‘FIFO chick’ reveals harsh reality of life in the outback

A glamorous FIFO worker has offered a brutally honest review of the industry. Despite the high pay, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

A female FIFO worker has revealed what it’s really like to be a woman in the mining industry – lonely, sore and covered in “red dirt”.

Perth woman Robyn McKinney is a self-described “mining chick” who has worked as a production technician in the Pilbara on a two-week-on, one-week-off roster for the past two years.

In a viral Facebook post, the 27-year-old took aim at the public perception of FIFO workers raking in huge salaries and living it up during their time off.

“FIFO … What do you see? A woman who lives a great lifestyle, money in the bank and unlimited opportunities?” she wrote. “Kinda but … what it really is?”

She went on to list all the challenges of living for 14 days at a time “isolated from normality in the middle of the Australian outback”, sleeping on a “broken spring bed that hundreds have laid their heads down in before” and eating “food that we don’t want”.

Robyn McKinney has worked in the Pilbara for the past two years.

FIFO work, she said, means “loneliness like you wouldn’t believe” with “no one to hug and ask how your day was” as you slowly lose touch with people back home.

“Missing concerts, parties, birthdays, holidays, even the pub on a Saturday night,” she wrote. “People soon forget about you and you stop getting invited eventually and when you’re home they’re working.”

It also means you’re “unable to sustain a relationship because really, how can you know someone you see 12 weeks a year?”, while many relationships fail “because we ain’t at home resulting in serious family issues”.

“Constantly covered in red dirt (blonde hair is a killer),” she wrote. “Same dirty, orange uniform every day ’cause well fighting over a washing machine that’s had hundreds of uniforms in before is a thing.”

Her Facebook post went viral.

She also described the punishing work schedule, with 4am wakeups every day and returning at 6.30pm “too tired to get dinner”.

“Same songs on repeat ’cause you brought one USB, legs are sore, back’s sore, neck’s sore – let’s not get into night shift,” she said.

And a whole week off back home, she said, isn’t as good as it sounds because “you spend two of those days sleeping and trying to get back to sleeping at night coming off night shift” and the rest catching up on appointments.

“We don’t all do it ’cause we love it, we choose to or have to so we can build and provide the life we want so we can eventually get a job in the city and be home in our warm beds with family at night,” she said.

The 27-year-old loves her job but says there are challenges.

Ms McKinney said while she wasn’t saying FIFO work was the worst, the suicide rates and mental health issues showed it “obviously isn’t the best”.

“We don’t need your comments about this easy life you think we have,” she said.

But, she added: “I absolutely love what I do and proud of it but some days like everyone else, I can’t be arsed and wish I was at home in my own bed.”

Her post struck a nerve, with many FIFO workers saying it accurately described the reality of the lifestyle for many people. “Doesn’t mention the ‘golden handcuffs’ which keep a lot of people there,” one person wrote. “Mining industry eats people.”

Last year, a WA Government-funded report by Curtin University found one-third of FIFO workers experience high levels of mental distress.

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