How to Treat Tradies, According to Tradies

A tradie is someone who builds/fixes stuff and wakes up painfully early. That seems to be a fairly even-handed description, but according to public perception, tradies also tend to be pie-eating, durrie-punching racists, or misogynistic jerks who whistle at each and every passing female. There’s also a notion that tradies are somehow the ultimate men, which is something other men sometimes find intimidating. These non-tradies drop their voices to a fake growl when talking to tradies, and pretend they know stuff about cable trays and carburettors when they don’t. So basically, lots of people don’t know how to act around tradies, and we want to know how tradies feel about that.

We spoke with a few to find out how they are treated on the daily and how they’d like to be treated. And—spoiler alert—the general consensus is they just wanted to be treated in a pretty normal, respectful way.

Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover

Don’t just think of us as these guys who hassle girls on the street, who swear 24/7, who are sexist and who smoke flat-out. Don’t get me wrong, those guys exist but they’re the minority. Every day now we’re seeing a more and more diverse group of people on job sites. There are more women than ever before and people from previous professions looking to make a career change. We might look rough around the edges and our work uniforms may not involve suits or ties, but we’re just like you or the next person. We work to survive; we have good and bad days and we’re human. Treat me like you would want to be treated. — Lachie, seven years in a trade

Don’t Ask Me to Fix Your Car

There’s that real “blokey bloke” stereotype that comes along with doing a trade and everyone, including some of my friends, think I have certain interests just because I’m a tradie. For example, everyone thinks I just naturally know about cars when I don’t. I don’t know the first thing about cars! I once even had a mate refer one of his girlfriends to me when she was having problems with her car. She called up my number and I had no idea what to tell her. I know the model of my car, it’s a Holden ute, but I don’t know anything else about it, let alone how to fix it. Also, my favourite movie is Notting Hill, just FYI. — Joseph, 11 years in a trade

More Than Just a Number

Don’t just see us as a number. I think people often see us as disposable human machines, chipping away at repetitive tasks without feelings. They don’t see us as people, but this can be the same even within our own industry. At times, we’re just a number in a big commercial industry and unless you’re a foreman or a leading hand, you are just one small pawn in the game. I often find that project managers and guys up in higher management, who have university degrees, treat us as just numbers and far too often we’re sacked and replaced with someone else the next day. It can be so cutthroat and tough out there. At times you wonder why you bother caring about doing such a good job when management so often doesn’t respect you or the work you’re doing. – Twiggy, eight years in a trade

I Know More Than You Think

I have found that in general, lots of people talk down to tradies. I’ve been working as an electrician for years now but outside of that I’ve been studying to become a mortgage broker. For example, I was once talking to one of my mate’s mates who knew that I was an electrician and I knew that he was in finance. He started making small talk about footy even though it was clear as day that he didn’t know much about the game or care about it. But then the minute my studies in mortgage broking came up, this guy’s voice literally changed, and I swear he sounded more sophisticated. It was the biggest switch, but now when I think about it, I think he’d put on a fake voice to to talk about AFL! He thought he needed to sound more bogan or something. And then he seemed surprised that I knew a thing or two about his industry. In general I’ve noticed that sometimes people are surprised when you say something smart when they weren’t expecting it. — Matt, 15 years as an electrician

Get With the Tradie Lingo

The conversations I have at work are worded pretty differently to the ones I have at home with my wife. If you want to pretend like you know what you’re talking about around a tradie, try using some of these words: Smoko. Not everyone takes a smoko to actually smoke a dart but it’s a short break to have some food and drink. Job and knock. This is when we can knock off work after finishing off one last job. Having a Toolbox: This is another word for the safety briefing that starts every day. I also use the phrase “How’s the darls?” to describe girlfriends or wives and asking about how they are. And some tradies might tell you that they don’t swear but I’m here to tell you that there’s a lot of swearing on site, so throwing in an f-bomb into a conversation with a tradie might do you well. – Shano, 19 years in a trade

Know the Facts

Us tradies see a lot when we’re working in office buildings. We see the guys in suits and they see us but they won’t give us the time of day. We can look pretty grubby in our work uniforms but it doesn’t mean that their white collar jobs are better or more “skillful.” Half of the people think we get paid too much for what we do and half have no idea what we get paid but assume it’s less than them. Pay rates vary depending on the trade, but many of us would have equal pay or more than the guys in office buildings. I think people need to get to know the skills and challenges involved in trades before they start making assumptions. — Nathan, seven years in a trade

Interviews by Angela Payne. She's on Instagram