- Layla-Rose was drawn to become a FIFO cleaner for the high income but her first shift ended in tears
- She soon came to love the lifestyle and the money she was earning, especially after making good friends at the mine site
- After making a TikTok video about her daily FIFO life she quickly gained thousands of followers
- Layla-Rose Tynan, 20, from Scarborough, WA, shares her story below
The plane touched down on the red earth.
“Here we go,” I said to myself nervously.
It was 2021, and I’d just arrived in Newman, WA, for my first-ever FIFO shift, aged 18.
A couple of my friends were in the industry, and the money and the time off they got sounded great, so I applied for a casual utility job on a mine site.
Read more: As a teenager, this loving son vowed to buy his mum a house. Three years later thats exactly what he did.
You only needed a little experience to work in utilities, so I got a job quickly.
After a site tour and my induction, I was put straight to work.
I was assigned to housekeeping and paired with another woman to train me.
“Start by cleaning the kitchen floors,” she instructed, handing me a mop.
Most of the jobs involved cleaning or doing laundry.
That night, I lay on my single bed inside a prefab building with a small en-suite when tears started to trickle down my cheeks, feeling homesick and exhausted.
But I refused to give in.
“You can do this,” I jeered myself up.
I woke up at 3am the following day and started my shift.
It was challenging work, but I soon got into a rhythm.
My saving grace was making friends.
On that very first swing, I met a girl called Lily, 19.
It was good to connect with someone in the same boat as me.
She’d just started, too, and also enjoyed the lifestyle and money.
We often met up for lunch and went to the pool together, and after our shifts, we’d go out for dinner or to the on-site cinema.
There were loads of other females on site who we hung out with, too.
Of course, many men were on site, who sometimes flirted, but it never felt threatening.
I never got involved with any of them, but some friends did.
One day, I made a TikTok video of my daily FIFO life.
I filmed myself waking up at 1:30am, the breaks I took, going to the gym and heading to bed again at 8pm.
The video got thousands of views, and I soon had 7000 followers.
I filmed Lily and I having a sleepover.
We were in hysterics, trying to carry my mattress to her room without being seen.
Luckily we were in the same row of rooms so it was only around 50m we had to drag the heavy mattress.
“Ssssshh, we’re going to get caught,” I spluttered as tears streamed.
I’m now working in an office job in Perth and hope to start my own business soon, but I loved my time doing FIFO.
The 12-hour shifts gave me a good work ethic.
Earning $90k as a teenager was pretty good, too, and with two weeks on and one week off, I could spend my money travelling around Australia and to Bali.
My best advice to anyone considering FIFO work is to be kind to everyone and socialise so you don’t feel lonely.
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