Changing careers and becoming a tram driver gave Patricia stability and helped her get to know her father

Patricia Santiago assumed winning her parents' approval would take becoming a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant.

"That's what parents want you to be. Basic Asian. They don't see you as successful if you're not any of those."

But it turned out what her father really wanted for her was security.

And given the life she imagined for herself, she didn't expect to find that working alongside him in a pair of steel-capped boots.

A new life

At 12, Patricia's family moved from Manila to start a new life in Naarm/Melbourne.

"It was freezing cold. I did not have a jacket," she says of her first experiences of her new city. "I'm like, why do I have to have a hot shower? I've never had a hot shower in my life.

"I hated it already."

For Patricia's parents, Australia was a big change too. In The Philippines, her father worked as an engineer and her mother a company executive. In Australia her mother found work in child care, her father as a tram driver.

"Not only did [my father] work for trams, my auntie also worked for trams, my auntie's husband also worked for trams. There were a lot of trammies in the family."

Finding a career of her own

After finishing school, Patricia chose a career path in event management.

"I did a lot of jobs, plus university. I just wanted to make it."

Patricia did make it — her first job out of university was with an exhibitions company.

As her experience grew, so did the jet-setting lifestyle and the calibre of events she worked at, including the Australian Open, where she rubbed shoulders with the best tennis players in the world.

But while Patricia's career was progressing, she says her work was always on a contract basis.

"It wasn't secure. So when my parents would ask, when are you going to buy a house? I could never give them an answer because I never had the money."

A new and unexpected direction

One day, seemingly out of left field, Patricia's father suggested she consider being a tram driver.

He said it at a time when the glamour of events was starting to wear off and chasing the next contract felt like a struggle.

So, without telling her father, or even her partner, Patricia looked up the Yarra Trams website and applied.

She went through the assessment, landed a job and got her preference of working out of Essendon, where her father also worked, all without telling anyone in her family.

"Now I am strictly a heels or ballet flats kind of girl, so to be fitted for steelcap boots! Oh my goodness [they were] so heavy.

"I remember looking at myself in the mirror and I just thought, 'Oh my goodness, I look like Dad.'"

The only thing left to do was tell her father.

"[He] didn't really say much, but he had a smirk and I was like, 'Ah, this guy knows that he's done it. He's convinced me.'"

What driving a tram is really like

Learning to drive the trams was a steep learning curve and took a lot more effort than Patricia expected.

"How stupid I was to think that trams drove [themselves] because it is not easy."

But once she got the hang of it, it became second nature.

"I'm driving the same streets that I used to ride as a passenger. I'm seeing people I used to catch the trams with. There's this one lady. She was from the church that we used to go to, and she's like, 'Hey, you're the Santiago kid. What, you drive the tram?'"

"You grow a really thick skin. I get blamed for when it rains, I get blamed for when a tram is a couple of minutes late.

"[But] I can only control what's in front of me. And that is the tram that I'm driving. And as long as I get people to where they need to go safely, I've done my job."

Getting to know her dad

Patricia says getting to know her dad through other colleagues has been eye-opening.

"[People would say], 'Oh, do you know that your dad has the best jokes or your dad makes me laugh all the time?'

"And I'm like, 'My dad sharing jokes? No, you must be talking about someone else. My dad is so serious.'

"[But] when he sees it's me driving the tram, he has the biggest smile … And it's so good to see that.

"How often do we get to see our parents in their workplace? But now I get to live that every day."

Embracing the title 'tram driver'

"Growing up, my family and the society that I grew up in in the Philippines, they love titles. They loved that I had a title. I was 'event organiser', 'marketing manager'.

"Having a title gave you a sense of status.

"As a tram driver, it's not quite the same.

"Driving the tram, I see people dressed in their corporate attire … and I think, 'I kind of miss being a corporate girl. I kind of miss wearing that. I kind of miss looking important like that.'

"But then I remember, do I really want to go back to where I was … burnt out and living paycheque to paycheque?

"No I don't. I have a level of financial stability I've never had before. This is the first time that I've been able to save money and to me that is so rare."