arrive-in-australia

One Week After Landing in Adelaide, I Ended Up on a Construction Site… Too Impulsive 🫠

I landed in Adelaide for just one week, and I already did something that, looking back now, feels a bit rushed.

I went to work on a construction site.

On Monday, while scrolling through Xiaohongshu, I saw a post saying someone was hiring construction workers in Adelaide.
I had just arrived in Australia, and realistically, I knew finding an IT job might take six months to a year.

Plus, everyone keeps saying blue-collar jobs pay really well here.

So I thought:

Why not try construction first and see how it goes?

That “try” turned into actually starting work—very fast.

📅 Monday: First Contact

I casually sent a message to ask about the job.

The reply was very Australian:

If you want to work, just come.

That was it.

📅 Wednesday: White Card Training

I took the White Card course on Wednesday.

Took the course and passed on the same day
💸 Cost: AUD 125

The speed of everything honestly surprised me.

🛠️ Buying Tools & Site Gear

Next came buying gear for the site:
safety boots, helmet, workwear, and tools.

✅ What I actually needed (for formwork work):

Safety helmet
Work clothes
Steel-toe boots
Tool belt
Nail gun
Charger
Two batteries

That was enough to get started.

⚠️ Tip 1: Don’t buy too many tools at the beginning

Tools are very expensive, and on your first day you usually don’t even know what kind of work you’ll be doing.

Things like:

Grinder
Measuring tape
Pencils / markers
Scraper

You can buy later.

Most of the time, the leading tradesman will tell you what you’re missing after you start.

⚠️ Tip 2: Strongly consider buying second-hand tools

Honestly, buying used tools from people who quit construction (like me 😅) is a much better deal.

I’ll write another post about why I gave up construction,
and the one after that will probably be me selling my tools.

🚗 You Basically Need a Car

Tools are heavy.
Without a car, it’s very inconvenient.

So I learned to drive on Saturday and bought a car shortly after.

Then on Monday—
📅 I officially started on site.

Everything moved much faster than I expected.

🧱 First Two Days: Pretty Rough

The first day experience was… not great.

The tradesman who was assigned to me was experienced, but terrible at teaching.

He didn’t explain how to do things
Only pointed out mistakes
Spoke in a very aggressive and unpleasant way

I wasn’t the only one—another labourer was also reassigned later.

On the second day, after some very unfriendly exchanges between us, the boss changed my supervisor.

Given that his work involved some dangerous tasks,
I chose to forgive him 😮‍💨

🤝 The Second Tradesman: Much Better

The next person who trained me was completely different:

Patient
Willing to explain
Let you try even if you’ve never done it before
Corrects mistakes without humiliation

I was still physically exhausted every day,
but at least the environment was respectful and communicative.

The work was hard, but mentally it felt much better.

👷‍♂️🧰 Final Thoughts

Looking back, I think I rushed into construction too quickly.

I had only been in Adelaide for one week
I hadn’t fully settled down
I jumped straight into physically demanding work

At the time, my mindset was:

IT jobs are hard to find anyway, so I might as well try construction.

But trying quickly turned into committing.

Now I think I should’ve given myself more buffer time—to slow down, observe, and think more clearly before deciding.

👀 About Finding an IT Job

Yes, IT jobs are hard to find.
But that doesn’t mean I should give up without trying.

I came all this way.
I should at least give it a proper shot.

Who knows?
It might work out.

To be continued.