送石油氣工人/石油氣送貨員

GAS DELIVERY MAN 

Nam (楠)  

Kennedy Town (堅尼地城)

9:00-17:00 (7 hours) 

“You might think that gas delivery is quite an old school profession - but that’s what I like about it. I love riding my bicycle around town when I do my delivery runs. I deliver to residential flats, laundry shops and little restaurants from Sheung Wan to Kennedy Town. The canisters are really pretty heavy - 32 kg each! Sometimes I have to carry them up old, creaky walk-up buildings in the summer heat. This job keeps me fit, to say the least. I worked in the construction industry as a steelbender for seven years before this. So I guess I’m used to work that requires some muscles!”  

「你可能會覺得送石油氣係上一代嘅工作，但我就係鍾意佢夠老套。我鍾意踩住架單車送石油氣，有得四圍去。我會送石油氣去住宅、洗衣舖同埋啲小餐廳，由上環至堅尼地城都送。呢啲石油氣罐真係幾重，每個有成32公斤！有時大熱天時我要抬住佢哋行上唐樓嗰啲殘殘舊舊嘅樓梯。其他嘢唔講，呢份工起碼可以幫我保持身體健康。我之前做扎鐵做咗七年，所以我諗我都習慣做體力勞動嘅工作！」

“You might notice that gas deliverers often ride their bikes on tram lines. With up to four canisters on my bike, the weight can sometimes crush the tires so I do need to be pretty careful. It’s not easy to balance such a heavy load on such a small bike, especially when you don’t always have equal weight on both sides. It’s even more challenging when there are double decker buses weaving around on a busy road. So it’s usually safer to ride on the tram tracks where there’s less traffic. The bus drivers are usually pretty nice though, and will stop to let me pass through. Perhaps they’re not used to seeing such a young guy on a gas delivery bike!”

“I love the human connection aspect of this job. We are all so isolated these days stuck in our own worlds, thinking that we are ‘connected’ while glued to our computers and phones. I feel far more connected when talking with people I meet on my deliveries. I enjoy having this human touch as part of my work and like to build small connections with every person that I meet. We can sometimes be afraid to take the first step to engage with others, but I think this has led to a decline of trust in our community. Maybe I feel this way because I grew up on Peng Chau island, which is known to be a very friendly place! As a kid, I grew up in a wonderful community - neighbours would play together, eat together and offer each other sweet dessert soup in the evenings. I want to recreate that sense of humanity as much as I can in my day to day life.” 

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