He started in the FIFO industry less than 12 months after completing his apprenticeship and advancing to a leaders position in less than 4 months on one of Australia’s largest construction projects. This week, we meet Nick.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
– How long were you out of your apprenticeship before you started on your first FIFO gig?
– So, I finished my apprenticeship, and…
– G’day, I’m Jason, welcome back, and to episode 13 of Fit 4 FIFO, where on this week’s episode we meet Nick, who started working in FIFO at a young age, less than 12 months after finishing his apprenticeship, and in less than four months of his first FIFO gig, he was promoted to a leading hands position, where he was in charge of 15 people, some of which had many more years experience than him, and were older than his parents. Though, with his easygoing attitude, he was accepted and respected. Just a quick note, the sound quality’s a bit poor for about two minutes, though hang in there, as Nick has a lot of interesting things to share. So let’s go meet Nick! G’day Nick!
– Hey mate, how are ya?
– Good, welcome to Fit 4 FIFO. Can you just tell us a bit about your position in the FIFO industry and what you do?
– Sure. I started off as an instrument technician, AP Oil & G, in 2014, and I was a technician there for about three or four months, then got a promotion to a leading hand position, which is sort of the first leadership role I’ve had. That’s been a good learning curve for me. Lot of new things, I guess, over the past, probably two years now.
– And how old are you now?
– 22.
– 22 right.
– Two weeks to my 23rd birthday.
– Ooh.
– Spent my 21st at AP Oil and G.
-How long were you out of your apprenticeship before you started on AP Oil and G on your first FIFO gig?
– So, I finished my apprenticeship, and all through my apprenticeship I was working with guys that had done their apprenticeship in the same place, and they weren’t permanent employees, they’d come back for shutdowns and stuff like that. And they’d tell me about, you know, which FIFO jobs will make you like thousands and thousands of dollars a week, so even when I was in my apprenticeship, I was like fuck, I wanna get amongst that it sounds awesome, that.
So, as soon as I finished my apprenticeship, I started looking around for roles. I couldn’t really find anything, and got with a contracting company, and I was with them for probably six months, and I saw this job come up, and I registered interest online, and tried and tried and tried, and couldn’t get on. Eventually it came to the point, I had a contact out there, which was one of the guys that works in the team now, and he said he’d put in a good word for me, and snuck in, so…
– [Jason] Nice.
– It’s probably just under a year-end of my apprenticeship before I got up there.
– Yeah right. And after you actually got your position, how long before you became a leading hand?
– Probably from memory about three or four months.
– [Jason] Yeah right, that’s pretty quick.
– In the early days they didn’t need any leading hands, wasn’t much to do, you know, we were kind of just sittin’ round waiting for the work to come, but I think once they realized they needed leadership roles and looked around and promoted a few of us, so…
– And how did you feel about taking the leading hand position?
– Bit nervous. You know, I’m such a young guy, and there’s obviously guys on the team that are older than my dad, you know, and, not that you’re telling people what to do, but sometimes you know what guys in this industry are like, they’re pretty rugged blokes. So a young 21-year-old at the time, telling a 60-year-old dude who’s been in the game for, you know, 30 years, 40 years, what to do was a bit nerve-wracking. But I’ve got the hang of it, you know. Learnt to befriend everyone, learnt to read people and their personalities and how to treat them sort of thing. A lot of people you just leave to their own devices, people that might be a bit sort of against a young person telling them, not how to do their job, but just giving them tasks and stuff like that. That was a big learning curve for me, learning how to treat different personalities.
– And so yeah, so you’re a bit nervous going into the position as leading hand. And what do you feel it’s like now?
– I’m pretty happy, like I think I grew a lot as a worker in my role, and I don’t know, I still, if I had to do it all again, I’d probably do it the same, would have taken the position. And I think that will help me in future roles as well, have it on the resume, and… Yeah, I’m happy where I am. It’s a good balance between working in the field and working in an office, I guess. You know how our leading hand roles are, they’re a little bit different than a regular leading hand, like and someone who’s always in the field, and just maybe preps out, speaks directly to the supervisor and that sort of stuff, as you’re sort of, it’s more towards the role of a supervisor, I guess. You find work for the guys and you see them in engineering and doing all that sort of administrative stuff I guess.
– What would you say to any other guys, young guys out there that sort of think they’re ready to be a leading hand but they may be a bit nervous and therefore they don’t have the confidence.
– I’d say probably just roll with it, you know. You’ll only regret the decisions you didn’t take, which sounds pretty fucking, I guess cliched, and a bit crummy for that sort of question, but you know, I don’t regret it. Like I said, I was a bit nervous and hesitant when I was first offered the position, but took it running, and I was happy with the outcome.
– [Jason] Yeah, nice mate.
– And I think you learn a lot more skills that you probably wouldn’t have learned as a technician, dealing with people. There’s a lot of communication stuff that goes on between different work groups and stuff like that, and you know, people sort of try and tell you what to do, it’s good you learn to kind of, not necessarily earlier questions, just learn how to communicate with different sort of people. So, I think it’s a good thing.
– Yeah, definitely. Being like younger, and in the position, how do you deal with, obviously sort of intimidating people, ’cause you get ’em on every job, obviously. How do you deal with guys that might sort of try and overpower you or act like you’re not competent for the position?
– I don’t know, like I don’t really get that anymore, but before I might have sort of felt intimidated somewhat by all the people that kind of look down on you as such. Now I just see everyone as equal sort of thing, I don’t give a fuck if you’re the janitor or the CEO. I just speak to everyone the same. I don’t change my way of communicating, I guess, you know, doesn’t matter who it is, basically.
– [Jason] Yeah, just be yourself.
– Yep.
– Yeah, nice one. Something I should have asked you before, how many, like at the peak of the job, how many blokes did you have working under you?
– Probably about 14 was the max. It was a good number.
– Yeah, that’s still a fair few blokes to organize. You have like, are you pretty well known on the job for having a pretty good work-life balance? You get a lot of travel and
– I love to, yeah
– get away a lot? Do you think it’s still feasible to have, do this sort of work, have a good work life balance and still make more money than what you were in the city?
– Yeah, 100%, yep. I guess being in these sort of roles really makes you appreciate your time off a lot more. When you’re working four weeks on and one week off, you’ve gotta make the most of it, ’cause otherwise when you come back you won’t be fresh. You’ve gotta be able to get out and experience different things. But yeah, definitely I think, you can have a lot of new experiences without spending a lot of money, you know. A lot of the trips that I sorta go on in my R and R are just you know, going camping in my car and staying on a beach or doing anything like that. It’s not expensive at all. You can have a good lifestyle, I guess it depends on what you like. If you wanna go and spend money at the casino or stay in an expensive hotel, well it’s gonna cost you a shitload if you’ve got those sort of hobbies I guess. You know, for me, I just like going and getting away from everything, staying on the beach, going four-wheel driving, camping places, and that’s what’s the good life for me.
– Yeah, nice. With your experience you’ve got now, from the time you’ve been in the industry, if there’s one thing that coulda helped you to get to where you are today, what would that thing be? That you could have known, someone could have told you before you started your journey to your position right now, what’s something that made…
– Probably the only thing which, not in terms of technical knowledge, but in terms of I guess, like when I first started, you know, I’m young, I’m only 22 years old now, all my friends back home, they were going out and partying and everything, on the weekend doing fun stuff, and you’re seeing photos on social media and shit of them having a good time and you’re stuck in a little camp room doing nothing. That really got to me at the start. But I really sorta learnt, I notice a lot more now, it’s the same shit every weekend, every night you know. They go out and get pissed, wake up Sunday, feel like shit. I guess at the start of the job that really got to me, the fact that they were out having a good time and I was stuck up here, you know. But as time went on, I kind of learnt myself that they’re doing the same shit every weekend, and they’re not going anywhere, you know. None of that’s sort of dragging my mates obviously. But it was just something that I probably should have been more wary of at the start, like that it would get me sort of thing, and I got sort of down that I was missing out on that sort of shit. And at times I wanted to get out, go home and just fucking have good time. Now I know that, you know, it’s good up here, and I’d make money and I’m doing things with my life, rather than just pissing it all up the wall.
– Nice. On next week’s episode, Nick’s back for part two of his interview, where he goes into greater detail about how he manages with people who don’t necessarily want to cooperate. If you have any comments, questions or feedback for Nick or myself, please leave them in the comments box below. Don’t forget to subscribe, and find us on Facebook and Instagram. Here’s a preview of next week.
– It’s not very enlightening, I guess. It’s quite depressing, actually. A bad situation, I guess. If you’re stuck financially, maybe you might have to you know, but there’s no point.
– Yeah, that’s what it’s all about!