FIFO career insights from Mike who is a mechanical fitter from New Zealand.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

– The main positive I think everyone would agree–

-We came up with a bit of an arrangement and I said to my wife look–

– G’day I’m Jason, and welcome to the 7th episode of FIT4FIFO. This week we meet Mike Demeke, who resides in New Zealand and travels all the way to Australia. Often on a fortnightly basis for work. He shares with us how he manages this. Talks about some of the rosters on offer in FIFO and also has a very important message for new FIFO workers. Hope you enjoy it and here it is. Well thanks for joining us today, on FIT4FIFO.

– My pleasure, my pleasure.

– Tell us a bit about what you do in FIFO mate.

– I’m a mechanical fitter and I’ve been in it for two years roughly. Worked initially in the upstream projects, in the Surat Basin and in the last several months, here at Curtis Island at the LNG plant.

– And what’s you position in FIFO? What sort of work do you do exactly?

– Its Mechanical Fitter Special Class, is my job title and I’ve been working with commissioning crews and commissioning and start up of mechanical equipment.

– Yeah. And how did you get into FIFO and your background previously to this?

– Yeah, OK. I was over in Western Australia, trying to get into the mining industry, and I got a start there. And after three months got made redundant because the price went through the floor. So that was supposed to be a long term contract pulled out from under us, so I was out of work. I did get local work in Perth for a while, but then we decided to come east and chase this gas industry. We’re here, so that’s what we did. Took me a little while to get a start. And the start I did get was with a smaller company that had supplied equipment to the gas fields. And it was quite a lot of commissioning work to be done, so I was fortunate enough to get a start with them. A lot of compressor work, and luckily I had compressor background from previously. I hadn’t worked in oil and gas at all.

– [Jason] Okay. but I did have compressor background. So, that’s what got me in the door initially.

– As a like young fellow would say you did mechanical fitter apprenticeship, did you?

– Yeah, yeah, did my time as a fitter and turner.

– OK.

– I’ve worked in all sorts of different industries over the years. Mostly doing maintenance fitting.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– So all sorts of industrial sites. Manufacturing sites, and also I did 20 years of engineering management as well. But then made the conscious decision to step away from working in an office. I wanted to get back on the tools, and do that. And yeah, so that was part of the reason for going into oil and gas too.

– Yeah, OK. In this gas industry, there’s a few like mechanical fitters that got different backgrounds, they come from different industries, is that right?

– Yes, yes there is. Yup. A lot of them are mechanical fitter apprentice trained tradesmen, but there’s also I’ve come across motive mechanics, diesel fitters, those are probably the two most common other areas that people have come out of to come into the work that I’m doing.

– So how many years sorry, did you say you’d actually been in FIFO?

– In FIFO, just over two years.

– Two years, right. And what are some of the positives and things you like about it?

– The main positive I think everyone would agree is the money. You certainly can make far better money than you can make working in town. So that’s certainly for me that’s really the positive, that’s why I’m doing it. In addition to that, the opportunity to work on some of these huge projects.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– They don’t come along all that often.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– And to be in there at the startup, where you can get to go around the whole plant, see whole lot of different aspects to it and be involved in the startup of it, that’s pretty cool stuff.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– So yeah. It’s an experience that I can take away and look back on.

– And how bout the negatives and things you dislike about FIFO.

– For me the hardest thing is the time away from home.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– I’ve worked a few different rosters, when I first started doing FIFO I was doing a two and two roster.

– [Jason] Right.

– And that was pretty good, I really liked that. Then the next project I went to, that changed to 19 and 10 I think it was. And then now we’re doing 28 days on, seven days off.

– [Jason] Right.

– And of the seven days off, it’s really only six days because the seventh day you’re traveling back to site. So you pretty much it’s a dead day as far as doing things goes. So yeah the time away from home is the hardest bit I think. Four weeks is a long time.

– Yeah. I mean how do you best deal with that problem?

– Regular contact with home. We just make sure that we’re on the phone everyday, text messaging in the morning, through the day, otherwise communicate just with messages back and forth.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– Just to keep in touch that way. Yeah, yeah.

– And do you find you have any issues like with making conversation cause there’s not much changes in 28 days out here, really, does it.

– Yeah I’m really fortunate in that regard, I guess. I have talked to other guys about that. But no my wife and I we can talk for quite a long time.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– So we don’t have a problem with that.

– Could you see how that could cause issues if you haven’t got much to talk about, especially out here when you’re tired after a 12 hour day?

– Oh yeah that does happen occasionally, and yeah. So no you just have to be honest about it, and just say hey look I need to have a short talk tonight cause I want to hit the hay early.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– So we do that from time to time too.

– OK how about when you fly home, for your R and R like the first day or two you come back, what happens when you get back, do you sort of?

– I generally try and work things so that the first day at least at home we don’t have too much planned. So I can just enjoy being at home. It’s quite a difficult thing because the person who’s been at home and missing you and not doing things that they would normally do because you’re not there, they want to go out and do stuff.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– And you’ve been away and living in a camp and work site, and you just want to be at home and feel the home space.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– That’s certainly how it is for me. So we came up with a bit of an arrangement, and I said to my wife, look, first day at home I just want to lay around and rest and just recharge my batteries. After that, next few days, we’ll go out in the morning and do whatever we want to do up until lunchtime. And then in the afternoon, that’s my time at home. So we just split it up and then go out and do stuff and then the afternoon I can work around home or have a rest or read a book or whatever.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– Yeah and that works pretty good.

– Right yeah. Could you see how maybe other families this might cause a bit of an issue when they come home?

– Yeah, yeah I’m sure it could do. And I guess I’m lucky in one respect that my kids are all grown up and gone. So there’s only my wife and I at home, and so we’re free agents to do what we like to do with our time. Where as yeah those with young family, kids at home, it’s a whole new set of demands on your time at home. Yeah and I’ve talked to colleagues about that, and they do feel like they owe it to their family to spend a lot of time messing about and trying to pack as much as they can into that week at home.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– Which, you know that must be pretty tiring at times.

– What would you have in the way of advice for maybe someone just starting out in the industry, like in regards to planning or anything they need to know before they get in?

– Yeah, I think one of the key things is to remember that certainly if you’re doing this project type work that you and I have been doing, get it firmly in your head that it’s not going to last forever. And keep that in mind with your finances. The temptation to spend money when you’ve got money coming in, that’s pretty good is very real. We’ve been quite disciplined ourselves and we’ve saved hard because the day will come when the project finishes and you’re back home without a job. And I’ve had one spell in the time that I’ve been doing this where I was out of work for four months in between jobs. And the bills keep coming. So if you haven’t saved and made allowances for that, you can get in trouble pretty easily.

– [Jason] Yeah.

– Yeah.

– Well I hope you enjoyed that. Next week we got Mark back for part two of his interview, where he discusses the best way to prepare for your next FIFO gig. He also tells us how he best gauges whether FIFO work is ramping out or pulling back, which I think is really important so you can stay best prepared for the future. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback for Mark or myself, please leave them in the comments box below and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and give us a follow on Instagram. Here’s a preview of next week. In the time that I’ve worked with you I’ve noticed that you’re always very positive and stuff, I’ve never really seen you down or have a bad attitude towards anything. Like a lot of other guys, I suppose, you work around that have their down days, and they can be really negative for a whole day or a few days in a row. What would you attribute that to, like your positive attitude? How do you keep that, maintain it?

– Well oddly the main thing for me is that I believe that–

– Yeah, that’s what it’s all about.