Paul Hannon.  December 2021.

When I left school, I was encouraged to steer towards more male-dominated industries like plumbing and building work.  As my dad is a builder and his dad was too, he naturally assumed that I would follow in his footsteps.  I went to college and followed my dad around for a few years and became a qualified electrician.

The rewards of seeing a job done well were great.  I started working in one of the large energy suppliers and enjoyed a 10-year career as a smart energy expert.  I got lots of praise from friends and family for working for a big company. Wearing a recognisable brand on my uniform and van seemed to give me some sort of excellence status.  However, I was so miserable and sad inside.  I worked for a large PLC company that treated me like a number, before I could communicate to anyone in management, I had to supply my 8-digit employer ID number, it was a faceless enterprise and I alone worked pretty much all of the time.  I was under huge amounts of pressure and the responsibility of ensuring I got a 10-star review at the end of a job was enormous.  Although I didn’t struggle to get good reviews, I couldn’t help but feel like it was all very fake and forced.

I often left families without gas or electricity because their appliances were unsafe or they hadn’t paid their bills, which used to keep me awake at night, especially because I would be the one who had to give them the bad news, either I cut their energy supply off or I would likely lose my job.  There was no loyalty to my hundreds of ten-star reviews, if I didn’t cut the power to these vulnerable families then they would sack me.  It was awful.  I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was really unhappy.  I look back now and realise that I only went into this industry because it was the ‘done thing’ to go into a manual role.  However, since working at Amber, I feel that there should be a shift in opinion or change in the way we see gender-specific roles.

Working in this role suits me so much more.  I find that I have the time to really get to know our families.  They confide in me and they tell me so many sensitive and difficult confessions.  I feel like I am in a privileged position to able to support these families.  As a man, I have found a general theme amongst the other men who come for their assessment, lots of men say that “people” just assume that I should know what to do and I have been too proud to say I don’t.

Lots of our dads haven’t had the most supportive upbringing or have no point of reference for what is expected of them, possibly due to growing up without a significant father figure around.

I’m unsure why, but other men tend to confide in me, maybe it’s because they seem to be able to chat with another bloke and there is less embarrassment, who knows, but I take this responsibility very seriously.  I try to be a safe pair of hands with their feelings and hope that I steer them in the right direction.

I love my job, I really thrive off seeing people improve their own situation and become the people they want to be.  I just wish that the care and social work industry was advertised to me when I was younger and not the male-orientated industries.

Hopefully, the next generation will be given all the opportunities and not gender-stereotyped roles.