Apprentice telco techie

Aimee Brown

Apprentice telecommunications engineering technician
Most people know exactly what kind of working day they’re in for when they get up in the morning. But in Matt Clifton’s job there’s no predictability. “You wake up in the morning and you don’t know what’s in store for the day,” says the apprentice telecommunications engineering technician. Each morning, Clifton waits for a call from his boss to tell him where he is going and what job he will be doing.

“Overnight a fault might occur, or a cable is cut, and we’ve got to go out and repair it,” the RailCorp employee says. Some jobs are small and easily fixed, but others can take hours.
“Some days it’s very hard. There was a car accident last week — they went through the fence and cut all the wires. We had to get out there and reconnect them all. Everyone got together and worked to get the trains running on time, before peak hour,” he says.

As a telecommunications engineering technician at RailCorp, 24-year-old Clifton is responsible for installing new phone lines and computers at train stations as well as responding to and repairing faults involving phone line and computer cabling in and around the stations.

Most of his work is on site, working near the train tracks. “You work alongside the train tracks, but it’s not dangerous. You’ve got your safety officers on site. They know how far to stand away from the tracks,” he says. Although he is just one year into the trade, Clifton is lucky enough to have a career adviser close to home. His father works in the telecommunications trade.
“My father works for Telstra and does the same sort of work,” he says. Clifton says knowing a bit about the trade helped him make up his mind to pursue the career. “When he’d come home he’d talk about it and I thought it sounded good,” he says.

While he says it’s great to have someone to swap work stories with who understands the trade, he jokes that it can sometimes get a little competitive. “Once [I finish] the apprenticeship I will be a higher-qualified tradesman than my dad,” Clifton says. “e wants to go back to TAFE and do all the extra courses that I’m doing but he doesn’t have the time. I keep telling him that once I’m done I’m going to be his boss, but he doesn’t like it.”

Love your work
How did you get into your job?
I enrolled in Certificate IV in Telecommunications Engineering and started working as an apprentice at RailCorp.
Upside: I really enjoy the unpredictability.
It keeps me interested in my job. I also love working with cabling. I find it really interesting how much data can be sent over fibre cables.
Downside: I don’t think there’s any downside to it. I love it.