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When you drive over a bridge, do you ever stop to think about the people who maintain and repair the bridge to keep it safe? After reading this career interview with a bridge mechanic, you may have a new perspective on the work that goes into keeping roads and bridges safe. This is a career interview as told to DiversityJobs Street Smart, which hosts many interviews with working professionals, giving you the inside scoop on what various jobs are really like. This is just one of several interviews with those in the mechanical field, such as this interview with a general maintenance worker.

I work as a bridge mechanic for the state. I've been doing this particular job for about 3 years. Before that, I worked as a mechanic for a company that sold pumps to construction companies. Before that, I worked as a mechanic in the Army.

I basically fix things that break on the bridges. In our area, there is a lot of water and we have a lot of bridges so people can travel from one area to the next. Sometimes things break and when that happens, we need to go in and repair those things. I also do routine maintenance on the bridge fittings and other parts in order to prevent things from breaking. That takes up a large amount of our time.

I think people would be surprised to know that we can work a lot of overtime and that the hours can be very odd. For example, we have been having problems with this one bridge in our area. Because it is a bridge that sees a lot of traffic, we need to work on the bridge in the middle of the night so that traffic patterns are not affected. Also, during hurricane season, things can get quite crazy. During the last hurricane in our area, we had to sleep at the shop so that we could be prepared in case of an emergency. We worked at least 16 hours a day to keep things running smoothly. At one point, some of the tunnels flooded and we were called out to assist.

The strangest thing that has ever happened to me in this job? I was fixing a light fixture on the bridge and it was near this falcon's nest. Since the falcon's are protected we can't touch their nests at all or try to move them. The mother kept diving at me and I had to keep moving so that I could do my job and not get ripped to shreds by her sharp claws. We were all very glad when the babies grew up and flew away and the mother decided to live elsewhere.

I really like fixing things. It gives me a great satisfaction to know that people are depending upon me to keep things working and running properly. It is a funny thing to say that the majority of people who cross that bridge probably never even think about people like me until the bridge doesn't work! A little while ago, the bridge had a major malfunction during rush hour and the drawbridge got stuck in the open position. People sat in traffic for over 6 hours while we manually lowered the drawbridge using wrenches. That was some experience! But I got a lot of "thank yous" from many people the next day when they found out I'd been there. That was really encouraging.

I started this job, even with all of my experience, at $40,000. Because it was a state job, I was assigned a pay grade and that was pretty much it. The pay is not really great to be honest and for me, that is the biggest drawback of this job. Even though my wife works, we still have to watch our money pretty carefully to make ends meet. But money is a small thing I suppose. We have enough with my wife working to meet our bills. I guess I could get another job, but I really like what I'm doing. I like the people that I work with and that makes me happy. I can't imagine doing anything else.