A roundabout way of getting a job

Lyndon Sketcher stood at the roundabout on Heads Rd and State Highway 4 asking for a job. Photo/ Bevan Conley

Yesterday morning Lyndon Sketcher sucked it up and held up a work wanted sign to passing traffic.

"I've had five years from hell."

Mr Sketcher says when his Himatangi house burnt down in 2009 it set off the chain of events that had led to this point.

Three weeks later his business - Cheltenham Wrought Iron - out the front of his house was robbed.

It never recovered and he was forced to wind it up in 2014 and he has also recently divorced.

"I'm flat broke," Mr Sketcher said.

Born and raised in Whanganui, he left in the 1980s but has been back for eight months looking for work, not something he's had to do a lot in the past.

"Most of the time I've been self employed. I had to look for work in Australia back a bit but that was always easy to come by."

A welder by trade, he has done a range of jobs before and would consider anything.

He said he had done CV drops in businesses around town and yesterday morning decided to stand at the roundabout by Cobham Bridge with a work wanted sign.

"As soon as I got here and lifted my sign up I thought god, I'm a dick. [But] it's not as humiliating as I thought it would be actually," he said.

"Yeah, you've got to swallow your pride a bit. But I'm getting beeps from people. I had one guy stop and take my number. You do what you have to do."

He did try in New Plymouth where he had a job for a while but "it didn't last, it just didn't work out".

Mr Sketcher said if nothing came out of yesterday he would be back.

But not today.

"Tomorrow's my birthday so I'm having the day off."