With two weeks left until my discharge from the Army, no job lined up and a mortgage to pay I was feeling a little nervous.
I had been applying for all sorts of work for about three months and had not had much feedback.
I had a Diploma of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and was doing a degree part-time, but joining the Army straight after school meant I had no relevant experience that I could transfer to a civilian workplace.
I decided that I had better apply to extend my discharge date for two months to buy some more time.
As I walked into the Company Orderly Room to submit my request one morning, the Company Sergeant Major hastily advised me that I had to immediately see the battalion’s Commanding Officer (CO) for my exit interview, one of the last formalities before a discharge.
I nervously produced the extension request I was holding and was met with a hostile glare – “Well, you can take this to the CO in person” – a highly irregular move as the request usually had to go through approvals from numerous officers before being presented to the CO.
The CO had just been posted to the battalion and wasn’t the same one we had deployed to Afghanistan with, so no one knew how strict he was or what his policies were.
This meeting is usually supposed to be a casual and friendly chat, where you are presented with your discharge certificate and the CO thanks you for your service.
Unfortunately, my experience would prove to be the opposite.
We sat down and he asked me what I had planned for the future, to which I awkwardly replied, “Well actually, Sir, I was about to submit this,” and passed the request to him.
The CO finished reading then turned to me and said: “I’m not going to approve this. You’re a man, you’ve made a man’s decision. When I leave the Army I’m going to walk away and never look back.”
I was shocked – with deployments to East Timor and Afghanistan under my belt and an unblemished service record I was going to leave the Army in these sour circumstances.
He handed me my discharge certificate and wished me luck and that was that.
Civilian transition
After leaving Battalion Headquarters I immediately started calling all my Plan Bs – family, friends and potential leads about needing imminent employment.
Discharging from the Army took months and wasn’t as easy as giving your two weeks’ notice to HR.
Paperwork had to be submitted well in advance and attempts were made to line up employment to correspond with the discharge date.
Getting a job too soon could mean not being out of the Army in time to start, but getting one too late could result in income problems.
The next day I attended a transition seminar with hundreds of other personnel about to leave the Defence Force, with lectures on subjects like how to use Medicare and how to translate your Defence skills into civilian terminology for your CV and job interviews.
It was like leaving high school again as many of us had never had jobs in civilian industries.
Trying to convey your skills and experience to a civilian employer on your CV or in an interview was a real challenge.
I discovered this when speaking to a family friend who worked in mining construction in Western Australia and was explaining that I was looking to get into the industry.
He looked at me with doubts and said, “But how are you going to go working in the heat?”
I paused for a moment wondering if he was joking or not as he knew I was in the Army, but he wasn’t.
I then explained what my job as an infantry soldier entailed, which included weeks at a time of physical work in the bush and sleeping on the ground, without access to showers or toilets.
I told him about carrying in excess of 40 kg loads of equipment on 10+ hour patrols in Afghanistan, and we soon agreed that there were a few things I could teach him about “working in the heat”.
The pipe dream
During one of the 10-minute breaks at the seminar by pure chance I ran into my old CO from another battalion who was also discharging, and asking me what work I was going into, I explained my predicament.
Amazingly, he told me that his wife worked in the Human Resources department for a large company seeking labourers for work on remote LNG projects.
That night I sent him my CV which he passed onto his wife, and the next day I received a call and an interview was arranged.
The company was LandPartners Limited, who have been providing surveying and GIS services for pipeline and construction projects for over 30 years.
As a trusted name in the industry, the company had secured projects across all the major Queensland CSG pipelines, facility sites and associated infrastructure, and when I was offered a position as a Surveyor’s Assistant, I finished with the Army on the Friday and started with LandPartners on the Monday.
It turned out I had not needed that extension after all.
After two weeks of training and inductions I was on a flight mobilising to Roma to start work on the construction of the Santos GLNG Hub Compressor Station 4 at Fairview on a 3:1 roster.
As I sat on the bus to the HUB 4 camp I had no idea what to expect. I had never lived in a worker’s camp or worked in the industry before, and was wondering if I had made the right decision.
After opening the door to my accommodation for the first time I was pleasantly surprised.
Having only ever been employed in the Army I was half expecting to be sharing dorm-style accommodation with a group of strangers.
Having my own bathroom, flat screen TV with Foxtel, internet and linen washed for me was a luxury I had not anticipated.
The only downside was, like being away in the Army, I was separated from friends and family.
Unlike the Army though, I could communicate with the outside world and was permitted a mobile phone.
I was working with good blokes who were an experienced team of surveyors.
We were required to set out points throughout various stages of construction and create as-constructed plans for eventual handover to Santos.
The work was interesting and it was exciting learning a new skill while being part of a large project.
I had to discipline myself and try to resist the large amounts of cakes and treats that were on offer in the mess every day, as I knew my former colleagues were all waiting to see if I would put on weight or not in my new life as a civilian.
I utilised my spare time well by continuing to study OHS part-time at university.
Six months later, I was lucky enough to be offered a position as an HSE Advisor with LandPartners where I still work today.
I manage the health and safety of our teams who are working on various projects ranging from remote pipelines to high-rise construction in the city.
The role is diverse and challenging but the company has a strong safety culture.
Sometimes I wonder where I would be if the CO had accepted my request to extend my Army discharge date.
