The keys to bright future

Andrew Meier. Pic by: John Fotiadis

A criminal breaking into a safe simply by spinning the dial might sound like a scene from a Hollywood movie, but apprentice locksmith Andrew Meier, 21, says the practice is not fantasy. Part of Meier's job at Kingsford Locksmiths is to crack open safes.

"A customer may have bought a new house and there is a safe and the previous owner did not give them the combination," Meier says. "If it is a combination safe like in the movies it gives off little signs and we can figure out roughly what the numbers are."

The process is much more time-consuming than in the movies and sometimes the safe does not reveal its combination at all.

Some safes have internal glass relockers just like the movie The Italian Job, he says. Break the glass with the drill and the safe bolts itself shut.

Although would-be thieves might be salivating at the thought of learning how to break into safes, Meier says learning the skill is tightly controlled.

"You can only do the TAFE course if you are a licensed apprentice and have had a police security check," he says.

The fourth-year apprentice says Ultimo TAFE is the only place in the state where students undertake a certificate III in Engineering - Mechanical Trade (Locksmithing).

"It wasn't that I particularly wanted to be a locksmith, there was just an opportunity and a demand for locksmiths," he says.

After a one-day trial Meier was offered an apprenticeship.

"I started straight away so I could enrol in TAFE, because it's not worth missing out and having to wait a whole year," he says.

Meier, who completed the certificate last year, was awarded the State Medal for high achievement and named Apprentice Of The Year. He is also in the running for the Institute Medal, which is awarded to the top student across all of the courses offered at the Sydney Institute.

Aside from cracking safes, Meier cuts keys for homes and cars and fits new locks.

"If we are lucky there will be a commercial property that someone wants looked at and we will have to cut master keys and things like that," he says. "But most of the work we do is domestic, repairing locks and fitting dead locks to make houses more secure."

Kingsford Locksmiths also has an emergency locksmithing service, which means Meier can be sent out to picks locks for people who have lost their keys. But it is not just intoxicated people in the dead of night who require assistance. The number of people who lock themselves out is seasonal.

"If it's raining not a lot of people will go out," he says. "If it is sunny people go out during the day and in the frenzy of going shopping they lose their keys."

LOVE YOUR WORK
How did you get your job?
I saw it advertised in the newspaper and I did a one-day trial.
Upside? Meeting new people and getting outdoors.
Downside? The 24-hour call-out service can put a limit on your weekends.

The Daily Telegraph, June 2, 2008