I started out with a burning desire to be a bike mechanic. Motor bikes were my life at the time.
My dad convinced me that to work on bikes all day would soon reduce my interest in my own bikes and to look at something more varied but still in the mechanical field.
I ended up as a fitter and turner, looking back now I think it has been one of the most versatile trades around.
I’ve learned the skills I’ve needed to keep my bikes running and because I didn’t become a bike mechanic I’ve always kept an interest in finding out things, tuning, suspension etc, the things my trade didn’t cover. My original trade has given me the grounding and taught me to apply those skills to my bikes.
As for work, I’ve never been out of a job in 35 years and the range of work has included factory maintenance, automotive mechanic, heavy plant mechanic, mining, Oil rigs and even a few years building vintage aircraft engines and finally to the point of running sewerage treatment plants.
Once again, the range of skills I learned (Fabricating, welding, machining, fitting) have given me the grounding to work in different fields.
There is money to be made but most of it is in isolated places or in the big projects. For instance there should be a new gas plant going ahead in Darwin later this year. This will drive up wages for tradesmen again as happened with the last one.
As an aside. We have a training provider in our organisation, has a degree in Psychology and he uses this to target training to suit different people. He also assess and advises people in their current and future job suitability. He will talk to someone for a few hours and recommend a range of employment options to suit the person.
I think this sort of thing could be a valuable aide in determining what you may be doing for a long time to come.
Brent
