Why I Used to be Ashamed of my Profession

And why after 15 years in the industry to the day, I realise how stupid that is.

Feb 09, 2023

It’s been 15 years to the day that I started in the flexible pavements industry. I’ve been using that description for a long time because it sounds much better than saying I’m a roadworker or, worse, a tar monkey.

I’m yet to meet someone in the industry who ever dreamed of entering it. Most people I have met through my work were the same as me. They just sort of fell into it, just like I did.

I got fired from my electrical apprenticeship. I was being bullied by one of the qualified guys I worked with. Constantly belittled and bagged because he thought I was shit… I probably was, but still, he was an asshole. So I thought fuck this guy and fuck this place, and started applying for other jobs. At one of the companies, I applied for a job with knew my boss. When my boss found out, he called me into the office and sacked me. I think there were laws against doing shit like that to apprentices, but I didn’t give a shit. I was miserable. The pay was terrible, the guys were assholes, and I had got to a point where I really couldn’t give a shit.

I fucked around for a while doing some electrical trade assistant work, which was nice to finally be making some (what I thought was) decent money, especially compared to the $250 a week I was getting an apprenticeship. I was trying to find another apprenticeship, but so was everyone else, apparently.

When the company I worked for finished a big project, they had to let me go. Reluctantly, they told me, but my confidence was shot, and I found it difficult to believe anything that a prospective employer said to me at the time.

I fucked around with some labouring and employment agency jobs. At the same time, my parents probably sat around wondering how their intelligent, young adult son had wound up working as an offsider in a fucking rubbish truck two years after getting decent marks in year 11 tertiary classes, especially given I literally didn’t study, not once.

I was kind of wondering the same thing. Everyone always told me I was smart. I felt like I was reasonably smart. But I was an anxious kid. I’m an anxious adult, too, so I didn’t interview well. When I was in year 10, we had this project where we had to present a round table to our parents and a couple of our teachers. I got so fucking nervous that my throat went all dry, and I couldn’t talk. I had to drink water for a couple of minutes to get my voice back, and even then, it was raspy as shit, and I coughed and spluttered my way through it. So yeah, I get a bit anxious.

My parents came home from a trip to the coast one Sunday and caught up with my cousins for lunch. Dad suggested that I could get a job with them. Each of them ran a roadwork crew out of a depot in Mogo, NSW.

I said, “what, as a roadworker? really?”. Until then, my idea of a roadworker was the stereotypical council worker. Someone who stood around all day doing fuck all earned shit money and was someone who society as a whole saw as a bit of a lazy prick. Dad explained to me how that wasn’t quite what they did. They travelled the state and spent a lot of nights away, living in motels, eating out of bakeries and pubs, working long hours and sitting around drinking beers and talking shop at the motel of an afternoon. The part that really piqued my interest was when he mentioned the money the guys made. A lot of it comes from LAFHA (Living AWAY From Home Allowance) and overtime penalty rates.

It’s not something that I ever pictured myself doing. At one point when I was younger, I wanted to be an architect, ha! good one. Later I decided I would be an electrician. It would seem a fair fall from grace to go from architect to roadworker.

I was still apprehensive. I’ve always been scared to step outside my comfort zone. As Redgum said, I was only 19 and about to move two hours away from home to live and work with my cousin and his family. I’d be working with a group of actual, real grown-ups. Country people, hard workers. I came from the middle class and was comfortable with that, but at that age, I was just so anxious and intimidated by most things.

I’ve always been the kind of person to catastrophise things. Nuild things up to be way worse than they were. Maybe it was a way of protecting myself. If you prepare for the absolute worst, it can only be better than that, right?

So I made a move, packed my 1992 LPG-powered Ford Falcon with some stuff and headed down the coast to start working on the roads. My cousin was the boss, and I remember on the first day nervously asking him, “so ahh, do these people know that, like, I’m your cousin, or is it a secret?” I was petrified of what they would think of me before I knew them. With my cousin being the boss, I didn’t want them to think I would ever get any preferential treatment. “Luckily”, my cousin had the same concern, so he made sure there was no doubt in anyone's mind that I would get any special treatment. Thanks mate…

I was pleased to find that I actually fuckin’ loved it. I was young, single, and had fuck all responsibilities. I was making great money and had very few bills, and for the next 11 years never saved a cent of it, whoops. This was the first real-time I had wandered out of my comfort zone as an adult, and it was a great success. Maybe trying new things or doing something you thought you couldn’t wasn’t all that terrifying after all.

I was also pleased to learn that our work was very technical and nuanced. So much more goes into building a road than people understand. And I guess unless you worked in that field, why would you ever need to understand? I was overly curious and inquisitive to the point where I could tell my cousin was being driven mad by the million questions I asked.

I was also relieved, but I was relieved for the wrong reasons. My preconceptions about road work and roadworkers were wrong. I felt better knowing that I wasn’t like one of those stereotypical roadworkers that I had conjured up an image of in my head. I was pleased I could tell people that that wasn’t me. I could explain some of the intricacies to people, and they could see that what I did was actually pretty interesting and more involved than most would assume. Ultimately, how I felt about myself and what I did was fuelled by how others perceived what I did.

I never planned on staying in the industry. There’s a bit of a running joke in the industry that people come here as a meantime thing and, despite their best efforts, never manage to leave. I’ve tried to leave a couple of times too. I had a lawn mowing business in Queensland for six months. It was successful, but I had to move for family reasons and return to the industry because it was all I knew. From time to time, I would apply for apprenticeships. Even as recently as 5 years ago, I was trying to get a mature-age apprenticeship. But I’ve just never managed to get out!

Over the last 15 years, I have been coming up with different ways to describe what I do for work. I always felt like simply being a roadworker wasn’t enough, and I also felt like it didn’t do justice to the hardworking and quality people I’ve been fortunate enough to work with. I felt like people would judge me if I didn’t come up with a title that sounded better than simply being a roadworker or if I didn’t overexplain what I did so that people knew that I had a reasonable job.

I always tried to put some extra polish on it. At times I probably even made it sound like it was a bit more than it was, especially when I was younger and single, meeting women for the first time. Until recently, I didn’t know why I would try so fucking hard to do this. It was a good job. It is a good job. There’s shit loads of work. It’s always paid me well. I’ve always had everything I needed and many things I wanted. For the most part, I enjoyed it. So why would I feel the need to make sure people knew that or embellish what I did?

The answer is simple. I care too fucking much about what other people think of me. I always have. Seeking the validation of others and caring so deeply about how others perceived me has long been one of the most futile sources of the mental health battles I have faced. The fucked up thing is, I know that I’ve just been so powerless to do anything about it for so long.

What I have realised is it was my own perception of what a roadworker was that drove me to behave like this. On reflection, when I think about times I have told people what I did for work, no one ever really gave a shit. And if they did, they’re a judgemental asshole anyway and someone who I probably not the kind of person I need or want to surround myself with.

I had fabricated an image of how people perceived me in my own head, and I was trying to change that image in someone else’s head. It all came from an image or an idea I had created on my own. I was the cause of my own insecurities, lack of self-esteem and fear of judgement. No one gives a shit.

What I have learned is good people will only care if you enjoy what you do and if it provides you with enough money to look after yourself and your family. Anyone who cares about more than that is insecure in themselves and their own and, frankly, can go fly a kite…

Even after I was diagnosed and medicated for ADHD six years ago, when I started to get my shit together, apply myself and work my way up through management, I was still hesitant to tell people what I did. I thought they wouldn’t understand. I still thought they would think I was that image of the stereotypical roadworker that I had created. I still thought they would give a shit. They don’t.

I would even try to think of better-sounding titles on things like loan application documents or my son’s birth certificate. My thought would literally be, “what can I say to make sure they understand that I am not that stereotypical picture I have in my own head”.

I realise that you don’t know what people think and never will. It’s so fucking far out of your control. More importantly, what other people think does not matter. At all. My nearly 10 months of sobriety have provided me with clarity and forced me to sit with my thoughts instead of drinking them away. It’s a little embarrassing that it’s taken me until age 34 to realise it, but I’ve wasted so much of my life being concerned about what others think of me. It’s not funny, and I don’t have the fucking energy for it anymore.

These days I’m a spray seal supervisor, and I’m proud of what I do for work. I’m proud to have worked my way into this position with zero qualifications. I’m proud that I have a well-paying job with great benefits and conditions that allow me to provide for my family. I’m proud that I did it the hard way and didn’t have a degree or friends in high places to do me favours because I have learned so much along the way.

I’ve lived all over Australia over the last 15 years, and I’ve always been able to find work. I lived in Tonga for six months, thanks to what I do for work. Everything that I have in my life, which is so much more than what I need, is all thanks to what I do for work, and it’s so fucking nice to let go of that perception of what I thought others thought I did and just finally be fucking proud of what I have done and what I continue to do.

Cheers Wankers.

Why I Used to be Ashamed of my Profession

And why after 15 years in the industry to the day, I realise how stupid that is.

Discussion about this post