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October of 2005, Kate Beaton woke up at five in the morning,

0:29

shuffled

0:34

out of the one bedroom she was sharing with two roommates,

0:37

and made her way to the bus stop.

0:39

It was the first day of her new job. She

0:41

was wearing an old jacket, which barely held up against

0:43

the cold. Not normal cold. Really,

0:46

really cold. Like when you

0:48

breathe in and it feels like there's knives

0:50

going in your throat. That's the

0:52

kind of cold. Or like if you breathe in through your

0:55

nose and your nostrils just stick together.

0:57

In northern Canada, where she just relocated,

1:00

temperatures could drop to minus 58 degrees

1:03

Fahrenheit, which I can't even imagine. So

1:06

cold that legally, when it hits certain

1:08

temperatures, some of the workers are not allowed

1:10

to work outside more than 15 minutes at a time.

1:13

That legally, they have to come back inside

1:15

and warm up.

1:17

This was not your everyday nine to five.

1:19

Kate was headed to work for a company called Syncrude

1:22

in the oil sands of Alberta. Imagine

1:24

a huge expanse of black, sticky,

1:26

tar-like substance that can be processed into

1:29

oil. It's an isolated, desolate

1:31

place. Kate would be spending all

1:33

day, and sometimes all night, in a frigid

1:35

warehouse, handing tools to the workers

1:37

out in the fields. She was

1:39

just 21. She'd be one of very

1:42

few women. By some estimates, one woman

1:44

for every 50 men.

1:45

This is not what Kate or her parents had envisioned

1:48

for her.

1:49

Going to college was supposed to spare her

1:51

from this. But Kate had taken out $40,000 in student loans. And

1:55

if there was one thing she felt sure about, it was

1:57

that she was going to be a good kid. of,

2:00

it was that her adult life could not begin

2:02

with debt. It felt like a foot on my

2:05

neck, just a pressure that

2:07

wasn't going to lift unless I

2:09

was able to remove it. Kate

2:12

stood at the bus stop, stamping her feet against

2:14

the cold with a few other oil workers beside

2:16

her.

2:17

The sun rises late in the winter when you're that far

2:19

north, so it was still dark

2:21

out when they saw the headlights approaching. She

2:24

boarded and settled in for her first 40-minute

2:26

commute. And the

2:28

first time that you see Sinkrud

2:31

coming out of the darkness,

2:33

it is just lights

2:36

and smoke and flames. And

2:39

you've never seen anything like it. It

2:42

felt like she had entered this bleak alien

2:44

world. Smoke stacks, huge

2:46

machinery. Everywhere she looked, she saw

2:48

towering structures and flashing lights.

2:51

Kate stared out the window, awestruck.

2:54

It's an unbelievable sight. And

2:56

you think, we're going to go in there. And

2:59

this is where I work.

3:01

I just went, and I hope for

3:03

the best. Sometimes

3:05

you can be so naive.

3:12

I'm Rima Reis, and you're listening to This is

3:14

Uncomfortable, a show for Marketplace about life

3:16

and how money messes with it. We

3:18

learned about Kate through her graphic memoir, Ducks,

3:21

which came out late last year. On

3:23

the surface, it's a story about the weight

3:26

of student loans and Kate's determination

3:28

to do anything to pay them off in one fell

3:30

swoop. But really, it's

3:32

much bigger than that. This week,

3:35

we follow Kate into a workplace

3:37

that's a world of its own, where boredom

3:39

and loneliness are ever-present, a place

3:41

where ordinary social expectations and

3:44

rules don't always apply. It's

3:47

a story about class, home,

3:49

and the forces that determine our fate.

3:53

And just as a warning, this episode contains

3:55

descriptions of sexual

3:56

assault.

4:02

Kate grew up in Cape Breton, an island

4:04

off the eastern coast of Canada. It was a

4:06

beautiful place to be as a kid. Old forests,

4:08

rocky cliffs, dramatic ocean views. The

4:11

village where she grew up feels like what I imagine

4:13

when someone says they grew up in a small place.

4:16

One volunteer fire department, a post office,

4:19

a few stores, and a population of 1,500. Kate's

4:22

dad was the meat manager at the local grocery store,

4:25

and her mom worked at the credit union. She

4:27

had four daughters to raise, and money

4:29

anxiety was in the atmosphere of everything

4:31

at home.

4:32

The fact that this broke and it's

4:34

fixed with tape, or the state

4:37

of the vehicles, which are always

4:39

kind of shabby. And

4:42

it wasn't just Kate's family. Money was tight

4:44

throughout the entire community. The main

4:47

industries in town were fishing, mining,

4:49

and steel. Industries that were dying

4:51

and leaving people financially ravaged.

4:54

As a kid, Kate couldn't avoid hearing

4:56

the nightly news reports, like the

4:58

shutdown of the cod industry in 1992, which left 30,000 people

5:00

out of work overnight.

5:04

When the minister of fisheries ran up against the workers,

5:07

there was this hugely publicized showdown.

5:09

I didn't take the fish from the goddamn water.

5:17

That same year, an explosion

5:19

went off at a coal mine two hours away from

5:21

Kate's village. At the time of the explosion,

5:24

there were 26 employees underground

5:27

working on the night shift.

5:29

Kate was nine years old. One of

5:31

the workers was from her village. She

5:33

went to the service with her family.

5:35

I remember the adults saying, no one's going to go to jail for

5:37

this. And no one ever did. And

5:41

so what did you take away from that? I

5:43

knew my value as a worker. You

5:46

know the power of companies when

5:49

you hear stories like that. Because

5:52

those jobs, the people

5:54

who took them knew that that was a dangerous

5:56

place, but they were so grateful

5:59

for a job. and

6:01

that's where i'm from

6:07

as a teenager caped vote the world was

6:09

caving in like there was just desperation

6:11

all around her and the only thing to do

6:14

and cape breton

6:15

was to leave you didn't go to the guidance

6:17

councilors office and they would be like leave

6:21

and you'll hear or this person is guns

6:23

person's guns person is going and

6:25

uses for like you were walking into

6:28

this preordained thing

6:31

in really there is nothing new about people leaving

6:33

caped brian the accident has always

6:35

been part of the islands identity but

6:37

i was surprised to learn just how deep

6:39

that goes you know their songs

6:41

like are heading for halifax by

6:43

john allen cameron in the choruses

6:46

i'm heading for halifax to see what's to

6:49

spare in the way of somewhere

6:50

way of some more there's

6:54

no toronto

6:58

a west to god only knows where

7:01

there's bound to be friends for back on the

7:04

ground and everything

7:09

and caped life was pointing outward away

7:11

from home but everything beyond

7:14

caper and was like this big mystery

7:16

i didn't know anything outside the town you

7:19

know how like when you're playing a video game and

7:21

the map isn't filled in until you get there

7:23

are less kind of what it's like it's just like this big

7:25

missed her

7:27

parents had never gone to college but they wanted

7:29

their kids to have better opportunities than they did

7:32

for years kate thought she'd apply to animation

7:34

school she was that kid who drew all the time

7:37

sketching cartoons and her notebooks she'd

7:39

watch every animated movie she could find

7:41

pausing at the credits and writing down all the names

7:44

trying to figure out what the jobs were what

7:46

she had to do to become one of those people

7:49

but

7:49

then because i'm from this this tiny

7:51

place in the middle of nowhere i also thought that

7:53

there's no way that i would be able to make it to animation

7:55

school so i didn't apply

7:58

she talked herself out of it She figured

8:00

maybe she'd take some art electives, but

8:02

that kind of work,

8:04

just a fantasy. That is one

8:06

thing that coming from a low-income place

8:08

and a rural place will do to you, it will

8:11

take your confidence away.

8:13

It's kind of like, it's

8:16

all I wanted my whole life. And

8:18

then at the last minute I was just like, I can't.

8:21

What if I'm not good enough?

8:23

Kate ended up majoring in history and anthropology

8:26

at a small college three hours away.

8:28

And like every other kid in town, she took out

8:30

loans to pay for it. The

8:33

summer after graduation, she was living back at home,

8:35

working an odd job.

8:36

She had a six-month grace period of interest relief

8:38

on the loans. And it was around

8:41

then that her parents started asking

8:42

questions.

8:45

They were like, where's the job? You know, you've

8:47

got the degree, where's the job now?

8:51

With a degree, Kate could get one of the good jobs

8:53

in town. She could be a nurse, teacher,

8:55

a job with benefits and a pension. But

8:58

there was this nagging voice in her head.

9:01

What if she'd sold herself short on being an artist?

9:04

She still loved to draw and make comics. Maybe

9:06

she could look into graduate programs to really give

9:08

her dream a shot. She broke it to

9:11

her parents that she didn't really want

9:13

one of those

9:13

good jobs in town. They

9:15

were like, what? What

9:19

were you doing? Why did you take the degree?

9:23

Yeah, that's a bitter pill.

9:26

Kate wanted to give herself a chance at her dream

9:28

of being an artist. But to do that,

9:31

she wanted, needed financial

9:33

freedom. She needed to rid herself

9:35

of debt fast. I needed

9:37

to pay this off first for my own sanity

9:39

because I just could not

9:41

live with this if you've

9:43

ever been poor.

9:46

And I don't mean like broke,

9:48

but like poor.

9:51

It is suffocating.

9:54

The most she had ever been paid was 11 bucks an

9:56

hour for a summer job.

9:58

Now she owed 40,000.

11:59

It

12:01

would be Kate's job to manage inventory. Basically,

12:04

she'd be checking out tools to workers who were running

12:06

the equipment on site. Her first

12:08

day of work was a blur of orientation and safety

12:10

videos.

12:12

She was trying to get her bearings in this gigantic

12:14

place, trying to not look too much like

12:16

a newbie. I wore like a blouse

12:20

my first day because I was

12:22

like, my first day of work, I better show up. And

12:24

literally everyone is wearing hoodies and

12:26

like jeans.

12:28

Her new office was a big freezing

12:31

warehouse filled with all sorts of tools

12:33

and equipment she'd never seen before. Safety

12:35

gear, visors, drills, impact

12:38

wrenches, impact wrench adapters.

12:40

Every day she was out of bed at five, at

12:43

the bus stop at six, ready to work by

12:45

seven for her 12 hour shift. Six

12:48

days on, six days off, split between

12:50

day and night

12:50

shifts. There was a lot of repetition.

12:54

People coming to the counter, receiving

12:56

pallets, making orders, taking

12:58

orders, talking to people.

13:01

Seeing a lot of faces behind

13:04

hard hats and glasses.

13:06

The tool crib became like a second

13:08

home.

13:09

At the beginning, the guys would help her out when she

13:12

didn't know what something was. And

13:13

they all saw my job was cushy because it was inside,

13:16

even if the inside was freezing.

13:19

The days blurred into each other. It

13:21

seemed like no time had passed by the end

13:23

of her second week when her boss pulled her aside

13:26

and handed her an envelope.

13:30

It was her first paycheck. She opened

13:32

it right there. I remember

13:34

it being like $1,200. And

13:38

I was like, holy

13:40

shit. I

13:44

am rich. It

13:47

was more money than she'd ever held in her hands.

13:50

More money than either of her parents had ever made in

13:52

a single paycheck. She didn't

13:54

yet realize that she was getting paid terrible money

13:56

by oil standards. About $18 an hour.

13:59

probably less than anyone there. But

14:02

at that moment, it felt like a pot

14:04

of gold. She paid her rent

14:06

and made a payment towards her student loans. The

14:09

oil sands had promised money and delivered.

14:12

But it promised other things too. And

14:15

Kate was just beginning to understand what it'd mean

14:17

to live in a place like this.

14:22

At first it seemed mild enough. She

14:25

would get called pet names. Dollface,

14:27

Puddin, Ducky.

14:29

Dollface would comment on her big brown eyes. She

14:31

got hit on a lot. She overheard guys

14:34

talking about other women, the ones they liked,

14:37

the ones they didn't like. But

14:39

then one night, something happened when Kate

14:41

was alone in the tool crib. A

14:43

man kept coming in over and

14:45

over to see her. He wanted

14:48

to know if

14:50

I had sex with anybody during

14:53

my night shift, like for a little fun. And

14:57

I said no. And

15:01

he got what he needed, but he kept coming back because it

15:03

was cold. He said he was cold and

15:06

the warehouse was warm. And

15:11

he was like, I'd like to fuck you on that pile of rags

15:13

over there. There were like cleaning rags that

15:15

we, bundles of cleaning rags that we handed

15:18

out to clean bitumen off the tools.

15:22

Kate was scared. She was completely

15:24

alone. She didn't know what to say. After

15:27

he left that time, I hid for the rest

15:29

of the night. You know, if

15:32

somebody came in, I kind of

15:35

hid to the side unless I heard their voice and then

15:38

I knew it wasn't him and then I would come and help them.

15:41

That night, she was supposed to wax the floor with

15:43

this big buffing machine. There

15:45

was an inspector coming in the next day to look through

15:48

the warehouse. It was a gigantic floor.

15:51

She was so spooked that she just didn't do

15:53

it. And the next morning, my boss

15:55

was livid. He was insane.

15:58

I just remember his face being

16:01

very bloated and angry. She

16:06

tried to think fast, said she'd been feeling

16:08

sick the night before. Of course,

16:10

to him, that just sounded like some bullshit,

16:13

which it was. And

16:16

I hated myself, I

16:18

hated him,

16:19

and I hated the man the night

16:22

before, but I also felt so powerless

16:24

because there was no one to call.

16:29

Kate nearly got fired that day. It

16:31

only been two months since she arrived.

16:33

But the harassment was like the smog

16:36

in the air.

16:37

There wasn't a day without it. It became

16:39

part of the background noise. And

16:41

there are gradients of it.

16:44

There is anything from people

16:46

being in your face, saying things

16:48

to you, touching

16:51

you, getting too close.

16:53

It took all forms.

16:56

One time, guys lined up all the way around

16:58

the tool crib to catch a glimpse of her, to rate

17:00

her body out of 10, compare her to the other

17:02

women on site.

17:04

Other times, it was dumb stuff, like

17:06

the day she was sent to town to go get a cake for

17:08

someone's retirement party. Then

17:10

I was like, wait a minute, what kind of cake does he like?

17:13

And my coworker was like, any kind

17:16

you jump out of, doll face. And even now,

17:18

that's so funny because it's so

17:21

stupid.

17:26

It was strange. Every day, life could

17:28

be offensive, funny, distasteful, scary,

17:31

all at the same time. Dealing with

17:33

the harassment began to feel like something she just had

17:35

to endure, the price of admission to the

17:37

life she really wanted.

17:39

As the months passed, Kate just tried

17:42

to keep her eye on the prize, still making

17:44

her commute from the town to the site day in

17:46

and day out.

17:48

She was making more money than she'd ever made. Still,

17:51

she was realizing that after rent and utilities,

17:54

$18 an hour was hardly enough to make a dent in

17:56

her loans. She needed to ramp things

17:59

up to get more.

20:01

It was as though she'd entered another world with

20:03

its own rules and logic.

20:05

In isolation for weeks on end, the guys

20:07

around her went stir-crazy, jockeying for attention,

20:09

throwing around big sums of money, almost

20:12

no women, no family, nothing to do

20:14

except for work. The way

20:16

Kate saw it, these guys weren't especially

20:19

bad.

20:20

They were just guys in a corrosive situation.

20:23

They're honestly sometimes

20:26

so bored that

20:29

they'll do insane things like this that

20:32

make no sense and probably had

20:34

no plan for after the doorknob

20:37

worked. If that even

20:39

makes sense to you, it makes sense to

20:41

me. No, it does. It does.

20:43

I don't even think that those people wanted

20:46

to come in and do anything. I

20:48

think they were just trying the door

20:50

just to try it because they're

20:53

so fucked up by being

20:55

in this place that destroys your brain.

20:59

A lot of her coworkers were from places like the place

21:01

she was from, small, working class towns.

21:04

They were sending money to their families back home.

21:07

They could make an offhand sexist joke one moment

21:09

and then be really sweet and genuine the next.

21:12

There was the mechanic who secretly tried to teach

21:14

her how to knit,

21:16

the guy who gave her big framed photographs

21:18

of the Northern Lights.

21:20

Then there was the guy at Christmas.

21:22

That first Christmas, Kate couldn't afford a

21:24

ticket home. It would have meant spending every

21:26

dollar she'd saved. Her mom

21:28

sent her a plastic tree in the mail with little ornaments,

21:31

but it felt too sad to set it up.

21:35

On Christmas Eve, Kate made her way to her usual

21:38

post in the tool crib. It was snowing. Everyone

21:41

was unusually cheerful. And they're

21:43

like, making that overtime? Like, good for

21:45

you. Good for you, girl. Making that overtime money.

21:48

At some point during the night, this guy came in. Kate

21:51

had seen him around, but they never really talked. And

21:54

he gave me

21:56

a tin that had some

21:58

cookies in it.

21:59

And I was like, I don't need

22:02

these. And he was like, oh yes, take

22:04

them, take them. My wife made them. He said,

22:06

I told her there was a young girl there, all

22:08

alone by herself on Christmas even. She said,

22:11

that just won't do. So she sent these to work

22:13

with me today,

22:14

these cookies. Kate

22:16

was taken aback. She didn't

22:18

know how to thank him.

22:20

That was such a nice gesture from this man that

22:23

I really didn't know and this woman that I had never

22:25

met. But they knew what

22:27

it was like to be away from home on Christmas

22:30

Eve.

22:32

As the man was walking out, Kate grabbed

22:34

one of the ornaments her mom had sent her and

22:36

dashed outside to give it to him.

22:43

Still, the bad persisted along

22:45

with the good.

22:46

And Kate kept reminding herself of

22:48

her North Star. When I leave

22:50

here, she thought, at least I'll be free

22:53

of my student debt. When I leave

22:55

here, I can start focusing on my art.

22:58

Meanwhile, Kate started to notice herself changing.

23:01

It's like she was starting to get used to the harassment,

23:03

numb to it.

23:05

Like so many of her coworkers, she arrived at

23:07

the oil sands as a sort of exile, casualties

23:09

of poor opportunity at home. But

23:12

once they got there, they became casualties

23:14

of something else,

23:15

isolation and grueling work.

23:18

And sometimes, they lost themselves.

23:21

We also, in

23:23

so many ways, have not equipped

23:26

men

23:27

with the tools to deal

23:30

with pain. I'm

23:33

generalizing immensely here, but

23:36

so many men are raised to just

23:39

ingest their own pain and never speak

23:41

it, never complain, just work. And

23:44

of course, it comes out somewhere. It comes

23:46

out somewhere awful. And

23:49

it doesn't excuse anybody's behavior.

23:51

But you can't just say this place is full

23:53

of monsters because

23:56

it is a place that is created by

23:58

corporations.

23:59

to exploit workers and

24:02

it does its job.

24:05

After the break, Kate's breaking

24:08

point.

24:31

Hey, it's Rima.

24:32

As you might know, lots of company and nonprofit

24:35

budgets run on a fiscal year rather than

24:37

a calendar year. And right now we're

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nearing the end of the fiscal year for Marketplace,

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24:44

because of the economic climate, we've got this

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revenue shortfall. Podcasts

24:49

like this one, they take a lot of resources

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to produce. So if you want to see us

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continue, it would mean a lot if you could chip

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in to help cover our costs. Every

24:58

single donation makes a real difference, especially

25:00

right now. It only takes a few

25:02

minutes. You can even use PayPal or Apple

25:04

Pay. You can go over to marketplace.org

25:07

slash givetiu or

25:10

find the link in our show notes. Thank you

25:12

so much. Hi, I'm Frances Fry.

25:14

And I'm Anne Morris. And we

25:16

are the hosts of a new TED podcast called

25:18

Fixable. We've helped leaders at some

25:21

of the world's most competitive companies solve

25:23

all kinds of problems. On our show,

25:25

we'll pull back the curtain and give you the type of

25:28

honest, unfiltered advice we usually

25:30

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25:32

Maybe you have a coworker with boundary issues

25:35

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25:37

No problem is too big or too small.

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Give us a call and we'll help you solve the problems

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25:47

Kate was on track. Every month she

25:49

chipped away at the debt. There was a rhythm to

25:51

the weeks that passed.

25:53

Eat, work, sleep, repeat. Eat,

25:55

work, sleep, repeat. It was all

25:58

going to be worth it once she made that final.

25:59

payment. But late in the

26:02

spring of 2006, everything changed.

26:08

So the first time it happened, it was on site

26:10

in the camp. A

26:12

coworker, one of the few other women there,

26:15

had invited Kate to a birthday party where people

26:17

were drinking. The man who

26:20

discovered that I couldn't handle any drinks

26:22

just led me to his room, pretty

26:25

much.

26:28

That night, he assaulted her. The

26:30

next morning, Kate was freaked out, confused.

26:34

I don't accept what

26:36

it is right away. I can't talk about it.

26:38

I'm sort of shell shocked. Did

26:41

anybody know? Had the guy told anyone?

26:45

For days afterwards, Kate was desperate

26:47

to take a break from camp. She agreed

26:49

to go to a party in town with some friends. When

26:52

she got there, someone handed her a drink.

26:55

I went to the bathroom and I don't know how long I was in there, but

26:57

when I got out, everybody else was gone. And

27:00

it was just this

27:00

one guy standing there.

27:04

I was crying when he did it. And

27:08

because he was like, don't do that. And

27:11

because we have to hurry up before

27:14

because we have to go meet the boys. I

27:22

think that I was raped twice

27:25

within a short amount of time because I

27:27

suspect that when

27:30

you are vulnerable, there

27:33

are people who can really sense

27:35

it, you know, like blood in the water.

27:39

And I was not okay.

27:42

Kate felt like she didn't have anybody to turn to.

27:45

She worried who would believe her.

27:47

She had heard how the guys talked about the women who complained.

27:50

All of this had happened during a moment that was

27:52

supposed to be celebratory.

27:54

Kate had helped her sister and a friend get jobs at

27:56

camp and they'd be arriving soon. They

27:58

had expenses to pay off.

27:59

two. For weeks, Kate

28:02

had been feeling excited to have loved ones nearby.

28:05

Now she just felt on edge,

28:07

protective. And I realized

28:10

in a lot of ways after the assaults how

28:12

much I had become inured

28:15

to the

28:16

world around me and

28:18

what I was bringing these girls into.

28:20

You know, when they would be like, what's

28:22

it like? And I was like, oh, it's pretty terrible. But you

28:24

know, you get used to it. How

28:27

blithe I was being about how

28:29

bad it really was because I

28:31

had gotten too used

28:34

to it. Yeah. And here

28:36

they were coming in cold.

28:39

When they arrived, Kate noticed how the men

28:41

leered at them. She tried to shield her

28:43

sister and friend to tell off the guys who would stare

28:45

or make comments. But after

28:48

what had happened to her, it's like she was completely

28:50

hollowed out. But I wasn't

28:52

going to leave. I wasn't going to leave them there. They

28:55

had just arrived, you know, like

28:57

I brought them there. Like I need to

28:59

stay and be very protective of them

29:02

in this world. But I

29:04

in the few months that after they first

29:06

came, I

29:06

was unraveling a bit.

29:12

Kate was outside of herself in a

29:14

kind of suspended state. Somebody

29:16

came up to me once and he was

29:17

like, are you OK? And I was like, what do you mean? And

29:20

he was like, I found

29:22

you walking around outside at 2 a.m. You were

29:24

talking to yourself.

29:26

And and I was like, I don't remember doing

29:28

that. She was

29:30

keeping an eye out for the guys who'd raped her. What

29:33

would happen if she ran into them? One

29:36

day when she was out running in Arend, Kate

29:38

saw one of the guys with a group of his friends. It

29:41

was raining and they were huddled next to a building.

29:44

Kate made eye contact with him. It had been

29:46

about a month since the assault. Somebody

29:49

looked up at me and then all of their heads turned towards

29:51

me. And then they all

29:53

laughed and

29:55

started

29:56

talking to each other again.

29:59

It was too much. Kate could barely

30:01

hold a conversation. Her sister

30:03

had taken notice. She was like,

30:06

I talked to you and you don't answer. You're like

30:08

always staring at the wall. You don't acknowledge

30:11

things. Your head is in a different land.

30:13

Like something is wrong. Something is wrong with you. And

30:16

I don't know what it is. The

30:18

moment of confession finally came one evening,

30:21

a couple months after it happened. Kate

30:23

and her sister were sitting side by side on Kate's

30:25

bed in the camps. At that point,

30:27

I was still sort of blaming myself. I was like, it's

30:29

my fault. I let it happen. I

30:32

didn't even tell her about the two of them. I could only tell her

30:34

about one.

30:39

Kate decided it was time to leave the oil

30:42

sands.

30:43

She'd been there for a year, earning $18 an hour. The

30:46

plan was to be there for at least another year to pay

30:48

off her debt. But now the

30:50

toll was too steep. I felt

30:52

I really, really needed to leave because

30:54

I was clearly not doing okay. And

30:57

that's very bittersweet because

30:59

it's almost like you know that you're going to go

31:01

and waste your time somewhere because you

31:04

still have to pay it off.

31:05

How much did you have left? Half.

31:08

$20,000, sitting between her and her dreams.

31:13

On the one hand, leaving the camps was this

31:16

huge relief. But now

31:18

how was she gonna pay off the other half of the debt?

31:21

Kate moved to Victoria and found a job at

31:23

a museum.

31:24

This time she'd be earning just $13 an hour, 21 hours

31:27

a week. It was a huge pay cut. At

31:30

first, returning to normal society where she

31:32

wasn't surrounded by crowds of men who lived

31:34

and breathed their work, it felt

31:36

jarring. I felt like an

31:39

alien person. Like I didn't know

31:42

how to comport myself in a social

31:45

setting when people were gathering

31:47

around and laughing with a drink in their hand and

31:49

I would just be so awkward.

31:51

Still, it was exciting. Kate went to

31:53

the opera, hung out with hippy types. And

31:56

for the first time in a long time, she started

31:58

to draw again.

31:59

website for her comics.

32:02

Inevitably, though, she started to feel the

32:04

financial squeeze.

32:06

Kate had to get odd jobs to supplement the museum

32:08

job, but that wasn't enough.

32:10

I couldn't have worked that hard and

32:13

gone through all of that just

32:15

to start piling up interest on the loan

32:18

to get it back up to the point where

32:20

it was just as much as it was before. That

32:23

seemed to defeat the purpose of the whole thing.

32:26

Kate was desperate, so one day

32:28

she decided to try a Hail Mary.

32:30

She was sitting in an office in the museum that overlooked

32:32

a beautiful harbor and historic buildings.

32:35

The sun was shining down. It felt

32:37

like a physical symbol of her newfound culture

32:39

of life.

32:41

Kate picked up the phone, dialed the 888 number

32:44

for the loan office, and began to plead

32:46

for mercy.

32:47

I was like, well, listen, I just spent a year with this

32:50

job where I was putting so much money on

32:52

and I just needed a break from it because it was really hard.

32:55

So if I can have interest relief

32:57

for a few months, then

32:59

I could work on my career a little bit and

33:03

then maybe go back to paying my student loans when I

33:05

get ahead a little bit. And they were like, no,

33:09

bitch.

33:10

Yeah,

33:13

no, they were not going to do that. The officer

33:15

told Kate there was no getting out of the interest

33:17

charge. And they were like, no,

33:20

but what happened to that other job that you had that

33:22

was paying so good? I

33:25

was dressed in like an Argyle

33:28

sweater vest with a little cravat

33:30

and a skirt with knee socks

33:33

and stuff. I wanted to look like a little

33:35

museum lady. And

33:39

then I was just picturing myself in

33:42

like in my work boots and stuff again. And

33:44

I was just like, oh, God, like I

33:47

was I was this whole other person, but I

33:49

had to go back and be that other person again.

33:53

Kate went home to her apartment, collapsed

33:56

onto the couch and cried. It had

33:58

been a year since she left the oil sands.

33:59

a year of distance between herself

34:02

and the assaults. She didn't want to go

34:04

back, but there was just no other

34:06

job that could compete with the money she could make

34:09

up there. I needed to get

34:11

rid of it,

34:12

so I went back.

34:18

If Kate was going back to the oil sands, things

34:21

would have to be different.

34:22

She applied for a better position in a different location

34:25

away from the men who'd raped her.

34:27

And instead of the tool crib, she'd have an office

34:29

job. She wouldn't be in contact with the workers

34:31

as much, no more night shifts, and her

34:33

pay would jump significantly, $25 an hour. But

34:37

the safety came with guilt.

34:39

This move was sort of stepping over the heads

34:42

of people who, in

34:44

a lot of ways, were more qualified, but I was more

34:46

qualified on paper, and I knew how to work Excel.

34:49

And that's the kind of thing that gets you ahead,

34:51

is knowing how to work Excel.

34:53

It was like her jump in station had exposed

34:56

this tension between Kate and

34:57

her old coworkers. On the

34:59

one hand, they were cut from the same cloth.

35:02

They'd ended up in the oil sands because that was

35:04

just where people went for work.

35:06

But on the other hand, unlike many for coworkers,

35:09

Kate had a college degree.

35:11

And for the first time since graduation, that

35:13

degree was working its magic.

35:16

I got to work in the office. I got to have

35:18

the nicer room. I got to sit on my ass all day

35:20

in the office chair, as they like to point out

35:22

to me all the time. And they were kind of bitter about it,

35:24

but I don't blame them for that.

35:27

These guys, they had experience with tools

35:29

and machinery that Kate couldn't compete with. But

35:32

just like that, she'd leapfrog them.

35:34

They had families at home, wives and little

35:36

kids who depended on them. Kate

35:39

was young and child-free.

35:41

Often people would bring it up to me, you know, you could

35:43

walk away anytime. You don't like it

35:45

here? You can just walk away. And

35:48

you knew they couldn't. Because

35:50

they needed to provide for their families, or they felt like

35:53

this was the only option. Yes,

35:55

in some cases it really was.

36:01

For months, Kate kept her head down. She'd

36:03

work and draw, work and draw. She

36:06

was posting stuff on our comics website, using

36:08

the Office Scanner to upload images. She

36:10

was starting to build an online following, amazed

36:13

that people seemed to like her work.

36:16

Then, on June 6th, 2008, Kate sat down at her desk to

36:20

take stock of where she was with the loan payments.

36:23

She did some calculating, paused, and

36:25

then stared at her computer screen. I

36:28

was like, oh, I have enough to pay it all off.

36:32

I logged in to my Royal

36:34

Bank account and looked

36:36

at my balance and just

36:39

put the money onto it,

36:42

the same amount that was owing. I put that

36:44

exact amount in and

36:47

had like almost nothing left in my savings.

36:51

And I was like, wow, it's

36:54

done.

36:56

She didn't know what to do. She was

36:58

just sitting in her chair in front of the laptop

37:00

alone.

37:01

So I was looking at my laptop and

37:04

looking at that amount and the figures

37:07

matched. I was

37:09

like, I did it. This is what

37:11

I came here for and I did it.

37:13

But when you labor at

37:15

something for years and

37:18

years,

37:20

and then you get it, it is

37:22

kind of anticlimactic.

37:25

It was weird. The promise that she'd made

37:27

to herself that she'd pursue being an artist as

37:29

long as she paid off the debt was

37:31

suddenly sitting right in front of her. Kate

37:33

called her mom. I said, mom, I have no

37:36

money. And she went, what? I said,

37:40

I have no money because I gave it

37:42

all to the government. I paid

37:44

off all my student loans. I paid them all off.

37:46

I did it. And she's

37:48

like, oh, Katie.

37:50

She wanted to know what I was gonna do next. And

37:53

I was like, I'm gonna stay here for a little bit

37:55

longer and I'm gonna save up a bit more money. And

37:57

I'm

37:58

gonna try and make it as a cartoon.

37:59

cartoonist, and mom was like, oh,

38:02

Katie.

38:06

A few months later, Kate left the oil sands

38:09

for good. She devoted every spare

38:11

moment to cultivating her webcomic. And

38:13

to make a long story short, she now makes a living

38:15

as a full-time cartoonist. Her work has

38:17

won several awards, and one of her picture

38:20

books was adapted into a TV show. She

38:23

still worries all the time about money. She

38:25

suspects that worry will never fully go away.

38:28

But she's been debt-free since 2008. Lots

38:31

of people live with their student loans,

38:35

but I needed to pay

38:37

it off

38:39

in order to prove something to myself,

38:41

in order to move on with myself, and in

38:44

order to maybe justify some things that

38:46

happened to me that,

38:48

like, I went through this for this end. I

38:50

needed to, I need to get

38:53

rid of this thing.

38:55

Kate gets asked a lot whether it was worth

38:57

it, but it's a question she feels like she

38:59

can't really answer. This is

39:01

the only life she's lived. She doesn't

39:04

know any other experience. I

39:06

can only say that without having

39:09

gone to the oil sands, I wouldn't be able to

39:11

live the life I live now as a cartoonist living

39:13

at home. I probably

39:16

would have taken a safe job somewhere that

39:18

would have supplied both

39:20

rental pay and student loan

39:23

pay, and I probably would have found myself

39:25

stuck somewhere. And

39:27

so I benefited from

39:30

my time there immensely. And

39:33

I suffered from my time there as

39:35

well.

39:39

A few years ago, Kate moved back home

39:41

to Cape Breton. It was a rare reversal

39:44

of the standard exodus. The population

39:46

is still declining. But now that she

39:48

makes a living as a full-time artist, Kate can

39:50

afford to be back there.

39:52

She and her husband are raising their two kids just

39:54

minutes from the street where she grew up.

39:57

When I asked Kate why she moved back, because

40:00

when she's home,

40:01

she feels like she's a part of the painting, instead

40:03

of something on top of it that doesn't belong in the picture.

40:07

Kate feels tied not just to the physical place,

40:09

but to the story of her home. A

40:11

story that both pulls you in and pushes

40:14

you out.

40:15

Where you feel deep love for the smell of the ocean

40:17

and the quiet of the night, but also fear

40:20

that opportunity here is not enough. Where

40:22

the songs remind you that this home is just

40:24

temporary.

40:26

Kate has often described leaving Cape Breton

40:29

as something preordained. But

40:31

maybe her return was fated too.

40:34

As inevitable as the island's ocean

40:36

tides.

40:56

All right, that is all for our show this week. If

40:59

you want to learn more about Kate's story and her

41:01

life in the oil sands in general, I

41:03

highly recommend you check out Duck's Her

41:06

Graphic Memoir. And if

41:08

you have any thoughts about this story

41:10

or even just want to shoot us a note, you can always

41:12

email me and the team at uncomfortable

41:14

at marketplace

41:15

dot org. We love hearing from

41:17

you all. Also, do not

41:19

forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter if you haven't

41:21

already. There's always great recommendations in there

41:24

for things to cook or listen to or watch.

41:26

You can sign up for that at marketplace dot org

41:29

slash comfort. Also, if you like

41:31

the show, please be sure to leave us a review

41:33

or give us a rating. That stuff really helps us

41:35

out.

41:45

This episode was lead produced and written

41:47

by me, Camila Kerwin, and hosted

41:49

by Rima Grace. The episode got

41:51

additional support from Alice Wilder, Hannah

41:53

Harris Green and Peter Balanon-Rosen.

41:55

Zoe Saunders is

41:57

our senior producer. Our editor is Jasmine

41:59

Romero.

41:59

Marke Green is our digital producer

42:02

with help from Tony Wagner. Our intern

42:04

is Yvonne Marquez, sound design

42:06

and audio engineering by Drew Jostad. Bridget

42:09

Bodnar is Marketplace's director of podcasts.

42:12

Francesca Levy is the executive

42:14

director of digital. And our theme music

42:16

is by Wonderly.

42:19

I should also say before we go that this is

42:21

our intern Yvonne's last week with

42:24

us. For the past six months, she's

42:26

helped us produce this new season for you all.

42:28

She's been absolutely wonderful and

42:31

we're really going to miss her. All

42:33

right, we'll catch y'all next

42:34

week.

42:52

Hey, everyone, I'm Rima Reis, host

42:54

of This is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace.

42:57

This season, we explore how secrets

43:00

can shape our financial lives. We've

43:02

got stories about the creative lengths people

43:04

go to pay off student debt, what

43:06

it's like to become addicted to financial

43:08

submission, and how easy it can be to

43:11

get stuck in a vicious cycle. We

43:13

take a look at how secrets take a toll

43:15

on our lives and what price some are willing

43:17

to pay for the truth. Listen

43:19

to This is Uncomfortable wherever you get

43:21

your podcasts.