Women’s jobs, men’s jobs – is there still a difference? No, says Lina-Marie Frank from the Riem road maintenance department. For the 19-year-old, choosing a career is not a question of gender, but one of self-confidence: “I think more girls should have the courage to try something out or just do exactly what they want,” says Frank. In July of last year she completed her training as a road attendant – making her the only woman in this job in Upper Bavaria.
“I’ve always been good with my hands,” says Frank, who grew up on her parents’ farm in Lengdorf in the Erding district. She was fascinated by tractors from an early age and accompanied her father when he worked on the farm. “Actually, I wanted to learn mechanics or work as a bricklayer in construction,” she says. But then she came across the job as a road attendant through an advertisement from the state building authority. Since then she has been around a lot on the streets in the district of Munich, which the road maintenance depot in Riem is responsible for looking after and maintaining.
And what exactly do you have to do there? “At the moment we are doing a lot of wood maintenance. That means cutting trees, clearing dead wood from the road, but also winter service and small repair work.” For Frank, the advantages of this work are obvious: “You don’t always do the same thing. The work is seasonal, but each task is very individual.” Tending to trees is one of her favorite tasks, she says, and she also appreciates the team spirit and the “handling of many different machines”. On the other hand, she doesn’t like everything that has to do with gullies. “The problem is: I don’t like spiders. Drains are full of them. Sure, I’ll do it if it has to be done, but I’m dreading it.”
She has more than 10,000 followers on her Instagram account
Lina-Marie Frank also likes to work with machines in her free time. “I’m outside a lot and ride a motorcycle,” she says, “a KTM.” On her Instagram account @schwesterinorange she posts impressions of her everyday work and provides information about the job of a road attendant. In one picture, she poses with her arms crossed in front of an orange tractor. On another, she is at the wheel of a truck. The fresh breeze she brings to the road maintenance department seems to arouse interest: Frank already has more than 10,000 followers and a reach of up to 1.5 million users with each post.
A typical working day for the road attendant begins between 6 and 7 a.m. with the assignment of work, then the team loads the appropriate tools and drives to the site. She doesn’t get crooked looks from her male colleagues, but rather from bystanders: “Sometimes people have a problem with a woman doing the same work on the construction site as the men, even though they have nothing to do with it themselves .”
Frank doesn’t understand that, on the contrary: She couldn’t imagine a better working atmosphere. “Women solve problems differently than men. Men often shout at each other for a moment, and that’s it. Women tend to make a fuss.” Is she a feminist? Frank shakes his head indecisively. “I support that,” she says. “But you don’t have to overdo it either.” She suspects that the reason why there are so few women in her profession is that hardly anyone knows about the job. “But there are already a lot of girls in the trades in general. I’m happy about that.”
Lina-Marie Frank is sitting in the road maintenance office’s winter service office. Soon she has to go and drive a truck full of concrete foundations to the recycling plant. What was your motto again? Do what you feel like doing. “My goal in life is to be at peace with myself,” says Lina-Marie Frank. “To be what I think is right.” She thinks for a moment and then adds: “I actually already am.”