Dream Job With All The Furnishings

The Age

Saturday June 14, 2008

Josh Jennings

HAVING toiled in a number of short-lived jobs in his 20s (he manned a service station, collected glasses at a nightclub and worked in a department store), Marcus Gissane says it was a relief when he finally landed a job with a long-term future.

"Once I figured out what I actually wanted to do, I found that I liked going to work, rather than dreading it," he says.

While living in Newcastle a few years ago, Mr Gissane says he was in a rut and did not know what he wanted to do for a living. Centrelink was hounding him to attend meetings but he could not see any legitimate career options.

The situation prompted him to think harder about his prospects and the light bulb eventually switched on: if he could make guitars for a living, he'd be happy.

"I found out that there was a Work for the Dole project in Newcastle where you could go along three days a week and make furniture, which is what I needed to do if I wanted to be a guitar maker - because I really had no idea about woodwork at all," he says. "So I did that for six months and learned the absolute basics about woodwork.

"I developed a bit of a passion for wood work - not just guitar-making, but all sorts of woodwork."

Mr Gissane moved to Melbourne to start a pre-apprenticeship at RMIT in furniture-making and after a few months, he was put in contact with Kidman Furniture, a furniture manufacturer and retailer which has made furniture for the Qantas lounges at Australian airports, gaming chairs for Melbourne's first casino and doors at the Rialto.

First, he picked up a part-time job with Kidman Furniture and was then offered a cabinet-making apprenticeship with Kidman and RMIT, which he quickly accepted.

He still wants to make guitars but says he's focused on learning about all aspects of the cabinet-making trade.

"I've learned so much about the different techniques and working with wood," he says. "The first year that I've been working, it's really been about finding out different techniques for wood-working skills and just getting an idea of what would be involved with making guitars because it's a pretty intensive thing to do."

As a 28-year-old, Mr Gissane says that he was slightly nervous about entering an apprenticeship where the majority of his peers would be in their teens and early 20s, but he says that age shouldn't be a barrier when it comes to pursuing a career that you're passionate about.

"If it's what you really want to do and it takes that long to figure it out, that's just the way it goes," he says. "Some of the guys start their apprenticeships young and then realise that this isn't what they want to do, so they try something else. I've heard about people starting their apprenticeships in their 40s, and I think that's inspirational when you see somebody trying something new because it's what they really want to do."

For anybody contemplating switching to a career in cabinet-making, Mr Gissane says it pays to ask lots of questions while you're learning.

"That's one of the ways that I started out, just asking constant questions," he says. "You're better off asking people how things go rather than trying to figure out how things work yourself and possibly getting yourself into trouble. You're not going to look too stupid asking how to do something, but you're going to look pretty stupid trying to do something that you don't know how to do and making a huge mistake and hurting yourself." -- JOSH JENNINGS

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home