Episode 3: Brad

Hello, folks, and welcome back to the Talk of All Trades podcast, where we talk to various guests who work in the trades and our own small businesses.

Today, our guest is Brad, a native of San Pedro. He's an experienced longshoreman who will give us a little insight into that line of work, among other things. Thanks for joining us, Brad. So let's get started with sort of how you got into your, not trade, but your career. What steps did you take to get into that? Well, thank you for having me. I'm generational. My family's been doing this, has lived in San Pedro for, I'm fourth generation.

My family's been living in San Pedro, which is a fishing, construction, longshore community, and we've been here for four generations. All the way down, we have all worked longshoring, and it kind of seemed like it was natural for me that eventually one day I'd become of age and I would get my longshore card. When I was 19, it was during the Bush administration. We had a ton of work through the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. We had a ton of work and they were hiring.

They were hiring. They were hiring. They were hiring outside unions. They were bringing in people and they did a mass hiring. And actually for the first time ever, they allowed outsiders to come in. So each longshoreman was given what we call an interest card. Each longshoreman was given an interest card to give to whoever they wanted to. And then they allowed the equal amount of outside postcards to be mailed in.

So there were, I believe at the time there were 18,000 longshoremen got interest cards. So those 18,000 automatically got in with an 18,000 outside postcards. They put those in a raffle and they drew, they drew those, I guess, well, it's at 36,000 individuals. I'm sorry. No, no, scratch that. It was 9,000 long longshoremen and 9,000 outside cards came to 18,000 total.

And they threw those in a raffle and they did a draw and they did 500, 500, 500, 250, whatever, and brought them in and trained them. And they became what are called casual longshoremen. Casual longshoremen get whatever the companies send work to the longshore union. Longshore union delegates the work to its members.

Whatever work is left over, if they've exhausted all the members and there's still work left over, They send that leftover work to the casual hall, and you get whatever work comes to you. And then when they do hire for a new longshoreman, they hire whoever has the most hours out of those casuals. So in general, there is a seniority complex to all this. There's absolute seniority and there is a hierarchy. It rolls downhill. But yes, there is a seniority and a hierarchy of how it is allocated.

Now, let me ask you this. Everybody that works in the Port of LA, Port of Long Beach, they're all unionized? Doing longshore work. We have three locals, technically four, because, well, actually, if you break down, we have foreman's union, a clerical union, a longshore union. Some of the security guards are ILW. We also have office workers that are also ILW. Not every individual is, but for the most part, majority of the labor is. Majority.

But it's there's certain terminals that they have their own deals with the city that like that's because they were there beforehand because we also have the mechanics were considered longshore but there are some terminals are considered red circle terminals which are they had their own labor that was an individual contract that they had made prior to that they have their own labor right so before we get too thick into the weeds here i want to take a step back a little bit i want to talk about

sort of how you ended up getting into this type of work. Now, what did you do before? And what sort of made you realize that being a longshoreman was your pathway? Right out of high school, I tried to go to community college, learned pretty quick that it wasn't for me. I just, I wasn't the kid that was going to sit there and study all day and get good grades. That just wasn't the type of individual that I was. And that this was at Harbor? I went to Harbor. Originally, I went to Harbor. Yeah.

Then I sat down with my parents and they told me, try getting a trade. And so I went to Long Beach City College and started taking mechanic classes that are supposedly geared towards mechanics on the waterfront. I took about a year and a half of classes. And at the time, interest cards came out for Longshore. It was 2004. It was 2004. Work was booming. And they needed Longshoremen. So they sent out interest cards.

I had gotten picked very early in the draw so i was working six seven days a week i wasn't even going to class right i was at the time i was also i was also signing up and i was i was working in inland boatman's union as a as a deckhand for the tugboats which are the guys that that meet the ships outside the break wall tie up to the ship pull the ship and allow the ship to pull it to come into the harbor because if the ship does like you saw that bridge that that bridge

that got hit in what state was not baltimore baltimore yes in order to come past our break wall in the la l beach harbor uh la lb harbor you have to be tied to a tugboat because if this if this ship goes out it goes rogue the only thing that's going to stop it is a tugboat so in order to come into our break wall or outside of our to untie to a dock a freight container ship has to be tied up to a tugboat. So that's what I did originally before I got my casual card.

It's interesting that you bring that up, sort of the safety nature of working what you did. I want to know if you can remember, and you've been doing this for a long time. Some severe accidents that have happened with sort of what you're talking about. Yes, actually, it was my second shift on the tugboats. I was, the tugboats, you typically tie up to the vessel, and the tugboats tie up, bring in the vessel until they dock, then untie, go away.

Also, the tugboats also have to pull the barges, which fill up the tankers with oil or fuel.

And my second shift was I was on a barge tied up next to a dock or next to a ship that was tied up to a dock, and i was checking the tanks deckhands do very minimal but basic you know you check the engines make sure the oils the coolants are all good and then as you pump oil into the into the ship you you make sure the tanks don't suck in air if the tanks suck in air you're gonna have a problem so you have to close the tanks as why why would there be a problem aeration aeration aeration

you get air air does not compress so if you suck air into oil it's it's or fuel you're gonna at some point time when that when that goes through the valley and goes to explode at compression you're gonna have a much bigger explosion than you needed and you will blow a hole in the side of the cylinder of the engine there's some some interesting chemistry there yeah so i was i was i think i was walking around on the deck and i was

checking i was checking things i was just making sure everything was in order as as we were fueling the barge and all of a sudden i hear. I look over on the deck of the barge and I see a bar go sliding across. And I didn't realize what it was. And I, I walked over to the ship and I can hear what are, what are lashers on the ship, banging bar, slamming stuff. And they chucked, it looks like they chucked a bar off the side of the, off the side of the ship.

And I started yelling at them. I screaming at them.

I said, hey, what are you doing? They look over at me and I said, I'm working down here. And they apologized anytime. I mean, it's be very mindful when you're, when you're on a ship, you don't just chuck stuff off the side of the ship. Right. Because there might be somebody working next to you. Yeah. That was, that was my second shift working on the fourth. Second shift to get to. Yeah. Well, that bar would, if it would have hit me

more likely would have killed me or broken several boats. No kidding. Jeez.

Yeah. Well, that's an interesting story right there. Now tell us a little bit about the, the various jobs that, you know, stem from being a longshoreman. And you mentioned a few to me. Maybe you can explain that to our audience. The cut and dry of it is ships come in, get tied up to the dock. Customs has to go through with their dogs and they clear it. Once Customs clears the ship, safety nets have to be thrown up. The bars that lock the containers down to the vessel have to be dropped.

Once those are all dropped, all the cones that lock each container to itself have to be unlocked. Then the crane takes off takes off containers you uh typically go tier by tier take you know obviously say one one bay might be going to another state or to another to another port or the whole ship might be a clean out so that's things that are run through prior to by the clerical workers clerical workers give the crane drivers the paperwork and say okay this color is us this color is not us.

Do this bay, this bay, this bay, don't touch that bay. So crane drivers take off, take off the containers. Down below, we have a signal man and swingman. That signal man lines up the trucks, trucks pull up, and we have six lanes, five to six, depending on how big the terminal is, lines up a truck in their spot.

That's the dock signal who lines up the trucker. container lands swingmen come around take off all the cones or put on the cones depending if you're loading out or discharging and then just direct traffic stop people so they don't drive underneath containers coming over their head or lids coming over their head everything everything first and foremost is trying to be safety conscious what you know yeah at the end of the

day i walk out of the gate quite often saying 10 fingers 10 toes paid and happy right can't go on there. Because no offense, I don't care about any of these companies' profits. What I care about is 10 fingers, 10 toes, paid and happy.

Now, I want to get into that a little bit. So you're mentioning all this regulation, red tape, and it mainly has to do with safety. But, you know, this process, would you, if you were in charge of everything, change anything about it?

Not necessarily, because we are one of the first unions ever to have a safety code that we can stand by on health and safety if we don't feel it's safe we don't deem it safe we have what's called a business agent that comes out and argues for us for if if we find something like if i go up on a ship and i'm lashing a bay offshore and there's no guardrail there yeah well i have to put a pole up three high onto this container that's three containers high literally,

six inches from the edge of the ship if there's no guardrail there i'm not going to do it right tell the ship tell you tell that you tell your form we have a chain of command we don't just go tell somebody you go do that for us no we tell the foreman foreman i have a problem there's no guardrail on this on bay 21 so he goes and tells the the first mate first mate has the crew go up and put a put a guardrail up so then we go up there and we take care of business,

Safety is first, because at the end of the day, these companies clear billions. And I would tell you billions of dollars after their overhead, after their labor, after their machines, after all their costs, they clear billions of dollars. Right. And they don't care. They don't care whether we die, we get hurt. It's to them, profit's profit. And it's first and foremost is to them is whatever their profit is.

That's what they look at. They look at their profit. They want speed, but they also have to look at, hey, that's where our safety code comes and say, hey, speed doesn't mean a whole lot if it's not safe. If you've killed five people, who cares about speed? If you've done it safely, speed comes with experience. Experience comes from time doing the job.

I agree. I agree completely with what you're saying. Now, you kind of mentioned something that I'd also like to get in with you. So e-commerce, been on the rise. I mean, obviously since you've been working, you've been doing this since the Bush era where e-commerce was a thing. Not as much, obviously, as it has been today. How has that changed the ports? I'll tell you first and foremost, everything that they've been telling you, especially through COVID, has been a lie.

Who's been telling me? Everything. The government, the news, everything.

Okay. What have they been lying about? Everything. okay when i started in 2004 a 20-foot container coming over from china was about four thousand dollars right before covid hit referring referring to what the that cost that you're talking about the ship right shipping the container shipping the container to get it from whatever to load your goods to load your goods in a container have it loaded on a ship in china to get it here get it offloaded

here it was yes your your port cost your your cost cost of getting goods basically to your door was about $4,000 in 2004. Before COVID happened, it was about $15,000. That's what inflation did. During COVID, it went upwards of $30,000, $40,000. During COVID? During COVID. Because they started making up excuses. Oh, there's... And who's that? Shipping lines. The shipping lines. They started telling everyone, which these are issues that

we've known about for decades. Because I'm going to give you an example. In 2020, which was the year of COVID, we had a record. 20 million containers. 20 million containers at our twin port. That was our record. and we had been breaking a record up into that about every year we were breaking our last year's record for about five or six years. Work was, we were doing well.

We hadn't had a slow season in about six or seven years and we were breaking our record pretty much every year. Then all of a sudden 2020 hit, work went to a complete halt and then all of a sudden it got exacerbated and we had so much more work.

We had this line of ships just sitting out there that there's no way we could finish them and they were telling everyone oh it's going to take six months to even get your ship into dock yeah so what they started they started coming up with excuses well there's not enough chassis we've known about that we've known about that for decades now for for our audience what is a chassis a chassis is what the trucker the the the truck hooks up to the container

goes on top of the chassis and the truck drives the chassis which rides which the chassis is what the container rides on drives it to its facility okay we've known about that for decades there's not enough chassis not because there's not enough chassis there's if you drive out there in the harbor there are thousands thousands of stacked chassis i see them yeah they're broken the companies refuse to pay to fix them and how much would it cost to fix them it depends some are lights right some are

tires some are some are are you know a broken someone's a crack some you know we have we have inspection teams that go out and review them and we write we review them we inspect them red tag it red tag it this one's no good this one's no good because if you're driving on the highway and you see five container trucks driving next to you how safe are you feeling knowing that a tire is not going to fly off you know yesterday actually i was driving.

Where the hell was i i think it was the 405 and i mean he was in the all the way he was all the way in the right lane and one of his tires was spinning out a little bit starting to and i see it all the time these guys get have to get into the shoulder because one of their tires are screwed up i've seen tires fly off the road fly off on a truck my my father was actually hit on his harley riding over the bridge by a rogue tire jeez monday thank you yeah he was on his Harley.

Thank God he was okay, but I mean, he was in the hospital for a couple weeks after that. But... So we inspect them. We have an outgate that every time a trucker pulls out, we look at it, we review. And it's a basic inspection. It's not a super in-depth inspection, but we look at it. And if we see something, we hand them a ticket. Say, you have to go to this guy. That guy will fix it for you. It takes a little bit longer.

It takes a little bit longer. And if it's a major repair, we make them go to the flip line, go get a new chassis, which takes a lot longer than we have to put that chassis. To the side till it gets repaired. Problem is, these companies refuse to fix stuff. Why is that? Cost. Cost. That's all they look at. They don't want to pay for it. Right, but couldn't they import-export more if they just put down the cost to fix it?

Seems very simple to me. It does. And I'm not asking if you have an answer there, but what can you hypothesize?

Is their disconnect they step over the dollar every single time to grab the nickel because they think of the immediate cost they think oh we're losing an hour we're losing two hours we're losing this we're losing that they don't think hey if i actually fix everything which might cost might cost millions of dollars but then your revenue keeps flowing keeps flowing they don't see it that way they see it as that costs money that costs money they don't see

the return right that it brings back. They see that, oh, that costs money. But that problem is, once you start, I take a lot of heavy lifts and I stack and unstack chassis. Truckers won't take broken chassis. We have a bit and a PM inspection. A bit inspection is every 90 days. Basic inspection, but if that's expired, we can't let it go. If there's a PM inspection is once a year. If that's expired, we can't let it go.

So a lot of truckers won't touch them. So I think the regulations are very fair when it comes to what you're referring to, these chassis, whether or not they're broken or not. And I'm still confused as to these companies that make billions of dollars, hire some of the top people from the top colleges, are still stepping over the dollar for the nickel, as you say, or the dime, whatever it is.

What i mean how long has that been going on do you see do you foresee any change or and and why why do you think they go that route you know because i mean you and i you know we're not harvard educated people but we understand that return on investment i mean it's there why don't they take it obviously i mean i've been down there 20 years and it was happening when i started. So I'm assuming it's always been happening because it's gotten in my,

it's gotten a lot worse about 10 years ago or so, maybe a little bit less. There was a big fight. Where they stopped allowing us to repair chassis, where truckers would claim it's my own chassis. It's my own chassis. Like they own it? Yes. Like they own it or the company they work for owns it. So we're not allowed to touch their stuff. We're only allowed to touch four different companies.

There's four different companies that we're allowed to touch. and some some truckers will do some shady business and they'll paint over the numbers or the or the emblems of a chassis and they'll put their own to try to get by to snake it by saying oh this is my own this is my own so they'll steal a chassis pretty much and say this is my own and you'll see the painted over numbers and go dude no it's not you painted over it you you you i saw you

put stickers on top of those stickers yeah that's not your own chassis or some guys will claim oh this is my own chassis like but it's the brand that we're allowed to fix, it's not your own you're then when you go through i've been a chassis mechanic, it is these guys do shoddy work they do very shoddy work i've i've i've repaired chassis after it's come back in and you can tell the type of individuals that work on these vehicles don't care, they don't care.

Here's the thing. Every single chassis we work on, we have to sign our name and our registration number. Right. So it comes back to me.

And I've welded on many chassis. I've done brake jobs. I've replaced hangers. I've replaced suspension. I've replaced air hoses, air brake chambers. I've done most of it.

Every time you sign, the first couple times I did it, when I would sign my name and my reg number, and I'd put it back on the side of it, every chassis, there's a cone that has the paperwork that says, what was inspected when was it when it was inspected and who inspected it so everything comes back to the individual that worked on it and the first couple times i did it and i signed my name and reg number and i went to put that on i said wow i'm extremely

liable if something bad happens right and but it makes it makes me feel safe that my wife and kids are on the road with the chassis that i worked on because i know that it was done correct that's a pragmatic approach But the thing is, a lot of these truck companies and truckers try to snake by saying, no, it's my own chassis. It's my own chassis because they don't want to take the extra half hour or hour to go to get it repaired. They want to sneak out and get out as quickly as they can.

Why do you think that is? That seems like great. Time is money. Yeah, but I mean. Truck drivers don't get paid very much. But does the liability outweigh that or are they just not thinking about it? They don't care. They don't care.

Time is money. and unfortunately a lot of these truck drivers I can't guarantee it because I don't know for a fact because I've never seen their papers but they're illegals, not just the Spanish but Chinese as well and a lot of these guys they don't speak English they don't speak English you say when you're working a clerk job and they pull up and they have a ticket you ask them what's your container number yes yes yes yes yes yep,

What spot are you going to? Okay, okay, okay. I feel like that's all they teach them. And they don't, these guys do not speak the language. And I'm not saying it's just Hispanics. It's what I was told was in the 80s when Reagan deregulated the Teamsters and started allowing any Tom, Dick, and Harry to get a class A trucker's license and come down to the harbor. Because back in the day, it used to be Teamsters only that were allowed to drive trucks into the harbor.

Then Reagan deregulated the Teamsters Union and allowed anybody that got a class A to come down to the harbor, they started undercutting each other. I'll do it for cheaper. I'll do it for cheaper. I'll do it for cheaper. So that kept happening and it kept getting worse and worse. And it allowed immigrants to have a job and get paid constantly.

And it's not just the Hispanic immigrants. There's a lot of Asians that I. Whether they're legal or not, it's not for me to say, but they don't speak the language. They don't understand the rules of the road. These guys cause a lot of accidents. And they just want to hurry up and get out. Now, I want to get more into that because I think as times are changing in the political environment, we have a new president, well, a new old president. I want your opinion on how you see the future with that.

And in terms of what you're saying, what I want to do is our first ad read, though, and then we'll sort of get into that. OK, the NFL and college football season is in full swing. And Betterline has you covered with the best odds and biggest promotions and live game betting on all your favorite teams, including the NBA and NHL. Head to BetterLine today and stay updated on all the action. BetterLine, the game starts here.

Podcasts. All right. So, no disclaimers at this point, but what I want to get into next is the political landscape a little bit. We have changing times and immigration is a very gray area at this point. We don't know what's going to happen. And we're told what might happen. We don't know what's going to happen, especially in a state like California. You got Newsom who's really going to block a lot of legislation that comes this way, especially federally, if he can't.

I mean, you know, so I want to talk about sort of what you were mentioning before, which is a lot of immigrants, a lot, have a lot of these, you know, low-paying jobs in the Port of LA, Port of Long Beach. What will happen if, you know, there's less and less of these jobs being taken by immigrants? From what I've seen, for the most part, a lot of the guys that I believe are immigrants for the lower paying aspect jobs, if they're not here to do them, people have to raise wages.

They'll have to raise wages to bring back the Americans, you know, that these jobs aren't easy. They're long, they're arduous, they're physically, they're labor intensive. It's like what happened in Florida when they wanted to deport all those immigrants in Florida and all the farmers were like, wait a minute, who's going to pick our crops? They've tried to offer an exorbitant amount of money and nobody wants to do it because it is hard work.

I've been to Ventura. I've driven down where the Dole plant is. You've got a port-a-potty and you're out in the middle of a field for hours on end. It's hot. You've got drinking water and you've got a port-a-potty and a very unsanitary wash station, that's who's handling our goods. I mean, our vegetables and our fruit. But would you do it? I wouldn't. I wouldn't sit out there for 10 or 12 hours a day.

I'm sure they don't get, I can't speculate of what they get paid, whether it's an hour, it's a bushel, I have no idea. But I'm sure it's not worth it.

But if we don't have those immigrants, who's gonna do it and same with these with the truckers if we don't have these immigrants who's gonna do it they you know they uh we can get into the autonomous driving vehicles which i'm absolutely against because here's the thing regulation is absolutely necessary but regulation needs to be checked there has to be checks and balances we've had several several trains go off derailment this year. And I've talked with guys from BNSF.

What is BNSF? BNSF is one of the rail companies. There's only a few. There's only a few rail companies. They have an absolute monopoly on the rail cars. They don't pay their guys very well either, but there's not enough of them. They know that. They absolutely know there's not enough of them. There are millions and millions of cars, empty cars sitting out in Nevada, Arizona, middle in those BFE states that have all this land that there's nothing there.

There's millions of cars sitting out there that they don't want to touch because they have to maintain them. They have to check them. They have to do specs. They have to do brakes. They have to replace wheels. They have to replace axles. They have to replace all this stuff and they don't want to touch them.

So that was one of the things that they complained about in during COVID is, oh, there wasn't enough rail cars. There wasn't enough rail cars. There are enough rail cars. They just don't want to fix them. There wasn't enough chassis there are enough chassis they just don't want to fix them because they step over the dollar to grab the nickel every time they think the immediate return what's the immediate return they don't think of the long-term return if we fix all of this stuff.

Then it will run smoothly. And we take things. We like to do things in the port. We like to do things by hours, by hours, by, you know, our service, anytime anything's in service for so many hours, we do this service on. The next hour, this service. The next hour, this service. Problem with that is things do break in the interim. Things do break in the interim. So you have to have people coming out regularly to inspect it.

And we, when I do a lot of rail yards, and they have three to four guys come out and they'll check six or seven tracks and they'll repair a couple. I guarantee they overlook quite a bit of things. I don't know that for a fact because I don't have to work with them and I don't know exactly what they're doing. But do I feel that they're doing enough? Absolutely not. There's not enough road. But that's maintenance across the board.

That happened a few years ago with a building in Florida where the pool was leaking into the apartment building and the entire apartment building fell over. Right. I remember that, actually. Yeah. Something. Regulations are great if there's checks and balances. If there's nobody there to check and balance that regulation, what happens? Nothing good. I, it makes me wonder. So, I mean, all this bureaucratic overseeing is, it seems like it's at a breaking point.

I mean, you know, and you've been doing this for such a long time and you haven't seen any change and everything seems to have gotten worse and worse. I mean, how long can this go on? They'll just change directions. As of now, they're going with automation because they think their answer is, well, if we get rid of people, we can do everything seamless. It doesn't work that way. I was a crane mechanic at the first automated terminal in Long Beach.

It works. It absolutely does work, but you need to maintain it because things do break, especially with these cranes that are all Chinese made. They're all Chinese made, but they're not all Chinese parts. We have parts from Germany, parts from Italy, parts, pretty much nothing is made here in America, but we have parts from all these different countries. Problem is, when one of these parts fails, I can't just grab another one.

There's not just another one. We got to go, we got to, we got to call Italy. They got to send us a part. We got to call Germany. They got to send us a heart. So it doesn't, it's nothing is seamless. That's why a lot of times they'll say the companies won't allow you to look at them, right? When your service is up, they'll, they, they want minimal inspection, minimal inspection, 200 hour service, minimal inspection, 500 hour service, minimal inspection, thousand hour service, minimal inspection.

But when we do have a team that goes out, which unfortunately they're, they're caught by a lot of red tape and they're not allowed to do as much as they want to, but we do have a team of mechanics that go out and check these cranes. And every time they go out, they red tag almost everything. This is wrong. This is wrong. This needs to be fixed. This needs to be fixed. I don't know if you know about a couple months ago, a cab of a crane fell.

I didn't know that. It fell. I remember it was about a month to go a truck going through and and closing the bridges i remember that i don't remember what you're mentioning but what happens quite free i wouldn't say quite frequently but does happen where these automated terminals were automation can't think on the fly now let me ask you this though because now we have the introduction to ai yes do you or have you maybe already seen the integration of AI in your daily work in terms of automation?

Has it hindered? Has it helped in any way? In certain aspects, it absolutely helps.

But in certain aspects, it absolutely fails. Well, let's talk about the pros and cons of it there. It's quick. It reacts fast. It allows things to move smooth and seamless and allows things to just go. Problem is you have to think on the fly. With my type of job, with moving equipment, with moving containers, with people around, there are things that change. Weather changes everything. Tide, hike, wind, rain, everything gets changed.

So there are multiple cranes. I'm not going to say which cranes at which terminal. Well, actually, all cranes have flag sensors so where they can only go so close to each other. And then they go into what's in a slowdown mode, we call it a limp-in mode, that once it gets a certain distance, they go slower. Then once it gets a certain distance, it gets slower. Once it gets a certain distance, it gets slower, and then eventually it stops.

You can manually override it to push a crane into another crane to push a crane over, but it's supposed to stop. Well, I have set parameters on multiple of these cranes But there were two of the other cranes that were already there when I got hired as a mechanic. They hit each other. They've been there for 20 years? No. Well, there are cranes that have been there for 20 years. But no, these cranes are, I wouldn't say new.

But in the grand scheme of things, fairly new because they're about 15 years old. 10 to 15 years old. Sure. They ran into each other. And the company's excuse was a bag landed over the flag sensor. And what's a flag sensor? Okay, it's a light curtain. So when you pass this light curtain, when there's a sensor on it that has a light curtain, you have them in cars, you flag the sensor, it's basically a check. Almost like a blind spot monitor on a car. Kind of.

Kind of, it is. And so if there is, if it has, if the light, if the light is clear, then it allows you to go. But if the light is broken, it stops. Well, they're claiming the bag landed on the sensor, which made the crane hit the other crane. And it just doesn't add up. And from what I was told, I wasn't on the crew when it happened. But from what I was told by the crew members that were on it, said those cranes are cracked. Yeah, they're cracked.

And they re-welded them, which is great. But any welder will tell you re-welding a crack, when you re-manipulate steel, it has a tensile point where it's going to eventually break again. You can weld over and weld over a million times, but eventually it's weaker than it was originally. It's never going to be as strong as it was when it was one solid piece. So we'll see what happens. Well, that's wishful thinking.

We'll see what happens. I guess we will. Well, I'll tell you what, what I want to talk about a little bit more is sort of, I still want to talk a little bit about the future, the ports of LA and Long Beach, Long Beach and LA.

And I want, I also want a little bit of history. So in terms of imports and exports, probably more imports than anything else, the size of the port, I mean, how big, what, what is this the number one port in the united states or largest in the u.s right third third or fourth in the world i believe i believe china has one in two i think denmark is relatively like almost yeah denmark is one of them one of the they're the fully autonomous terminal that's that's where mp air

amp mole immerse comes from that's where they they automate pretty much everything but almost everyone in that country three quarters of that country have a job from that company wow okay that's interesting so my second question was this we look at the three largest ports in the world maybe let's say we're the third why aren't we the best.

There's multiple factors that come into that. Size, we're not as big, not as big as China, because China puts money back into their ports a lot, especially all the interest that we've been paying them over several years. They have this loose cash now that, huh, we can rebuild infrastructure. We can rebuild infrastructure, something that this country hasn't done in decades. Until this last administration was in. They threw money out there.

I don't know exactly where it went because we got money. I don't exactly see where it went. I don't think anybody announced. We definitely got two bridges. We got two bridges, which, okay. We got two bridges out of it. You're not talking about the main ones. Yes. Vincent and... Vince Thomas, they're about to start next year. Yeah, I think 2026. They're going to, which I'm going to kill me because I work in Long Beach a lot. And it hurt the harbor.

It's going to hurt every one of us to get to get to work. Right. I believe it was called the Henry Ford, which is the crossover. It used to be a drawbridge. It is no longer a drawbridge. The Henry Ford that is in between Terminal Island and Wilmington Long Beach area. I think I know where you're talking. It's the Henry Ford Bridge, which is considered the 47-103, which runs, I guess, north and south.

Ends at Willow in Long Beach. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then the other one is called the Desmond Howard, or at least was called the Desmond Howard. That's the bridge into Long Beach from Turnbull Island to... The White One. Yes. That was the one that really hurt us. What's that? Well, when they did both bridges at the same time. Just building them. Building two bridges at the same time. You got to get to work. Yeah. You're going to tear down two bridges to an island.

How do we get to work? Yeah. It took me 45 minutes one day, 45 minutes one day to get less than three miles. Because I had to drive all the way around. And the strip clubs and the burger joints. I know that. I know what you're talking about. Harbor City, Wilmington. I know, I know, I know all the back routes. Typically people don't know the back routes. The problem is through the back routes, there's train tracks. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of trains. Well, there has to be.

And the roads are crap. The roads are garbage. The roads are absolutely garbage. There's a lot of train tracks. And the problem, what happens quite frequently is the train will stop. It'll go forward. It'll go backwards. It'll go forward. It'll go backwards. It'll stop. Yep. For an hour. Sometimes it's 10 minutes. Sometimes it's an hour. I've lost my entire lunch break sitting there waiting for a train. It'll happen. That's why I pack my lunch. I will sit and watch it, I guess.

But yeah that's that's that's a lot sorry i forget what your what your formal question was, uh mainly just i don't even know at this point i guess it was kind of ai it was like you know how well i was a little bit back but i guess i i wanted to know more or less you know has it helped or hindered the industry i mean my question i think my latest question why isn't Port of LA and Port of Long Beach, the best in the world.

And you, you gave me a lot of answers toward that. We can move on if you want, but it's fine. We're handcuffed. Yep. We're handcuffed by red tape bureaucrats and people that want money and they want results, but they don't want to do the work. Like, okay, they redid the 710 into the port, made it much better. Is it good enough? No. Because if you go into that, it's like two lanes. Well, it's more than that. It's like, it's the fact is that bridge that they did, that Desmond Howard,

it's great, but it should have been wider. It should have been wider. The on-ramp to the 710 from the Desmond Howard bridge should have been wider. The stems that go off of it that go into the port should be wider they're not they're not wide enough because at those certain certain times when truckers are all we close the terminals close the gates they close the gates during lunch hour they close the gate between shifts.

So the trucks back up back up back up and sometimes you can't get around it might take you an hour to get through i heard they are going to make them wider but for bike lanes yeah but that's i mean i know yeah that wouldn't surprise me that's next so that wouldn't surprise me but it's i feel like everything that this the city does for the port is very half-assed it's like oh we're gonna do this but we're not gonna do it well well my problem with

the current the current state of the bureaucracy at least where we stand in the county of los Angeles, city of Los Angeles, is that, you know, I think that almost everybody we elect, other than our DA elect, I think Hockman's great, but that has nothing to really do with this. I think a lot of people we elect have great intentions and they say a lot of things that they want to do. And we say, that would be great if you could do it.

And I'm not saying they don't do anything, but they come up with these ideas. They come up with bills that they pass because we're a one party state. We can pass anything we want. And we figure out that, okay, well, you pass something without understanding or thinking about anything bad that comes along with it, right? So maybe we could get into that.

What has changed in terms of maybe legislation or just, you know, the general rule book in the past 20 years that have completely hindered the success or, you know, really any aspect, A lot of it is these politicians that have never really worked for a living. None of them have ever worked in the privates. No. That's one of my biggest problems. Primarily have never worked near the harbor or in the port. No any ins and outs of it. There are so many variables.

Everything is a variable. Truck traffic is a variable. Tide height is a variable. Wind is a variable. Rain is a variable. Granted, we don't get a lot of rain, but every single thing is a variable. And like, okay, they did two new bridges. They did a little bit for the on-ramps, off-ramps of Long Beach. It's great. But we don't have more trains. I guarantee you, I guarantee you, if we would have had more trains coming in, we would have never had that problem during COVID.

Those ships would not have sat there. And I'll tell you right now, I know for a fact how a lot of those companies got a Walmart, Target, Amazon got around those lines because we were seeing ships back to back weeks. How did they how did they get around these lines? They paid more. OK, they paid more. They paid more to skip the line. That's why costs went up. It's like a Disney park aspect. Pretty much. They basically paid more. That's why prices went up.

That's funny. Because so we were seeing ships back to back weeks.

How is this possible you know or like like okay it takes two weeks to get from china to to la two so two weeks to get back to he's here so we're seeing ships right after each other coming right back like how are you how are you skipping a line that's supposedly two months long but you were just here a month and a half ago how is that physically possible they were paying more they were paying more to skip the line to get right in front public companies walmart amazon's exclusively,

did the smart thing they started putting going to the steel dock they started going to the steel dock a steel dock does steel they don't do containers but the steel dock was all take advantage of this pay me i'll unload your containers so a lot of containers now do go to the steel dock where is the steel dock forever there are there are multiple but the one in particular that takes these is in wilmington down so they gotta they gotta go up fry street you know

I mean, they got to get through the port into Wilmington is what you're saying. Well, that's, it's around. It's just around Wilmington. Just go down Anaheim. That's the, there's, there's about four terminals that are in, that are in Wilmington. It's not, I mean, it's just other than driving through the terrible roads and dealing with all the crackheads and a lot of homeless and a lot of vagrants there. I mean, unfortunately, Wilmington should not be as poor of a community as it is.

Wilmington used to be, historically, it's one of the coolest places in Los Angeles. If you really look at it, I mean, other than the one place where you can go in Wilmington, where you can see it's like, this place used to be cool. Is that one, I mean, it's a, it looks like a plantation, but it's, you know, that old white house that's in the middle of all of it. Yes. You know, from like the civil war era. Yeah. It's been there since, you know, 1850 or so since it's been a civil war era.

And that's how you realize that it's like, oh, this is old Los Angeles. Yes. And then you see what it's become in the past 175 years or whatever. And everything around it, right around that, it's worse than all that ghost town. It looks like Iraq over there. They call that ghost town. And from what I've been told from people from Wilmington, you don't go there after dark, especially you and I, we, we look white.

Don't go there after dark. We're going to get hassled. I'm probably more white than you, to be honest with you. But now going back a little bit. So I got to wonder, is there a communication issue between union heads and the bureaucracy? Because you mentioned a lot of problems throughout our talk so far. And, you know, you should be able to rely on your union heads a little bit in order to solve these problems, or at least, you know, be vocal with them towards

the powers that be. As far as I know, we try. We try. What's a disconnect? They don't have to listen to us. They have to listen to who their donors are. That's the problem. I know. I know, okay, I know we do, because now this past couple years, we now have a guy, we've elected a member that goes to all the meetings, goes to all the city meetings, goes to all the state meetings. He goes to sit in front of Congress. So he's basically our lobbyist.

Right. Which is unfortunate that we have lobbyists at all in this country. It's pathetic that we have lobbyists. it's been like that for a while i understand it's but it's it's sad because lobbyists look out for their whoever's giving them money and they they right they they are in the ears of the people that make the most important decisions in the world so we have a guy now that we're. Getting a bill written about chassis safety which in my opinion chat chassis

safety is one of the most important things about anything. Because here's the thing. Trucks give you everything, all your goods, all your food, everything comes from a truck. And if the chassis is not safe, nobody on the road is safe.

So we have a bill now that is being pushed up to the state that we're hoping that's going to get up to Congress about chassis safety, about allowing us to repair chassis so that we can guarantee every single container on the yard on the inside that leaves the yard is going to be safe on the road for everyone all right we we do we've had people on commissions we've had not not necessarily elected officials but people that are union members

run for run for positions and they have they have been on boards it's just unfortunately. You can't control everything, especially with when it comes to the higher up and higher up officials there. Whoever we don't know who their donors are. We don't know who their allegiance is to. It's definitely not to labor. It's definitely not to the people, their constituents and the people in their community.

Because as we as we we rented out, not even us, actually, the port police who are part of ILWU rented out the cruise terminal in San Pedro. When we wanted to speak out and have a meeting against MERS going automated. And there was a person from, there was a reporter from the LA Times, and we're, unfortunately, we're always told not to talk to the press. I wouldn't talk to the LA Times. I had a gun to my head. She came up to me and asked me a question. Why are you guys on strike?

I said, we're not on strike. She goes, I thought this was a strike meeting. I turned her around and I said, look at the, they're working. Cranes were working. I said, we all had the day off. We didn't go to work today. Or we're nightsiders. We're here at this meeting because we want to talk to our officials and tell them that we don't want another automated terminal because we'd already had two at that point. We didn't want a third automated terminal.

I turned her around. I said, look at the port. Cranes are working. Trucks are moving. We're not on strike. This is not about strike.

She goes, well, we're told that this is about you asking for more money absolutely not we don't ever ask for money that's never even something that's talked about is money right we want pension benefits don't outsource our jobs, that's kind of what that's the consensus is pretty simple right i want to want to work this job for 30 years and have money when i retire right i want to have benefits and have my children covered to go to the doctors when when issues happen.

Don't take my job away and send it to another state or another country. Pretty simple. And she was, and we don't, we don't want automation because who buys homes in the community? Who buys cars? Who shops local? Apparently robots. I don't know. Well, yeah, exactly. So all these robots that are, that are doing all of our jobs are not going to recycle money back in the community. The laborers do. Workers do. We're middle-class guys. We like to look like we're living well.

We buy homes. We buy cars. We tip well. we we give back to our community we donate i think we do about 18 scholarships a year to college this one thing that's never talked about our union donates scholarships every single year our union does food drives does toy drives anytime okay when texas had their huge hurricane a few years ago when was that ted cruz ran to mexico yeah was it abilene maybe i forget i forget then we sent containers containers

of goods to them remember ted cruz when when hawaii had their fire or even when they have hurricanes hawaii is one of our sister ports.

We send goods to them we send containers full of stuff whether it be paper towels whether it be diapers formula we just send them stuff and it's not we don't ask for anything back we don't ask for media coverage we don't ask for the public to care we know we know we know our brothers and sisters are in need so we do we've sent to puerto rico we've sent we've we've sent containers to i think it was over 20 containers to puerto rico we sent about 20 to texas i don't

know the number but i'm probably assuming it's around 20 to 30 that we sent to that we sent to hawaii when we have an issue that our community has an issue we answer always like i said we send about 18 to 20 scholarships of lower income youth kids from the area to college every year it's fantastic yeah and this is not talked about ever. And we're, we're, we're, we're talking about getting a committee to do this. But do we always have the right people? And will people always listen?

Not everyone's always listening. Yeah, and I got to wonder, you think that's more of a local issue, a state issue in terms of people listening? I think it's, I mean, it goes all around. But the problem is, when you get further and further from your local area, it doesn't directly affect people or they don't think it directly affects them. So they don't... Until they see, well, yeah, you know. Like the fallout. What people don't understand is, do they know why they have a five-day work week?

Do they know why they have a 40-hour work week? Do they know- Harold Ford, right? Or not Harold Ford, Henry Bridges. Henry Ford. Or Henry Bridges. Harry Bridges. I'm sorry, Harry Bridges. The reason we have child labor laws, the reason jobs have Medicare or have benefits, the reason jobs have pension. I'm not saying, I don't know for a fact that Harry Bridges is the one that implemented all of these things, but he set the foundation for all of these things. Yeah.

And people always want to bad mouth and talk, talk shit about unions. But do they understand the benefits that unions have brought to this country? Are all unions the same? No. Yeah, I think that. And I, I have a feeling that it's generally a lot of the legacy media doing this. It's pausing. It's a lot of bad mouthing on unions being corrupt, taking advantage of people.

Said the la times came up to me and said why are you going on strike where do you get your and that mace was the first question yes where do you get your information from i said if you just turned around you could see we're working right these are just guys that have the day off or it is not their shift we're speaking up to to they were all officials that were appointed by the mayor, and they voted against us yeah three to three to three to two they said we want

automation because Because basically, who knows, and one of them was a local Wilmington girl. There was a local Wilmington girl that said, we see revenue coming in through this. What revenue? The machine revenue? I get that each, but it's all hypothetical. And that's the way they see it. These companies pay minuscule amounts of revenue to tax dollar to the city. It's minuscule.

It's because the companies are the city or the city of the state says, well, we want to have these companies here because then maybe it'll draw something else. Maybe it'll draw something else. It'll draw something else.

Okay, look at San Pedro Look at Wilmington Look at Long Beach Long Beach has some really nice areas Because Long Beach puts a lot of revenue back into Long Beach This area that they're building in Pedro, Port of Call They've been talking about that for over 20 years When you choose to earn your degree online From Southern New Hampshire University You're saying yes to new opportunities and new adventures You're saying yes to something big And something you

always wanted to do If earning your degree is one of your goals this new year shnu can help you get there with low online tuition no set class times and multiple term starts per year you can set the pace that works for you and save money along the way visit shnu.edu today and to get started tell them we sent you thanks all right so to finish our conversation off right i want to talk about a couple things so we have a future generation that's going to,

i don't want to say you know take your job but they're going to be a big shoes they're going to fill the shoes of what you're doing now now i have a couple questions in terms of that right and let's say you know i'm a 20 year old or an 18 year old who doesn't want to go to a four-year liberal arts college to get a degree in whatever you can make 60 grand if that and it doesn't even pay that well. Yeah, I think if that. We can get into whether or not, I think it's a scam. But.

What would you tell that person? And let's say, I want to do what you're doing right now. What would be the pathway? Where would I think about looking at the educational aspect of it or the apprenticeship aspect of it? Where do you get started and what is the pathway? The path I chose is a hard road. I was a casual for 11 years, an ID for five years, been an A-book for almost five years. So overall, I've been almost 21 years doing this trade. I'm still on probation.

I have been a crane mechanic. I've been a chassis mechanic. I've been a reefer mechanic. It's fun. All the jobs are fun. Everything is ever evolving, ever changing. You can learn new stuff every day. I do rigging. I work in a ship gang. I do the heavy steel, all the heavy infrastructure. You can tell what president is in office and what their focus is by what type of steel work, break bulk work comes into the port. Typically under Republican office, when Republicans are in office,

we don't get as much. We get more containers, more stuff comes in a container. When Democrats are in office, they pay for more infrastructure. We get more steel, more stuff for buildings. Like I did part of the Ram Stadium. I've done all the beams. What I knew prior to, when, as soon as Biden got elected, I knew infrastructure was coming in. They knew the infrastructure bill was going to get passed, we got a lot of steel. A lot of steel. Just for bridges, for overpasses, for freeways.

We got a lot of that type of work, which is what I like to do. For the younger generation coming in, get a trade. Get a trade. Learn how to fix stuff. Learn how to fix stuff because there's not always going to be someone that knows how to do it. Find one that you really like, whether it be electrical, whether it be plumbing, whether it be fabricating, whether it be mechanics. Find one you really like. Get really good at it. Yeah. And find a specialty because there will always be a need.

Here's the thing. I had a job interview handful of years ago before I got registered as a longshoreman. I was applying everywhere, everywhere trying to get a job because I just found out my girl was pregnant and I didn't have a full-time job. And I was applying for Caterpillar and I had already had a semester of hydraulics.

And then I took, because I liked the hydraulics, I took the advanced caterpillar hydraulics class and I did well I got A's in both of them and and it was funny because I was with a few Toyota guys and it was funny because those guys could never figure it out and they'd go over to the teacher to try to ask him you know we're stuck here we're stuck here and the teacher would always look at him say go ask the kid and they'd come over to me did you figure it out yeah and I'd give them the answer.

So when I got the interview from Caterpillar, I went into Santa Fe. I believe it was Santa Fe Cat right off the 605. And the guy sat me down. The first thing he said was, I'm really impressed with your resume, with all the education that you already have. All of our guys are old. They're all in their 60s. They're all ready to retire. We have no new blood coming in. So it's almost like there's a missing generation that just completely did not

go into training. They took shop classes out of high schools. Yeah. I took auto shop. I took machine shop. I took plastics. I took wood shop. I took drafting. I took all those classes. Now they don't offer any of them. None of the schools. Yeah. You know, the only thing close to home shop that we did at my high school, which doesn't really come close. And I still, I don't talk to the teacher, but man, he was a great guy. Reeked of an ashtray, but nice man, really. Older guy, probably about 60.

And he did, he would make the sets for our musicals and plays or whatever. We did like one play and musical a year or something at our high school. And there was, you know, a class you could take. I think it was a junior or senior year. You know, when you were taking like more electives, it was more specific. It was basically Woodshop where you were creating sets for the musical. And I think I did it, I took at least a semester or a quarter, whatever. of doing it.

But even then, that's the closest we got to really anything in terms of the traits. That's, and that was the only thing offered. I unfortunately didn't take advantage of the stuff when I was in high school. I took all the classes, but I played football and I messed around a lot. So like, I passed the classes, but barely. Well, I did the same in a way. But I very much regret not taking advantage of those classes and getting a better skill that I had to learn in my twenties on my own.

But so when I went to this dealership, this Santa Fe cat and the manager sat there and told me, he goes, we got no new blood coming in. All of our guys are old. They're all retiring. We have no new blood coming in. So he offered me an apprenticeship program where I was going to be a journeyman for Caterpillar. I had to go to school for six weeks in acting. And then I'd come back for six weeks and I was gonna make $16 an hour.

And then after, And when, when was this a 20, 2000, 2014, I believe no 2013. Cause it was right before my son was born. It was $16 an hour while I was going to school and six weeks I was going to school. Then six weeks I was working at the dealership. I was making 60, $16 an hour while I was working at a dealership. Then I could claim unemployment or something like that while I was going to school. And that seems like a trap to me. So after two years, I, I would have a job at the dealership.

And after the next three years of working at the dealership, I would be a journeyman for Caterpillar, which meaning what they're saying is if there's ever any opening at any Caterpillar dealership, and you apply, it's your job. You get it over another mechanic that is not a Caterpillar journeyman. And did these pay rates vary? No, he said, with all my annual raises, I would max out at $28 an hour. It's not bad for time. No, it's not good for a skilled worker.

$28 an hour, that's 35, 36 grand a year. Depends on the hour. I mean, this is today, But this is anywhere between, depends on the job. I'm a general handyman and I do some inventory, but it's anywhere between per hour. I, I clock out minus expenses about 48 to 55 anywhere. See, but that's double $28 for a guy that can fix an outrigger, that can fix heavy machinery. That, that is much more skilled. That's, yes, that's heavy. I'm putting in that cabinetry. I'll

give you that. That's five years of education and on the job training. So that's best. That's education and on-the-job training, and I'm maxing out at $28 an hour? So you're telling me- Were the benefits there? I mean, no. I mean, I'm sure they weren't great. I didn't get further into that conversation because making $40,000 a year, I called. At the time, I was going to, no, I'd already gone to and graduated WyoTech Automotive, which was a scam of a school.

What's it called? WyoTech. Don't go there, folks. Anyway, go ahead. Well, at least the one in Long Beach, they closed it down because it was a scam. Okay. So I called one of my instructors, an instructor that I respected, that was knowledgeable on many trades, had many jobs. He was a crane mechanic, you know, traveling around the world doing that. I called him and told him the opportunity that I was given. And when I told him the pay rate, he said, absolutely not.

He goes, you're having a kid right now? He goes, absolutely not. He goes, you're going to be below the poverty level, making 40 grand a year, working five, six days a week. You know, eight hour days making 40 to 50 grand a year. He's like, that's not, that's not a good rate. He's like, you can't raise a child like that. So I called the guy and I told him I was great opportunity. I say, I'm thanking him for it, but you got to work with me somehow.

He tried to do something different to have me go to school in Cerritos. So I was closer. And I just said, you're just, your pay rates are just our garbage. I said, you know, this is why you, you don't have no, any new blood coming in because these guys, it was great for them 25 years ago, $20. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. You haven't given them, you haven't raised their rates.

So they need to retire. Now you had no new blood coming in. If you're not even starting at 35 to 40 an hour, that's not reasonable. And you're starting me at 16 and I worked up to 28. Right. I was like, if I had got this opportunity at 19, 20 years old, absolutely. But he was gave me this opportunity at 28 years old and i had a kid on the on the way yeah so it just it it. But it didn't make sense. What I'm saying is kids are this new generation coming in.

I had a meeting a few months ago with one of the actually few of the upper ups in the port, the top tops of the tops and the port. And the first thing the guy said in the statement was this new generation is garbage. He said they are not hard workers. There's complain about everything and they don't want to work. They don't understand. Now, are we talking millennials or Gen Z?

I am not or both i am not i i i think it's it's it's both probably i guess i'm considered gen y, which would technically be considered a millennial because i was born in 84 so yeah you're a millennial so i guess i'm a millennial but like i feel like i grew up playing outside you're but i'm on that you're close to jacks i'm on that cusp where that's who i was raised by that's who i hung out with i hung out with gen xers we were outside every day

yeah cell phones became a thing when i was a teenager i never messed with computers until after the fact till it became so like it was already there like people like oh now the internet's already a thing but it's the fact is we need to work people need to learn how to fix stuff if you don't know how to fix stuff.

Where are you gonna go you need somebody pay somebody you have to pay somebody well if you have to make a make a good living fixing very easy things to be honest with you but a lot of it is skilled trade as well yes but you know and i think it's an la thing to be honest with you because i feel like the amount of times i've gotten called for some somebody asking me hey will you mount a tv and it's like everybody should know how to do this everybody

should have three drills hammer drill impact driver and a drill driver everybody should just have those three and look up on youtube how do i use said drills to mount a freaking tv my sister-in-law and her sorry sorry to interrupt you my sister-in-law and her boyfriend were moving back up north or up north to Oregon and she wanted she wanted to make sure her car was good in working order taken care of before she drove it up there that's fine

she's like well the thing is I need to do my brakes and my boyfriend doesn't know how to do them can you show them how to change out brake yes that's a fairly it's not terrible it's fairly simple it's fairly so I I showed him I I came he came to my house I showed him what to do. I showed him how to change the front brakes. I looked at his back brakes. I said, your back brakes are fine. He's like, you don't want to change them now? I said, it's up to you.

I go, if you want to change them now, we can. I think they're fine. I think you're going to have a few more months, but now you know how to do the fronts. The backs are going to be just as simple. And I explained to him, I showed him everything to do. I gave him a few little tricks. I, you know, changed her oil. I fixed her valance panel that was broken, flopping around. And, but the fact that people don't own tools. Nobody does. Other than a screwdriver. Before you even.

YouTube is the most amazing thing. I use YouTube. It's fabulous. Or I like to watch four or five videos. Does this guy have a better trick than that guy? Or are they all the same? Everybody's got their own trick. And right. And, and you kind of just mesh with the guy who, you know, they could all be, everybody's got their own way of doing maybe one thing. And what I realized about YouTube is, is sort of what you're saying is you look, you watch five videos of the same thing.

Let's say, per example, changing a tire. Right. There's, there's a hundred different ways to change a tire, but you know, you watch five different videos, you find this guy. It's like, well, that's, that's what I can do with the tools I have.

Let's say. yeah it's it's basically you you find you find people that are trying to give advice to the world and that's what's great about youtube and then you pick the one guy who's like okay well that's what i can most relate to and i don't think anybody's using it for that anymore or you know anymore i don't i don't like using it enough guys that i feel are.

That are that are I feel like guys that are that are good at what they do or have little nifty tricks I'll follow them I'll subscribe them I'll follow them so that they'll pop up in my feed oh that's a nice nifty little trick I don't necessarily need something as specific but like oh I'll say I follow a couple guys that are like you know how to get it how to get a wrench in a tight spot and it's like it's just something that

it's a nifty to have a trick well it's a generational thing where it everything all these skills need to be passed on right and like I was saying earlier, I think we almost skipped a generation where that just wasn't a thing with this deletion of woodshop. You know, you don't, growing up or working in trades, even, I mean, being an apprentice.

You know, you're getting less and less of this older generation kind of, you know, stepping their foot into what you're doing and telling you, look, you know, I see how you're doing something and let me tell you how you can do it better, more efficient and quicker.

Pretty much always an easier or more efficient way to do it to do everything and i don't know i just don't know if that's common practice anymore i just i feel like the desire isn't there anymore like i i my first job when i was 14 years old i worked in my uncle's cabinet shop i learned how to build cabinets you know when then once i i didn't really have many jobs until i got out of high school and then you know i i was a waiter did it did you know did the hosting thing to the server thing.

Then I jumped in the port, worked on tugboats, oil barges, worked on the docks as a longshoreman. But I saw that I didn't know how to fix stuff. And my dad made a statement to me that stuck with me when I was about 19, 20 years old. He said, you will not retire a longshoreman like I will. And I didn't understand what that meant until one day I was working a clerical job where computers were becoming new. Like they were implementing more computers now. And.

Everything kept computers kept failing. They kept breaking down. You'd have to do, you know, press control, alt, delete, you know, reboot it, turn it off, turn it back on all this stuff. But then also that day I had my top handler who picks up the containers, stacks containers in the yard, broke down three times and all three times an individual had to come out, do a couple. I don't know what he did in there, but he had to do a couple of things. Got it running again. So that's what he means.

They will always need that guy. That guy will always be needed. So I went to school. I have 16 certificates from automotive, diesel, refrigeration, fiber optics. I'm 2G, 3G, 4G welding certified in every position and limited thickness. And California's standards is more stringent than the rest of the nation. I was on a belt one time with a guy I met from the Midwest that was a welder. And I told him I'm 2G, 3G, 4G certified in California.

He looked at me like, wow, you're up here. Because our standards here in this state are higher than standards. Oh, yeah, in other states. You know, I know that pretty much my certificates would supersede any other state. So I could move to another state and show them my certificates and they'd say, and they would just look at my cert and like, oh, you're good. Or just throw a bead for me real quick. Let's see what you got. And then, yeah, you're good.

Well, I do want to wrap it up and say our farewells to Brad here.

I think that this was a great conversation. Now, you can follow my business, Frank of All Trades, on Google, Yelp, Nextdoor, and Instagram. If you want to reach out to be a guest, you can message me on our Instagram account, talkofalltradespod, all one word. That's talkofalltradespod. And as usual, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe and follow for more great content. We want to thank Brad again. Sorry for ending abruptly, but we're on a time schedule and we really have some

great content for this episode. So I hope you enjoy it. Thanks, folks. Bye-bye.