My Trade Story with Rachell Passfield

I’m really excited to introduce you to this week’s My Trade Story contributor Rachell Passfield. Rachell is a newcomer to the construction industry, and is achieving so much already. I first met Rachell when she came to install our NBN. I’m sure you’ll find her story an inspiration, especially if you have younger women in your world who are unsure of their chosen career. This is a must read for them. Over to you Rachell!

My Trade Story with Rachell Passfield

My name is Rachell Passfield and I have lived in the Ipswich region my whole life. I finished my high school years in a little country town Rosewood. When I was going through school I always saw myself being a hair dresser or a girl that sat behind an office desk, as I thought that jobs like that were what girls are meant to do, but now my partner Matt and I have recently started a cabling business.

My recent job was working in retail as a cashier at Aldi in Yamanto. Matt did his Cert 3 in Telecommunication and started on the NBN work about 2 years ago. He would tell me all these interesting stories from his day at work and it kind of being interesting to me. We hit a few bumps along the way financially and we would never have thought that we could pull off being self-employed but we had no other option as I didn’t want to be working in retail for ever and I didn’t want the stress of finding another job as I still at the stage didn’t actually know for sure what I wanted to or be but I guess most people are the same right?

Matt asked me if I would even be interested in doing a “man’s job”, but what the hell I’ll give it a good crack! We discussed it for a few weeks and we had our families full support so we guessed if we failed we would have endless amount of love and support, but I still had the doubt in the back of my mind that we couldn’t pull it off, I mean I’m only 23 years old. We are currently sub-contracting to also another local business Ipswich Antenna Service, who are an amazing company and wonderful people. I now have the pleasure of working with my partner, which I think we make a pretty god damn good team, mainly doing NBN in the Ipswich region.

Our little business couldn’t be going any better! As the months go on we are achieving more and more than we ever thought that we could. So as the years go by hopefully we will grow in business and family.

It’s definitely not hard to be in a construction industry, it’s great fun. I have learnt so much, things that I would have never known or learnt if I didn’t decide to Choose to be in the construction industry. I mean I never really knew how to use drills properly and now a day the simple things I do in my job is simple things that everyone should have a knowledge on how to do it or use it. How often do women out there go to fix something or make something and think they can’t because they don’t have a male to help them?

If you are one of those girls or even male that thinks like that, find someone that can teach you how to use a drill or explain what type of screw to use on a certain surface because trust me once you know simple things like that, nothing will stop you from making something for your children or fix something in your house that is broken and no one will help you fix it. And they are only a couple of examples.

Yes, some days I feel that I get funny looks from customers as they are most likely thinking, what does she know, she’s a female. But then the days where I have lovely people telling me that it’s so great to see a female out working in the construction industry makes me forget the funny looks that I get and makes me happy in the career that I am now in.

If there are any females thinking of going into the construction industry and are unsure of what people will think of you or that you are doubting yourself, just go for it. You will learn so much and most of all have fun!

Thank you so much to The Builder’s Wife for asking me to share my story.