Female electrician gets dismissed from a job due to her gender: 'Is there somebody else?'

The world works on unfair terms when it comes to women claiming their spaces, whether it’s in their professional or personal lives. All over the world, women are raising their voices and sharing their experiences to make it in a man’s world that seems to have very little space for a woman doing what she wants. Lexi Abreu—who goes by @lexi_abreu on TikTok—a female electrician who got fired from a job for being a woman shared her experience of misogyny in her line of work. She says, “You think that we get all the perks and things are handed to us and life is easy. And I have a nice little story time for you about that. That just happened to me just now.”

She then narrates the incident where she went for a regular 200 amp panel change at a customer’s house where her basement flooded with water, which then affected the panel and rusted it. She adds that panel changes are her “specialties” and she “was going to do that.” However, when she reached the customer’s house, the customer asked if anyone else was joining and Abreu replied in the negative, to which the customer confusedly asked again, “It’s just you?” The customer, with “No offense,” then went on to ask whether “somebody else” could do the job, like “the gentleman that came out to do the estimate” because he had elaborated on how “complicated” the issue was.

To this strange discussion, Abreu responded, “Yeah, absolutely. It is complicated. But for somebody who does this on a daily basis, it’s totally standard. And I’ve done a million like these.” It wasn’t believable to the customer and so she counter-questioned and asked for clarity and Abreu responded, “Not a million. But you know, I’ve done my fair share, like, I’ve probably done at least two to three this month alone.” However, the lady was still unsure and said apologetically that she wanted to give Abreu’s “office a call” because she wasn’t “comfortable.”

Abreu didn’t have an issue with that and the lady called the office to say, “I’ve been waiting for months. And I’m spending a lot of money doing this. And I just don’t feel comfortable. Is there somebody else that can do it?” Hearing the woman’s concerns, Abreu offered that her 19-year-old brother was also an electrician and does the same job, but he’s just an “apprentice.” The woman was quick to accept and asked, “When is he available?”

In the video, Abreu can be seen making a face and folding her hands at the end of this narration and saying, “No, you didn’t!” She then went on to reveal that she got this “all of the time,” especially from “older women.” She further added that she understood that “back then it was different and women didn’t do that, but it’s 2023. And I’m coming to your house. That means I’m fully capable of doing it.”

She then elaborated that the woman felt that since her “entire house runs on this panel,” it was a “big deal.” Ultimately, she gave up and told the woman that she would “get in contact with her brother and see when he can come out and do this” and also apologized to the lady, but the lady said that she “was not” sorry or had any “hard feelings” because she “needed to make sure that it was well done” without “any issues.” Abreu expressed her frustration in the end and said what she felt like saying at that moment was, “If you don’t stop f****** talking, I’m gonna- whatever.”

She finally concluded that the “moral of the story” was that although there are women who do take advantage of being in a male-dominated industry, the ones who are genuinely trying to be in a male-dominated industry and “want to be taken seriously” are required to work harder than the “average male” to prove their worth and also tolerate gender bias like the one she faced. She then said, “Like really lady? Our company is fully licensed and insured. Even if I was a dumb girl who didn’t know what she was doing and did your panel, it would be fully insured and if there were any issues, somebody would come and fix it. Did you really? Did you really have to say that? Really?”

Abreu definitely had a huge point to make at the end of her video and the comment section agreed with her. ​​@purplelucy8410 said, “1000 percent, I want YOU, a licensed electrician, over an apprentice.” Another user, a female fighter @aussie_hijinks, said, “Female firefighter here- I get asked all the time what I do for the fire dept. Umm…I just cook and clean for the guys. Argh!”