Scott Driver - Ipswich

Scott Driver from Ipswich

I am a fourth-year apprentice boilermaker at Queensland Rail's (QR) Ipswich workshop — I finish my apprenticeship in January 2007. My work includes complete wagon production work in liaison with Redbank workshops and also maintaining, repairing and restoring QR heritage locomotives. It takes a lot of time and effort but our role is to preserve QR's history.

I have been profoundly deaf since birth. I use hearing aids to assist my hearing but I generally need to focus on people when they are speaking to me to ensure I understand what they are saying.

When I finished high school, I applied for various jobs for five years and was not successful in gaining a full-time job but I kept persevering. I applied for work at QR as it is an equal opportunity employer and as I was profoundly deaf and mature-aged I thought they may consider me for an interview — which they did.

I have been really lucky to work with a lot of great blokes who help me out when I need it. Tradesmen do, however, like to get in and get things done so sometimes they can get frustrated because it takes them longer to explain things to me.

Most of the adjustments at work have just been about educating and raising awareness of my limitations in the workplace so people know how to approach me and what to take into consideration.

I don't like to refer to myself as having a disability but I do think it is important to know my limitations and how I can work around them. I also believe that people with disabilities should try and be open about their situation so that people around them are more aware of it and are therefore more comfortable in approaching them.