Built to Work: Episode 3: Marcos Alvarado Martinez | Premier Scrap Services

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uUkhh9xKcg

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Welcome to Built To Work the podcast that gets its hands dirty dives into the grid and uncovers the heart of what makes the blue-collar world tick I'm Colin your host and I'm sitting down with the people who keep our world running from those tackling the tough jobs no one else dares to do to the HR professionals working overtime to find the labor force we desperately need Whether you're in the trenches or behind the scenes this podcast is for anyone who values hard work determination and the stories that build the backbone of our workforce So grab your gloves your coffee or your clipboard It's time to get to work Marcos thank you so much for taking some time to sit down with me Whoa we got a shaky table here 

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all right so 

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like I was telling you I just wanna get a chance to get to know 

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some of our employees talk about what you guys do 'cause you're really the ones that make all the work happen So 

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tell me a little bit about yourself and tell us what you do for Premier All right So first of all I ha- I've been working 

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for Premier like 2 years and some months Okay Awesome And when I started working with Premier I started working as a team lead 

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there was a second shift It was from 4:00 PM to 2:00 AM let's say Those are long nights That was my first work that I did there Yeah But 

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probably after one year they shut down that shift- 

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because something happened there So I was moved to another building Okay Yeah So and 

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currently work I'm doing there is just sorting out some materials- Okay from different buildings the ICW Scherer and CAM building and metal building All the material are taken to one place that is warehouse Uh-huh So what I do there is to to clean all the dirty material Clean all the dirty material Yeah Okay yeah yeah It's like 

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take apart 

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Okay from the the dirty and put in different boxes Okay Clean copper clean- 

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brass clean yellow red Okay yeah Many things that I've played at yeah Okay Awesome Yeah Awesome 

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so outside of Premier So tell m- tell me about yourself outside of when you're working for Premier You got family Like tell me tell me what you got going on outside of Premier Yeah Yeah absolutely Yeah I got a a small small kid Okay How old Yeah He's Right now he's gonna turn 

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8 Okay this next years I January 1st Okay That's awesome Yeah a married person Yeah But all my family is living still living in my country Okay In yeah Nicaragua Nicaragua okay All right Yeah so I'm alone here So you're all Oh that's hard That's why this Premier has been very important for me because I have found a family in there all the team all the group there you know We feel like all family helping- 

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each other and having many things in common you know Yeah Oh that's- Yeah that's so great to hear I'm I'm glad that they're- in your family because it really can become a family so Yeah 

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we are here having ice cream because you just got done with work and- there's no coffee shops in these small towns in- in rural Ohio that are open so as as odd as it may seem just trying to find a place we are 

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Do you like do you really like coffee or something else No I do not like coffee I don't so this actually works for me Ice cream's like my favorite thing I prefer I prefer drinking coffee when the the weather is cold Uh-huh 

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very often in the morning Yeah But I'm I'm no good at drinking coffee you know No No I've just started getting into drinking some teas like before I go to bed 

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but yeah coffee it just tastes like burned bean water to me And sometime when sometime we get stressed or tired- 

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we needed something energetic so in that case I take a cup of coffee 

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So- Yeah 'cause I need to be energetic you know Yeah I've just gone into the energy drinks you know just just leaning into those for the caffeine so Yeah yeah Yeah 

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so you've been with Premier a couple years started as a lead Now you've transitioned once that shift was shut down you're doing more 

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some some sorting work 

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kind of once the like a secondary sort on the material 

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so you know what is one way that you you know find that you have success with Premier or you know enjoying your work right 'Cause I know sometimes it can be tedious right Yeah There's one thing that we we were talk Oh I was talking to a friend of mine- 

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who is working the same place with me and I asked him "Hey do you enjoy your job?" 

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He said "Yes I do." And I said and I ask he because sometimes what happen is probably the work could be easy- 

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but if you don't enjoy it- Yeah so that's mess Yeah It's a mess So one thing that I have found in Premier even and BlueScope is I enjoy the job 

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Yeah Okay That's that's great to hear That's helped too you know to get successful 

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Successful is that Yeah No 

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being able to enjoy your work is great and that's that's great to hear that you do enjoy it I hear so many people that have easy jobs or hard jobs and they just they they hate what they do or they never want to go to work They just complain I've been in those jobs 

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when I don't like them Yeah Um-But that's why you know the opportunity to you know have 

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you know steward Premier in the right direction is you know we wanna make sure that our employees don't hate their jobs And the one thing in Premier is also you got opportunity to talk to your boss in our case with Giselle and- 

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and we can share our experience in saying that "I we don't feel comfortable with doing this." 

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Eh you know that's that's help because you feel like there is someone who can understand your job and you and that makes you feel better Yeah Yeah You know No Absolutely Yeah No That you bring up a great point I mean Giselle 

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she is an awesome part of our team and she works with all you guys doing the labor services and you know communicates with you guys to make sure you guys are getting taken care of your needs are getting met 

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so I'm very thankful for her that you can communicate 

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with her So 

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I'm glad that you do enjoy your job and safe you're doing it safely right Yeah Don't wanna be put in an unsafe situation 

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if there was one thing This is just let's you know think of some fun things here If there's one thing that could be done to make your job more fun what might that be What do you think Mm Well I don't know How do I explain that 'Cause one one thing that I I can consider consider is that as I said bef- like I said before enjoying 

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If you enjoy enjoying you have fun doing your job- Yeah also 'Cause when you find that y- 

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that that work is so hard or something that you don't feel that you fit in- 

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probably you will never find fun So yeah Okay Yeah I I think a lot of times I enjoy the work because I enjoy who I'm working with more than sometimes the actual work right It's it's all about the community around you and the people so 

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so you're you're a long ways from home here 

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Do you miss the food from home Yeah absolutely One day one day we were talking to I I was talking to I say well because sometime I I talk to Mateo also and say "Hey ya." One day I was talking to him and said "Let's ask our boss Giselle bring us some nacatamales." Uh-huh Nacatamales are 

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popular food in my country Okay And all the Nicaraguan people love it Uh-huh So we miss that food and and we say I I told Giselle "When you come to Mansfield again please let us to know and bring us some nacatamales." Okay But you know she's Mexican so she doesn't know what's naca- She doesn't know your type of tamales right It's 0 They have tamales 

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But we got nacatamales Nacatamales Okay So so they're different So different Okay All right I've never heard of 'em Yeah I've never heard of 'em so So different Yeah Okay No That's great 

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No so that's that's wonderful How you how you think about that stuff I've spent some extended time 

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abroad in Mexico specifically and 

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yeah I get to I've been down there for a while and it's like 

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yeah I'm kind of missing some of my American food." 

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And I go to a restaurant it's like "Oh yeah We have cheeseburgers." That's like the most American thing And 

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it's like "Oh these aren't American cheeseburgers." ......... So I understand what you're saying Do you find it 

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yeah Yes but it's not the same Really It's not the same Yeah But- That is the the thing that happen when the American try to cook Mexican- 

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food like burritos 

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There are American burritos and Mexican burritos Yeah So I enjoy Mexican burritos 

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They taste very different Than American burritos Yeah No It's it's so funny the way that that we do that with food I love food It's it's like my favorite thing to talk about I could talk about food food all day Are you a foodie Oh yes Very much so Yeah Oh really I I didn't get to be the size I am by not being a foodie So We 

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My my wife and I whenever we travel 

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we try to find 'Cause we take in our 2 kids with us on long road trips and we wanna eat quick but I don't wanna get like McDonald's So sometimes we're always looking for like a Chinese buffet to stop at So like you know these kinda like cheap Chinese buffets you can get in get out doesn't cost very much money to feed the kids And 

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we're like "Hey we were in Mexico." It's like "Oh let's find a Chinese buffet We could really go to that." And it was so funny to me because it was very similar but different than the Chinese buffets in America 

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But in America the- they're they're very much they're Chinese and they speak some English 

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But there they were Chinese and they spoke some Spanish and I don't speak very good Spanish so there was no communication going on between between us at all You know what My kid call me chef- 

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because I used to live with with him- 

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in the house in the country and my wife used to go to work so when she was coming back to home we had all the dinner ready 

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So I I used to ask him "Hey 

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help me to slice the onion," something like that But I'm not good at cooking Uh-huh I'm not good at cooking but 

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I try to do it 

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So that's why my kid say "You're the chef." Oh that's awesome Well we gotta talk about some American barbecue then because that's that's my passion 'cause I'm from Kansas City and Kansas City is one of the cities that has really good barbecue so- Oh really Yeah So that's my passion but that's a story for another time so Yeah yeah 

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Marcos I really appreciate your time It was very nice to get to meet you Thank you so much for sitting down with me and thank you for all you do for Premier We appreciate you very much Thank you Thank you Uh-huh I'm so happy being here and invite us to come here and having this time with a person like you- Yeah 'cause I know there are many people very important people in Premier you know but we don't have the ch- the chance to having this kind of meeting Yes So that's why I said "That's great." That's a great idea having a good time with a person like you Well thank you so much Well I'll tell you what- Yeah you're the most important part of Premier 'cause you're the one actually doing the work so Well we try to do our our best Well thank you so very much Yeah I do appreciate it Thank you too Okay