Meet our people – Graham - video transcript

[Graham, Trainee Surface Water Operator]: I started back in 2009, I think it was. I have almost been here about 2 years now, part of the traineeship that I’m doing as a surface water operator. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been working in catchments most of the time and also moved on to the dam sites, like this one here, Serpentine Pipehead, to learn the treatment side of things as well.

In catchments, we would get sent our work from our supervisor and then could be sent out to do sampling on a boat on the weirs to test the quality to see what type of water we got. We could be patrolling the catchments between Mundaring to South Dandalup and Conjuranup. It’s about 15 catchments all up that we patrol, so we could be anywhere during the day.

At the stage where I was looking for employment just coming out of school, I went to an employment expo down in Woodman Point and Water Corp was one of the companies that was interested in young people…trying to employ them. I got interested in Water Corp for what they offered as traineeships and the possibilities that could come out of doing a traineeship, and that places that you could go and move to within Water Corp. So, I thought this was the job for me.

You’ve got so many options and divisions that you can move to. You can go do this and that. Move all over the State if you wanted to. Most importantly, all the people that you come across…

The balance between my work and my home life, with my football and things like that…the flexibility is great. On the weekends I could be working so I let my supervisor, manager know that I’ve got football this weekend. So that's good you know. I could be working the next weekend or whenever I am free. And things like training during the week, they look after me and asking me how I’m going...the flexibility is good.

All the qualifications I’ve got now, and the training, was all on-the-job training. And all the courses that you do, the safety and everything you can think, that we do in our jobs, has got courses. Getting learnt by our other workers and the senior catchment rangers…just learning and helping each other, working together as a team.

I started back in 2009, I think it was. I have almost been here about two years now, part of the traineeship that I’m doing as a surface water operator. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been working in catchments most of the time and also moved on to the dam sites, like this one here, Serpentine Pipehead, to learn the treatment side of things as well.

In catchments, we would get sent our work from our supervisor and then could be sent out to do sampling on a boat on the weirs to test the quality to see what type of water we got. We could be patrolling the catchments between Mundaring to South Dandalup and Conjuranup. It’s about 15 catchments all up that we patrol, so we could be anywhere during the day.

At the stage where I was looking for employment just coming out of school, I went to an employment expo down in Woodman Point and Water Corp was one of the companies that was interested in young people…trying to employ them. I got interested in Water Corp for what they offered as traineeships and the possibilities that could come out of doing a traineeship, and that places that you could go and move to within Water Corp. So, I thought this was the job for me.

You’ve got so many options and divisions that you can move to. You can go do this and that. Move all over the State if you wanted to. Most importantly, all the people that you come across…

The balance between my work and my home life, with my football and things like that…the flexibility is great. On the weekends I could be working so I let my supervisor, manager know that I’ve got football this weekend. So that's good you know. I could be working the next weekend or whenever I am free. And things like training during the week, they look after me and asking me how I’m going...the flexibility is good.

All the qualifications I’ve got now, and the training, was all on-the-job training. And all the courses that you do, the safety and everything you can think, that we do in our jobs, has got courses. Getting learnt by our other workers and the senior catchment rangers…just learning and helping each other, working together as a team.