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Welcome to the GiltTrips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and

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gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join

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me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's

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tune in on these topics and get golden. It took years of growing my career and just as

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many to formulate some hindsight to come to the conclusion that my apprenticeship at the

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beginning of my adventure was the perfect combination of light and dark. In today's episode,

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I'm going to talk about how I decided I was ready for one, the steps that I took, what

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I brought to the table before, who I became after, and the skills I picked up along the

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way, both positive and ones that were learned in the shadows. So I had been a designer and

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a salesperson for my first professional job. And after a certain amount of time there and

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some friction around success with the manager, I decided the next step was to move on and

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develop my bench skills. While I thought that I came to the game with a decent foundation,

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I would later learn that what I was taught in undergrad wouldn't necessarily make the

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cut. I'll come back to that later. So I didn't have much chance or choice around

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resigning from the position that I was holding at the time. The manager had gone low and

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called my clients on my day off to come and pick up their project that wasn't going to

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be ready for another two days. And I had told them that. So it seemed like surprise. They're

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early. Kendra's not here. But come on in and pick them up. So it was definitely a detrimental

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experience in the client relationship. When I came back from my day off and found out

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that the manager said, Oh, your clients came in early to pick up their rings, but they weren't

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ready. And I said, why would they come in early when I told them I'd see them Friday or Saturday?

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And they showed up on Wednesday. The clients generously and graciously shared they received

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a call from my manager. There are times to attempt to reboot and refresh a relationship

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with somebody in an authority position. And there are times to realize this is smoke and

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whether smoke there's fire time to go. So I left without anything in the works. Fortunately,

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I was able to go and collect some more hours at my original part time job in the dental

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office while I could come up with a strategy. And the strategy was let's go into a certain

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suburb in Chicago that was famous for being artisans, as well as showrooms of jewelry.

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I'd grown up there. And since this was now my career choice, why not figure out how to

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belong? All I really had left from my position as a salesperson and a designer was a sketchbook,

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a couple dozen photos, and a few pieces that I was working on just in materials wasn't even close

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to being assembled. So I had components that I could use to speak with. I summoned all the

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curiosity, growth and magic that I know I hold within me. And this was a time before the internet

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or smartphones. So I simply picked a bunch of stores that I was going to walk into and ask to

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speak to the owner. And from there decide if they had time to see me on the spot, or if we could

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book a second appointment to go over some of the things that I'd accomplished. And what I was

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looking for as far as the next step in my career, opportunities that were already in the works,

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or ones that could be created, so that there was some sort of partnership that could happen.

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Does that sound a little ambitious for a 24 year old? Sure, except I'd been working since I was

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12. So conversations that revolved around value propositions, or risk, or opportunity cost,

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or shooting your shot weren't unfamiliar to me. Thank God. The one goldsmithing showroom that I

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ended up getting chosen by asked me, up front after seeing everything that I brought to the

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table, well, what can you actually do vocationally? And I answer that question from my education.

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Well, I can anodize aluminum wire, I can etch a penny, I can, da da da da. And he said,

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great, those aren't translatable skills. But he saw some potential, and did take me on as an

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apprentice, and also said, we need to immediately put you into a jewelry class at the art center.

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I'm not going to tell you that that was the cure all. I didn't necessarily learn things that immediately

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made me somebody who was a commercial goldsmith. But it definitely added to the library, but it

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definitely expanded upon the types of things I was being taught at college regarding metals,

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and esoteric techniques that helped transition me to my future of being a bench jeweler.

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The first skill that I was taught was polishing, and learned to take a project that had gone

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through several steps beforehand into its home stretch. Is this going to get hand polished? Is

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it going to be buffed and then finished? Is there going to be a technique on top of the

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metal? Will it be sent out later for engraving? Is there going to be any touch ups after other

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vendors? That was an important thing to start at. To this day, I will give him credit for beginning

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me at the beginning of my learning curve, even though it was the tail end of a project to be

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delivered. With polishing, I definitely had to learn a level of control and precision and timing,

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as well as force or pressure between what I was holding onto and the machine that was doing the

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work. I also got a fantastic education in the form of what our favorite polishing compounds would

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be, which wheels were the best ones for which jobs. And this would make sense later for when I went

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independent. The next skill that I was tasked with was sizing. And it was a blind task,

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which is common talk for show us what you know, and we'll teach into your blind spots. So I was

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given a sterling casting of a six millimeter band and was told size it as many times as you can,

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until it can no longer be done. I had different levels of solder as far as temperature. And

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fortunately, I knew that much. And I learned in the project that if you're going to make one cut,

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the next sizing should be 180 degrees across from where you're at. And then 90 degrees and so on,

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to manage the transfer of heat and the placements or stations of where you're doing your work. If you

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keep sizing over and over again, at the same spot you're at, you're going to run into problems.

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And also trying to take a ring down that many sizes in a very small bridge is going to warp the

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integrity of the ring size. So that one was also incredibly worthwhile. One of my favorite tasks,

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because I had no idea and could not have known how meditative and soothing it would be for me,

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was creating alloy. We would order 24 karat casting grain, as well as that, which would help us make

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it into 14 karat, 18 karat, both yellow and white gold, and 14 karat rose. The owner refused to

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do 18 karat rose due to the porosity. And he decided to subcontract any unusual alloys,

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like 18 karat green gold, because it wasn't worth purchasing the material to create such a small

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amount for a project that was probably one of a kind. One of my favorite stories is when I had

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to learn how to prep a casting. By now I had been with his company for several months, and he was

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ready to have me start despruing and hammering up and sanding out things that were fresh from

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the step of turning a model into metal. He tried to trick me a little bit and say,

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I need these six rings done in 30 minutes and I'm taking the clock away. Little did he know that

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he left the radio on and at that time songs were about two and a half to three minutes long,

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so it wasn't that difficult to pace myself along with the radio. And I'm sure a piece of him was

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frustrated that I completed the task within his impossible parameters. And I never really saw

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since that moment that he had an understanding there was more to me than meets the eye.

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At some point it was torch time and I was shown how to anneal a casting, especially in white gold,

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if it shrunk significantly as far as ring size and it was necessary to hammer it up. It became a

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lesson that created an open communication between me and the wax carver because of one specific

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project. She had carved a 9mm wedding band and it went to cast an 18 carat white gold and it came

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back over a size lower. No amount of annealing was going to get this up to where it belonged. It

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would either have to go downtown for a machine to stretch it up. The design did not support a

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sizing up manually. It was a learning curve for the wax carver that a ring of this amount of

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substance was going to have to be carved larger than the finger size because of the shrinkage.

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That didn't stop either of us from having a less fun stellar day thanks to our boss.

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We did have a Master Goldsmith in-house and his name was Ying Ho and he came from Hong Kong and

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he was extraordinary. When it came to manipulating the saw blade and mastering the sanding sticks,

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there was nobody better. To this day, I'll never forget something he said so very casually that

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was going to open my mind to the rest of my career. He said, fast is slow, slow is fast.

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And he sat there and showed me him rushing through, despruing and how many saw blades he broke.

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And it was an exercise in bending time, especially if you don't have enough of it.

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Aside from the bench exercises, I went to the next level developing myself as a communicator,

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a sales advisor and a designer. While the owner said he wanted all of us to be capable of counter

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sketching and creating one of the kinds with clients, he also had an ego that was not interested

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in any of our big ideas, especially if they came out of meeting a new customer.

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But let me start at the beginning. He had a certain type of phone etiquette that I'll never forget.

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There was a suggested number of rings before we pick up a certain way to greet a caller,

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a formulated way to ask the right questions and then to finish by inviting them in and or

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booking an appointment for him. He also seemed to have been exposed to some sort of training

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because he was particularly good at deescalating and troubleshooting when someone called with a problem.

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The template for appraisal creating was incredibly useful as well as insightful. And there was a

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certain way that he wanted us to document and evaluate colored jewels, something I hadn't

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really done before then. Basically, he exposed me before I discovered that would be my next step

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to the languaging terminology and identifying from the GIA, the Gemological Institute of America.

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That said, I did look into the full gemology program. At my last job, I had a weekend diamond

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certification and that got me from A to B. The future seemed wide open. It was the late 90s.

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Why not go for more education? When I finally brought it to him that I was ready to earn my

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diploma in colored gems, he was very confronted and told me there's no way that I could do this job

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and go to school at the same time. And yet in the same breath, he said, but the tools are right

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here, the microscope, the refractometer. I didn't know if it was a warning I should heed. I didn't

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know if it was a test or challenge from him since he held a gemologist's degree and was active

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and working every day. Or it was some sort of wistful endorsement to go for it and he was figuring

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out his ego of possibly having two gemologists and designers and goldsmiths despite the talent gap

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between the two of us under one roof. And lastly, the most important things I learned that fall

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into the darkness because there's no such thing as a career that only has beauty. There's going

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to be some ugly. I learned how to handle myself around an employer who may exhibit strains of

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jealousy, hubris, client profiling, emotional outbursts, heavy handed criticisms, hazing, bullying.

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One example sticks out as far as a less than stellar protocol around coaching an employee.

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He asked me to come in on a Sunday. We weren't open on Sundays. I drove in,

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knocked on the door and found that nobody was there except him and his wife. They sat me down

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and the conversation, while it started off in a neutral tone, quickly escalated to

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a litany of name calling. The one that stuck out is that they took turns both calling me a freak.

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They never gave reason or context and perhaps this was just to try and break me. After all,

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I was a military kid and I've just never been known for being emotional on the job. It didn't

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really get the effect they wanted. I was told to go home and I believe I asked,

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am I seeing you tomorrow? And I think they just shook their heads. That was a foreshadowing to

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when I would get fired. They told me that I was terminated on December 10th, but it wouldn't be

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effective until December 24th. So they were giving me a two weeks notice on losing my job.

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Interesting. And that's how it went. December 24th, I worked those two weeks knowing I was

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terminated, didn't say anything to my co-workers and said my final goodbye on Christmas Eve.

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Three weeks later, there was a voicemail asking if I wanted to come back in and pick up a few

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more hours. It was a moment of pure alchemy being worked to the bone for a low wage, recognizing

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my growth and deciding I deserve a hell of a lot more. I never returned that phone call. And while

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I could tell you it's a dark spot on my resume, I won't. I'll let you know that you can learn the

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strangest things about your radiance when someone else is trying to eclipse your shine.

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Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project with people

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finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the next episode, keep your own

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story sparkling.