Right place, right time

From early on, Gus’s parents believed that his life would unfold in a way similar to that of his siblings. They anticipated that, after school, he would find meaningful paid work and live independently. They prepared him by teaching him household chores and encouraging him to be involved in the community.

Gus has been a research technician at CSIRO since early 2019, his first job after finishing year 12. More recently, while attending his local barber shop, he was offered a second part-time job as a barber’s assistant. As his interests, skills, and confidence have evolved, he’s now learning how to cut hair.

Video transcript

This transcript was produced automatically, so there may be errors.

Right place, right time

Jacki Reichelt, Gus’s mother: 

We have three children. Gus is our middle child. Gus is really busy, so he works five mornings a week at the CSIRO. He works two afternoons a week at Martino’s. So that’s six days of work every week.

On top of all of that, he goes to the gym twice a week, he plays tennis twice a week, and he works with a communication mentor once a week to just improve his reading and comprehension skills. Really important tools for work in both workplaces.

Gus Reichelt: 

I work with CSIRO every morning. I work at Martino’s every Friday and every Saturday.

Ronny Reichelt, Gus’s father: 

So school didn’t really have a great deal of hope, I guess. The career advice that Gus got was, “Well, there’s nice workshops down the road.” He wouldn’t develop any skills; it would just be sort of an ongoing thing, and we said no. That’s, that’s not what we have in mind. That’s not part of our vision. We want Gus to have a regular job, be seen in the community, come home with award wages and be a tax-paying young man.

Jacki Reichelt: 

Very early on in the piece, even before Gus was born, we understood that he would be quite capable of many, many things. That he would be able to live independently, that he’d be able to go to school, he’d learn to read, and that life could be really good for Gus. So we knew that early. But we’re quite shocked, really, to find that lots of people, especially professionals, just didn’t seem to share that vision for Gus. They really laid on the low expectations right from the start.

Like our other kids, we didn’t really know what Gus’s post-school life would look like. We anticipated that through opportunities and through his interests, that his career path after school would develop, just like our other two children. One of the reasons why he came across Martino’s was because he was working at the CSIRO in a professional organisation and needed to look good, and he really wanted to grow a beard. So we had a look around for barbers, local, so that Gus in the future could walk to and from his appointments, and that’s how we stumbled across Martino’s.

Tony, co-owner of Martino’s: 

So Gus came in, a young man sitting in the chair, getting his grooming done and observing the shop and watching everything that goes on in the shop, and we thought that he might have an interest in being in an environment like this.

Joe, co-owner of Martino’s: 

He observed a lot and looked around and all that, and we thought, yeah, and we thought oh, you know, we’ll ask Ronny if he’s, you know, interested in a bit of part-time work.

Ronny Reichelt: 

We had a meeting, and we went from there, and now he’s working here.

Jacki Reichelt:

Because Gus was going to Martino’s as a customer, like a lot of young people, he was kind of in the right place at the right time, giving off the right vibes to make Joe and Tony notice his interest, and that’s how the job came about.

Gus Reichelt: 

At Martino’s, I would, yeah I can get coffee orders. I do the sweeping. I would greet the customers. I take the payment from the customers.

Tony: 

Yeah, we’ve had a lot of staff come through this business, we’ve had apprentices, we’ve had grooming therapists, we’ve had senior barbers, and these days we’ve minimised the business just down to me and Joe and Gus.

Joe:

He comes in all the time, and he’s ready to work, and that’s what we like about him. He’s always here on time, and nothing’s a problem. Everything, you know, what we ask him to do, he does really well.

Jacki Reichelt: 

We all like to draw a paycheck, and Gus earns award wages in both roles, which is wonderful. But the really big things about Gus working in both jobs is that connection with other people, interacting with others, his colleagues, his clients, being out in the community, seeing people who he knows as he walks through the city centre. He knows more people than I do in the centre of Canberra, which is pretty cool to see.

Joe:

Gus’s role in here started off obviously just sweeping, taking the rubbish out, putting products on the bench and then slowly evolved into taking the money on the till, greeting the customers, putting the customers in the chair, putting the cape around them, and now he’s learning to cut hair.

Tony: 

Gus has been a bit of fresh air at Martino’s for us. He’s, um, we sort of miss him when he’s not here, and it’s busy because he’s, he’s that helpful.

Ronny Reichelt:

We always knew that after school wasn’t the end, school was just the beginning. Growing up to where he is now is, is exactly what we were hoping for.

Jacki Reichelt: 

Gus’s work is a really important part of his life. It’s been important from a social aspect. He’s earning an income, he’s saving money to eventually move out. Perhaps he’ll even be able to afford a place of his own.

Ronny Reichelt: 

Yeah, with those high expectations there was no barrier. You never know what they’re capable of, and they’re capable of so much.