Sini-Sofia was sur­prised to dis­cov­er the pro­fes­sion of her dreams: ”I fell in love with weld­ing”

You can find your dream job unex­pect­ed­ly. That’s how it hap­pened for Sini-Sofia Trast, who is now unable to even imag­ine a more agree­able occu­pa­tion for her­self. “I love my work as a welder”, she says. “I’m lucky to have had a chance to try out weld­ing.”

Ten years ago, Sini-Sofia Trast stud­ied to become a media assis­tant and com­plet­ed her intern­ship at Oulu City The­atre. One day at the the­atre, Sini-Sofia was asked to weld a brack­et for a spot­light. It was her first encounter with weld­ing, and she was pro­vid­ed with guide­lines on how to do it.

“I had nev­er weld­ed before, but from that moment on I knew that this was my thing. After train­ing I called many busi­ness­es in Oulu right away and inquired about work as a welder. I said I was inex­pe­ri­enced, but that I was inter­est­ed in learn­ing every­thing. I fell in love with weld­ing!”

Sini-Sofia applied to return to the Oulu City The­atre through work­ing life train­ing in weld­ing. How­ev­er, in order to obtain a per­ma­nent job, she was required to obtain a diplo­ma, and sub­se­quent­ly she applied to study in the field at the Oulu Adult Edu­ca­tion Cen­tre (OAKK). She also bor­rowed books in the sec­tor from the library for inde­pen­dent study.

Trav­el abroad by means of LinkedIn

In less than two years, she obtained a basic qual­i­fi­ca­tion in sheet met­al weld­ing. In addi­tion to school, she put in a few weeks of work that required a weld­ing clas­si­fi­ca­tion – and which Sini-Sofia man­aged to pass with­out a sin­gle com­plaint.

“One of the most enjoy­able things at school was learn­ing how to use machines in a vari­ety of ways. It was also easy, and I quick­ly learned, for exam­ple, how to use a disc cut­ter and a plas­ma machine. My know-how in com­put­ers was use­ful in that.”

One month after her grad­u­a­tion, she received a hap­py phone call from her for­mer teacher: an Oulu-based busi­ness enter­prise had inquired about a welder for a longer-term posi­tion.

“At the start, I worked at the same com­pa­ny for four years. Even so, I did not real­ly enjoy my work­place and decid­ed to apply for a job at the Euro­pean Research Cen­tre for Par­ti­cle and Nuclear Physics [Euro­pean Orga­ni­za­tion for Nuclear Research — Cern].”

Sini-Sofia man­aged to obtain salaried employ­ment at Cern via the LinkedIn ser­vice.

After a year of work­ing abroad, she began to miss the north, a cool­er cli­mate, and her close rel­a­tives.

“Your phys­i­cal con­di­tion improves at work”

At the moment, Sini-Sofia is employed by an Oulu-based machine shop enter­prise, Sah-Ko. The job descrip­tion also includes trav­el­ling round the near­by areas of Oulu as well as else­where in Fin­land. She has worked both at the Ter­rafame mine and in the con­struc­tion project con­nect­ed with Oulu’s new hos­pi­tal.

”My job is not just weld­ing – it also involves upkeep and main­te­nance. The best part of this work is its diver­si­ty, the vari­ety of job descrip­tions, and great col­leagues.”

It’s no prob­lem for Sini-Sofia that she is one of the rare female welders work­ing for Sah-Kol­la. In her view, work­ing along­side men is easy­go­ing and fun.

”It’s unfor­tu­nate in itself that there aren’t more women in the indus­try. A welder’s work suits women well, because many women are also skil­ful and pre­cise with their hands, and we also fit into tight quar­ters. A small hand slips well into a wide vari­ety of crevices.”

”I actu­al­ly like to squeeze into tight places! One’s phys­i­cal con­di­tion also devel­ops at work, and train­ing at a gym is not nec­es­sar­i­ly required.”

”You don’t need to live from hand to mouth”

Sini-Sofia is eager to do shift work. Sun­day bonus­es and over­time pay increase salary pay­ments nice­ly, she notes.

Work­days occa­sion­al­ly demand a lot: Sini-Sofia may under­take 12-hour shifts and work for more than a week at a time.

The most chal­leng­ing thing accord­ing to Sini-Sofia is the use of phys­i­cal force. In some sit­u­a­tions, she would like to have more strength, and may well ask for help from her col­leagues.

In her free time, she appre­ci­ates time for sports and her dog in addi­tion to mas­sage and good-qual­i­ty sleep.

”In weld­ing and instal­la­tion jobs, you needn’t live from hand to mouth. I’m sat­is­fied with the wages.”