Michelle Cousté, 26, assistant superintendent at Clark Construction, is managing the build-out of Ashburn’s Metro station.
“I get here when the crews get in, at 6 am. I walk around, check on everything. Then I lead a 7 am meeting with every foreman on the job site. There are almost never women in that mix. It’s me talking to all men who are at least ten years older. Sometimes people don’t listen and I’ve had to pull out a more assertive voice. There’s two hard parts about that. One is it’s not my natural instinct to yell or be demanding. The other is choosing when to do it, so it’s not ‘she’s a diva’ or ‘she’s a hardass.’
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“There was one subcontractor superintendent who used to call me ‘honey’ and ‘doll face’ and stuff like that. I’d say, ‘Come on, you know my name.’ I didn’t want to be too adamant because it’d sound like I’m insecure or being difficult. But I found a funny way of making him stop: I was early to a meeting. Another subcontractor superintendent was sitting next to me. The guy walks in and he goes, ‘How you doing, doll face?’ I turned to the guy next to me and said, ‘He asked you a question.’ The guy said, ‘Oh, no—I was asking you.’ I said, ‘Oh, how was I supposed to know you were asking me?’ It kind of embarrassed him, not in front of a lot of people but enough that he took it seriously.”
This article appears in the October 2019 issue of Washingtonian.
Marisa M. Kashino joined Washingtonian in 2009 and was a senior editor until 2022.
