leading and there's complications about speaker-1: that. Yeah, it's constant kind of battle of not battle, you know, weighing up of trying to keep people busy, the right kind of busy, yeah, doing the right kind of stuff at the right time, but also picking up all the other stuff that comes in. Yeah. And I think that's, that's the age old, age old challenge and engineering of balancing it all and spinning the right plates at the right time and allowing the right ones to drop every so often. speaker-0: Well, and it's the side of leadership that no one ever tells you about that you find out when you're in it. speaker-1: And I don't think anybody's got the magic solution either. speaker-0: No. speaker-1: I mean, I just haven't come across the absolute ideal person who can do it all and tell you how they're doing it. It's just, yeah. speaker-0: It comes down to that solutions to problems, but then there's the realisation that not every problem has a solution in the in the in the leadership field. That sometimes you do have to stand back and go, I can't solve this. No. Like this it's either not for me to solve or it speaker-1: Well, I suppose then that's the flip of being able to understand that it's not for you to solve, that you can't solve it on your own or whatever, and you've got to find the right people to help you get there. Yeah. That's the next challenge, isn't it? speaker-0: Exactly. And finding the right people is is is another whole it's speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: a whole can of worms, isn't it? Because it's it's challenging to know, you know, what you need from that person as well. Yeah. speaker-1: And quite often like trying to get them at the right moment that you need them. Yeah. And not like, well, actually it would have been really useful to have this conversation with you three months ago. Yeah. speaker-0: And then being able to sustain, you know, the workload for for those people when when they are there is is is, you know, another challenge you talked earlier about, you know, the commercial awareness and that that side of things of the role. and it's not always easy to to kind of get right, is it? speaker-1: And now, and I think you have to admit that you're never going to get it. You're not always going to get it right. There are times when things will go really well and really smoothly and times when, yeah, you'll be spinning more plates than you want to. speaker-0: Yeah. Well and we're all human at the end of the day and we've all got a a limit. speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. And some people can can do more and flex more and some people just really can't. And yeah, you've just got to work out who you can pile more on without overloading them and who you really need to keep an eye on. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. I think one of the things that sort of I maybe not necessarily got wrong as such, but always had in my head in my sort of earlier sort of time of kind of leading the department is that I sort of fell into the mistake of thinking that I always had to have the answers. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And it's not until you evolve through that role that actually you turn and go, Do you know what? Actually, I don't need to have all the answers. No. You just need to know who to point people in. In the right direction. speaker-1: And I think you've touched on the skill that's really difficult to teach people. And it's something that becomes so important when you get to those leadership roles is delegation. Being able to delegate to the right people, be able to ask all the right questions at the right time so that the answer they give you, you can confidently go, yeah, that's it. Right, I had a great manager once where he just asked a few key questions. You had to make sure you got the answers absolutely right. Because those were the answers that he was going to tell everybody. you kind of, after you heard him say it to two or three other people, you're like, I'm just going go back and double check that I really did get that right. And I am giving him exactly the right information. And as soon as you've seen that a few times and you tell people that's what's going to happen, then you know where to put the effort in. know which bits you're going to have to get absolutely right. That you're going to have to be able to stand behind. And the other bits peripherally. might be really important to you, but that's not the bit that they're going to grab onto. speaker-0: No. No, it's tough, isn't it? To speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: to get that right. Yeah, it's tough to get that right. Yeah. But I I g the the human element of that is is like you say, recognising where the where that starts and stops and and I think that's almost as important as kind of being there for people and and kind of being that I guess that kind of stable sort of voice and and person that people can come to and be unapproachable but also being able to kind of explain to people that you're not the right person for that in in an approachable manner as well. Yeah. That speaker-1: And speaker-0: it doesn't make people feel like you're trying to push them. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-0: yeah. And I guess being engineers as well, we're kind of all always geared up to kind of want to go I can speaker-1: I can do it. Yeah. There's a real skill to learning to stand back. speaker-0: Thank you for listening to the show so far. Built by People is a podcast for the wider industry to also get involved in. So if you would like to see and hear more from us, please like and subscribe. So I I wanted to ask a a question about design for for women and girls, because again, that is a you know quite a consistent thread at the moment. There's a lot of media around, you know, safer streets and that kind of thing. Do you feel that there's an opportunity in the work that you do to have any influences in in those sorts of principles or? speaker-1: It's a really interesting one and seeing your question when you sent it to me before is like, you know what, from what we do, it's not something that is explicitly stated anywhere. We don't start off meetings with, know, start off discussions with, well, how does this development, this design benefit? women and girls, have we thought about it? Are there any particular barriers that we need to be addressing? Which makes me kind of think that either we're doing really good design anyway, and therefore it's inherent in that women and girls shouldn't feel threatened or unsafe or, know, don't know, unable to access areas. Or maybe it's just being not thought about enough and no one's quite bold enough to work out. what it needs to be. And I think, yeah, it's interesting that it has become so prominent and why has it become so prominent? Is there an inherent problem in how we design things or is it just that it's a bit of a buzzword that people are using? I don't know. It's difficult to know. And I guess it probably with you guys and what you do with lighting, I imagine that's one of the more sensitive topics and getting the lighting strategy right. unlocks huge potential for everything. speaker-0: Yeah, massively. And there's there's a number of conflicts as well between being able to, you know, design inclusively and design for for women and girls, particularly w you know, we come back to adoptable specifications and things like that. And particularly where there's where there's sort of strategies there that call for switching off of lighting or dimming of lighting. And then ultimately we see media headlines. That have been out there over the last few months of, you know, streets that don't feel safe, turn our street lights back on, that that kind of thing. So it can be quite difficult to have those conversations where almost there's a there's a bit of a closed door behind what that's what that's what we do. That's the policy. And that's and again, I think policy's quite the the driving word here because, you know, when you sit down in a design team meeting for a project moving forwards, nine times out of ten, whilst you've got layout and you've got you know, all of the stakeholders that want the project to succeed. The backbone behind it is, you know, how many of the policies do we satisfy and what do we need to do here to satisfy that policy and this policy? And if there's not one there for for women and girls, then it doesn't it's not on the list 'cause everything else is is driving it forward. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And it's whether the sort of built environment is the right response to, you know, making sure that everyone is safe or whether it's actually more about the facilities that you provide. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So yeah, so it's a really tricky balance. I mean, we shouldn't need to say anything about it. This is it. It should be good design. doesn't matter who it's for. And I think that's, that's the kind of sadness in it that it has been recognised that something needs to be done. But yeah, we should all be trying to do what we can to do it. But like you say, it's doing the right thing on one side against something else. speaker-0: What strikes me is on on development is the the kind of hierarchy in which things like ecology is protected, which it rightly so it should be, but it's almost it almost takes precedence over, you know, the human need and and what we need to do. And we almost need to kind of bring the human need almost back up in line with with ecology and an ecologically sensitive species because we're kind of all one and the same to an extent in that in that respect, you know. It's it's quite interesting that we've got to it yeah, certainly completely. speaker-1: challenge that. Bringing that up in planning. no, it's like, why are you designing these spaces? Why are we building housing developments? Who are we trying to house and how are we going to do it? And yes, let's look after the environment around it. But like you say, who should be front and centre? speaker-0: Yeah. So I think one one of the questions I sort of had here was along the way, have there ever been any massive whoops moments on projects? speaker-1: I did have to think, well actually no, I didn't think too long because there's one standout element that happened kind of, I don't know, early-ish in my career, maybe six years in or so. We're a surface water drainage design and hydraulic modeling. And I'd made some assumptions as you do when you do your modeling about how one roof would respond. and I'd done it all, done all the modelling, whatever, and then we'd had to hand our model over to somebody and they looked at it and went, but this doesn't, this is not, we're not sure that it's working as we expect, we're not sure that this parameter and this parameter and this parameter have gone in correctly. And I looked at it and went, my goodness, what they're saying is right, what are we going to do? This is a real problem. And at that moment I was like, god, panic, panic, panic, because I really should have got this right. And I was like, I've just got to own it. I've got to own up to the fact that I've made this mistake. So I went to my boss and said, look, this is the mistake and this, this is, I don't know what to do. don't know what I've done. And he turned around and went, absolutely fine. It's a mistake. Let's work out how to come, how to find a solution to deal with it. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Thank God. I know this panic attack of like, my God, what do we do? And we came up with quite an elegant solution for how to get around it. And I was like, okay, fine. This is really good. It was really useful to have had that moment of like, yeah, you're going to make mistakes. It's inevitable. You can't get everything right. But the key thing is to realise the mistake, own it, and then not panic and try and come up with a solution. And yeah, you might have to spin why it was done the way it was done or how the mistake came about. But ultimately the client doesn't really care about the mistake. They want the solution. Yeah. So as long as you can present some viable solutions and some viable options, then it wasn't ever really a mistake. It was just something that happened along the way. Yeah. There's a few, a few hairy moments. And so now there's certain things that then you have to have one of those moments to then go back and kind of change the way you work a bit and have a few checks in place and know to go when someone else is doing something for you, go, well, I'll just check this and check this and check this. Okay. Yeah. Fine. We're all there. speaker-0: Yeah. I think that that thing that you mentioned about owning it is is the crucial element because that's the difference between the whole thing continuing to spiral. Yeah. If you try and sort of smudge speaker-1: cover up. speaker-0: it through or just don't don't mention anything, but you probably gain far more respect from, you know, the project team, your, you know, managers, bosses, everybody in the project by going, actually, do you know what? Hang fire a second, just I've noticed something on this speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: than than than not 'cause it's well save a whole lot of hassle along the way in in the future. speaker-1: It's a scary moment when you realise it, you've got, yeah, you cut, there's only so long you can hide behind these things. It's going to come back to bite you. So you might as well sort it out. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. And I think from an early kind of age we're so wired to you've got to get the right answer, you've got to get the right answer, you've got to get the right answer that sometimes the default position is speaker-1: Yeah speaker-0: Completely messed that up. speaker-1: But I think that's life. You've got to have opportunities to fail, to know how to deal with it. And why would work situations be any different? You've got to work out how to get yourself back up from those moments that happen. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not easy, but still part of it, isn't it? speaker-1: Not easy, but yeah. And I think also in that instance, I was like, yeah, I've got a team. I don't have to worry about this on my own. I can take it to someone and they will help me. And I think that's the other thing to remember that you might, in particularly in what we do, you're never on your own. There are other people who will help you as long as you own it and you try and work the solution. speaker-0: Yeah, makes sense. So I guess, you know, we talk about built by people being, you know, the people behind what makes everything work. What do people at home or, you know, friends and family think you do versus what you actually do? speaker-1: Yeah, I try, I probably try and glamorize my job a bit more than, you know, when you say I just sit in front of a computer designing stuff, that doesn't inspire the kids. yeah, my kids, the way I've tried to explain it to the kids, they're nine and six is that I basically do things that don't move, design things that don't move. So roads, buildings, have have a little bit of latitude in there. And, and I think they haven't quite got their heads around that most of it happens underground, like drainage. If you don't see it, great. So yeah, I'm not sure they've quite worked out what to do. think they might think I actually build physically build stuff. Although they do know there's a lot of computer involved. And if you saw the number of colored pens on my desk, you'd probably think I spent my day coloring, but there's very little coloring these days. The red pen does come out from time to time. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know before I was a civil engineer, I don't think I really understood what the career was anyway, and it's so broad. There's so many different variations that even talking to other civil engineers, you don't necessarily know what they do. speaker-0: And and it's been such a a large part of of your of your career, your your working career and your your life really, hasn't it? So do you ever have any sort of if I wasn't doing this, I'd be doing that moments? speaker-1: If I wasn't doing this, was probably because I've won the lottery, in which case it's a bit irrelevant. I did toy with teaching at one point, like when I discovered that I wasn't a bridge engineer, was like, do I leave? Do I go and do teaching? And I had a friend who did civil engineering, worked as an engineer for a bit, then worked as a journalist for a bit, and then worked as a physics teacher for a bit. And it's like, she's had quite a variation. But no, I decided to stick with it. I don't think there's a particular job I would do otherwise. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Probably spend my days baking. Maybe. speaker-0: Great. I like that. I do like that. I always tell people that if I wasn't partially deaf and and and have bad eyesight, I'd be I'd be an airline pilot, but speaker-1: Yeah, maybe don't go flying. speaker-0: No, maybe not. No. No. No, the cost of the fuel's too much now anyway. speaker-1: Yeah, there is that. speaker-0: Yeah. But moving well, talking of cost of fuel, let's move on to EVs. So speaker-1: Excellent. Yes. I am fully convinced. Yeah. So I've had my car for about a month now. Love it. And it has, it has drastically changed the way we do things as a family. So my husband has a VW van. We love it. And it's great for when we want to bundle the bikes and then all the rest of it, but it's diesel. And now we're like, if we're going anywhere, we're going in my car. Definitely. Because it doesn't cost us anything. Yeah. cause it's barely nothing. and so, yeah, that's, it's just, yeah, transformative from that point of view. Like every time I drive past a petrol station, yes, I'm not paying whatever it is. A hundred, one pound, 60 a liter or something ridiculous. so yeah, I'm fully converted. I've got to get my home charging set up sorted. And I've also, as I've discovered today, got to get my away from home charging set up. I've got to get all the apps, because I couldn't make them work today. speaker-0: No. speaker-1: couldn't make anything work. speaker-0: When you've got your home charger sorted, I think that'll unlock a whole other level of of freedom. speaker-1: Yeah, because I've got like a plug into the wall one. It's speaker-0: right. speaker-1: like hours, but it's fine. It's fine. But the kids are quite keen to have the playroom window shut. So yeah, not happy having it out the window anymore. So yeah, we'll get that sorted. But yeah, it's, it's fun. And yeah, I think I was really reluctant. a few years ago, I couldn't contemplate EV because like, just don't think, I don't think it would work. And as soon as you do it, you're like, yeah, okay. it's easy. Do you have slight range anxiety now for getting home? But that's fine. I know there's lots of charges on the way if I need to. And I've got to work out the vocab. Like when you're driving in your petrol car and your tank is very, very low, you run on fumes. What's the equivalent for an EV? speaker-0: That's really good question. I don't speaker-1: We've got to work this out because I just don't know. Do you run on electrons? What is it? speaker-0: Yeah, I guess Really no. I've never thought of that. speaker-1: Yeah, mean, I purposefully when I changed my car, like filled up as little petrol as I to get to the showroom and I was like, I literally had 10 miles in the tank. I was like, this is perfect. Done it. And now I'm like, yeah, what's the equivalent? speaker-0: Well someone someone told me as well the other day is that one percent is not one percent. There's still a bit of residual charge in there that would just about crawl you home. No, I wouldn't recommend trying it. Please nobody try it. speaker-1: that. Because that's the other thing. Like if you ran out of petrol or diesel, whatever, it's a pain, but you could park up to a petrol station, a can of petrol, whatever. You can't do that speaker-0: No. speaker-1: with your EV. speaker-0: So do you know what? I was funnily enough, I was having this similar conversation with my mum over Easter, who she she doesn't drive, she's not a driver. And she turned around and she went, But why don't they just have like massive power bank that you can pick up off the shelf and plug in and that'll get you going? And I thought, Wow, that's a great idea. speaker-1: It's kind of like you can get battery boosters for your normal battery car. Is there an equivalent for your EV? I don't know. I need to some more research on this. speaker-0: We w we might do. Might be a patent in the making that. speaker-1: There you speaker-0: No, it's it certainly is a No, it's an interesting one, isn't it? 'Cause I like say I I I've had mine for getting on for seven months. And like you, I had that initial range anxiety, but now I'm now, ooh, how low can I go? speaker-1: Hahaha speaker-0: Can I crawl onto the drive with two percent? speaker-1: Yeah, how quickly will it charge up again? Yeah, I it depends when you next need it. speaker-0: Yeah, that's right. But I think they there's so many kind of public charges that are popping up. that actually that's that's not really a problem anymore. And trust in it as well. So if you use a sat nav and tell it where you're going, yeah, just let it pick a charger along the way and go with the flow. And I I've I'm not one for for really liking to do that, but I I fell into the trap of trying to plan You know, the journey, where I wanna stop, what how long I wanna be there and all that sort of thing. We're actually some of my more stressless speaker-1: sort of journeys have gone. speaker-0: the car wants me to pull over here and charge for five minutes, so I'll do that. And actually it works. And it's cheaper to do it that way as well, I found. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, 'cause sometimes you either you might overcharge for the distance that you need. speaker-1: Yeah, that's the next one that I need to work out. Yeah, I just need to get a bit more up to speed with the apps and all that kind of stuff. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. But so far, yeah, love it. Good. Definitely worthwhile. Particularly as you just see the fuel prices going up. speaker-0: Yeah. I think that's the key thing at the minute. Yeah. All the secondhand EVs. prices of those are going through the roof now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So well, thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thanks speaker-1: today. speaker-0: for inviting me. No, I've I've really enjoyed talking to you and and hearing all about your your time in the industry and your pathway into it and sort of experiences along the way. So that's that's really great. speaker-1: Great, well thank you very much. speaker-0: all. If you are listening and feel like you would also like to get involved, or you have an idea for a topic you would like us to discuss on future episodes, please get in touch with DFL.