Fencer

My Job

Name: Ross Johnston
Age: 37
Job title: fencer
Working hours: 7.30am to 6pm plus bookwork at night
Employer: self-employment, builders, farmers
Pay: experienced fencers average $1500 a week
Qualifications needed: a willingness to work and learn from experienced fencer, Young Farmers Clubs offer training
Career prospects: grow the business, employ other fencers

Q: What do you do?
A: I'm up at 5.30am, in the truck at 6.30am and at the job by 7.30am. I put in posts until lunchtime then do the railings and palings until six at night.


If I'm on eight-wire fencing it's about another hour of travel in the morning to the farm and then driving over the farm. There's a lot of driving involved and it's a long day. Every night I work on quotes.
People look at fencing and think anyone can do it but to be able to do it properly you have to do something like a builder's apprenticeship only longer, maybe five or six years.
There's more to eight-wire fencing than anyone realises because you never know what you are going to strike.
Every piece of land is different, every house site. You hit different soil, rock and tree stumps.

Q: Why did you choose this job?
A: I worked on farms in Te Kuiti for about a year. We spent about a month fencing and it just grew on me.
You're outdoors, always learning and it's physical. When you're doing stays and battens you're learning.
There's different reasons for fences - eight-wire fences keep stock in, paling fences are for privacy, pool fences for safety and security fencing for security.

Q: What's the best thing about the job?
A: Finishing and getting paid straight away. With eight-wire fences it's running the wires and doing the stays. You see the finished product and can take pride in your work.
The worst thing is working in the wet, handling the rammer or spade with wet and muddy hands or handling electricity in the wet. Digging into rocks and tree stumps is not good either.
The oddest thing I've ever seen was when I dug up a frog. I dug down and there it was just sitting there. And when you dig out for retainer walls, the next day you come back there always seems to be a cat in the bottom - alive.
I've worked all over the world including Australia for two years and England for seven. If you've got New Zealand fencing experience you blow the English and Aussies away.
I worked in the Florida Everglades doing security fencing alongside roads to keep the crocodiles off the roads. We put up a chainlink mesh. You saw crocs all the time but they were mostly small and a long way off. The snakes were more of a worry.

Q: What are your strengths?
A: I'm fast, tidy, honest and hardworking. I need to work on my paperwork and communication. Before you start the job you should tell the client what they are going to get and when, and that it is payment on completion.

Q: Where do you want to be in five years?
A: I'd like to have a bigger business - I'm a one-man band now and new to Hamilton, and have six contractors working for me. I won't be fencing, just quoting and managing.

Q: What's you're job hunting advice?
A: Look for a good fencer to work for and learn from and unless you're prepared to pull your weight don't bother. Be prepared to start at $10 an hour and work hard.
A good fencer should have charisma, be able to talk to customers and have a quick answer to explain what is happening. They need to be tidy, on time, polite and be quick on quotes - don't go quoting two weeks after being asked.