A phone call to Tony Brady caught him off guard but willing and able to contribute. Some quick-fire questions followed, not allowing Tony much time to compose his thoughts (but the sustenance at lunchtime helped).
Tell me about a good day… left Tony thinking “what a stupid question,” followed by a reply, “most days are a good day, that’s why we do it. There’s nothing like perfect weather, perfect posting conditions, the meters churning out”.
Tony’s been fencing for 37 years, so that speaks well for fencing as a career choice. Having started out by lending a hand to another fencer in Pleasant Point after flood damage, Tony started his own fencing business in 1993 and has never looked back. Tony fences with Massey Ferguson tractors and Kinghitter post drivers, having recently purchased a Kinghitter Terminator Series II. Tony currently has himself and two other workers.
The question ‘what about a bad day?’ had a more instant response: “Well, there was the time…”
Having brought a second-hand SAME Explorer from a North Island dealer about five years ago, Tony found himself involved in a long litigation saga that he’d really like to forget. Thinking he’d asked all the right questions when going through the purchase process and having received quite a few phone calls of reassurance from the dealer when the tractor arrived, it had a lot more rust than the dealer had indicated, leaving Tony aggrieved and disappointed in the sale.
“It got to the point – months later – after not getting anywhere with recourse with the dealer, I thought ‘stuff it, I just wanted to get on with life’, so I got the SAME set up for fencing and one of the first jobs was fencing around a duck pond.”
Partway through the job, the landowner decided he wanted some posts driven for his maimai. ‘Not a problem’ thought Tony. Cutting through the inside of the electrified portion of the fence, he headed for the proposed location. He casually drove across a grassy bit of the pond, unbeknown to him that a clay portion was going to pull the tractor off to the right and into deeper water. The little maimai not-a-problem job, suddenly turned into a Big Problem Job, as water started filling the cab floor on one side. With no cell reception, Tony had to climb a hill, with luck being that he knew a neighbour had a 22-ton digger. Some considerable time later, the excavation began by stropping up the tractor to half lift, to partially slide it back onto firm ground.
Tony’s crew still say five years later that they’d never seen him so stressed, so that’s a good indicator that the good days outweigh the bad days. Keep that in mind the next time the job doesn’t quite go to plan, it rains, or you have a breakdown.
Don’t we all know it?
Article written by Debbie White.
Published in the A week in the life of Feature in WIRED Issue 69 / June 2023 by Fencing Contractors NZ
