She’s 80, been working for 50 years, plans to retire at 100

Confidence, necessity or dignity of labour – call it what you will but Vesela Grujoska doesn’t stop working, just like the trains she helps run on Sydney’s busy rail circuit.

“I will, perhaps, when I reach 100… but maybe not even then,” says a determined ‘Vesa,’ as she’s popularly known, when people ask her when she plans to retire.

And that’s how you shut them up.

Vesela Grujoska

She’s been working as a cleaner at Sydney’s Central Station for over half-a-century and has probably never taken a sick day off.

Pushing 80, Ms Grujoska, who has worked on most public holidays including Christmas for five decades and counting, remains as work-focused as ever.

The secret behind her mental and physical fitness is the motto of her life. It helps her do a job that demands a lot of energy.

Work keeps you healthy and young. Doing nothing would be a disaster.

Transport NSW recently organised a special lunch to honour and acknowledge Ms Grujoska’s exceptional performance at the station which she has helped keep clean for most of her life.

In honour of her service, NSW Trains has dedicated a luggage towing vehicle to her.

Used for transferring heavy passenger luggage, one of those vehicles now bears a rego plate with her nickname – Vesa.

Ms Grujoska riding the luggage towing vehicle bearing her nickname — Vesa. Credit: NSW Trains

Her life story tells the tale of the resilience and triumph of migrant women in Australia.

Born in the Macedonian village of Vapila near Kosel, Ms Grujoska migrated to Australia with her young family in 1970.

She immediately started working in a factory with a weekly wage of $29.

But she had her eyes set on the railway.

Her dream job happened in 1973 when her neighbour wrote on a piece of paper that she was looking for a job and told her to give it to the station master of Rockdale Station.

She recalls migrants from all over the world living on her street.

Those were the days when neighbours, helped each other. It wasn’t like it is now, the young generations are different.

When she went to see the station master, said, “Hello boss,” and handed him that piece of paper.

On the first day of her new job, she didn’t know any English.

She had the word ‘central’ written on a piece of paper with which she had to carefully match the alphabets at the platform signs so that she could identify which train would take her to her dream job.

Vesela Grujoska started her job with NSW Rail in 1973 as a cleaner.

While she started as a cleaner, she moved on to safety flagging at the station to let the train guard know when passengers were safe on the train.

This was before train indicators were computerised. When there was no need for a human being to flag trains for safety, she returned to her original job.

And 50 years on, she has never looked back.

While her livelihood was sorted, life became tumultuous on the personal front.

She says she had “a very difficult marriage and divorce,” which left her a single mother with two young children, no money and no roof over their heads.

Ms Grujoska was trapped under “a mountain of responsibility”. She needed to provide for her children, who were her top priority.

Vesela Grujoska wit her young children. Credit: Supplied by Vesela Grujoska

The railway job paid her $50 fortnightly.

She says she was lucky to have “a great Anglo-Australian elderly neighbour” who looked after her children for $10 a week.

The migrant single mother who still doesn’t speak very fluent English, survived on the back of her physical and emotional strength.

She did not succumb to severe burnout or exhaustion from her physically-demanding job.

She lapped up opportunities to work overtime so that she could earn an extra buck even though her home was quite far from Central Station.

Ms Grujoska has also worked on every Christmas Day except for perhaps three in her 50 years at NSW Trains.

Vesela Grujoska (L) with her daughter Gordana.

Whenever she got an opportunity, she picked up public holiday or overtime shifts from colleagues who wanted to give them up.

A few years ago, a colleague who was rostered on the afternoon shift on Christmas Day, asked Ms Grujoska if she could swap her morning shift with him as he wanted to get home in time to have dinner with his two young children.

She gave up her own Christmas dinner plans and shifts were swapped.

Ms Grujoska’s daughter, Gordana, who also works for Transport NSW, tells SBS Macedonian that when her mother had to take compulsory annual leave, she continued to work in her vegetable garden, growing what most Macedonians of her generation grew: banana chillies and tomatoes, essential ingredients in their cuisine.

Vesela Grujoska at work at Central Station.

The devoted worker and mother who brought her up children on her own, is proud of their university degrees and well-paying jobs.

Her three grandchildren are the special joy of her life.

When Ms Grujoska talks about the past, a bit of sadness about her hard beginnings clouds the atmosphere.

I was very diligent at my job, but it wasn’t easy being alone through life.

She worked extra hard to make sure she remained the best worker and kept the job.

Her only advice for a healthy life is to keep working, keep moving and being busy.

“If you stay at home, all sorts of negative thoughts will fill your mind that will get you depressed and you will start to deteriorate,” advises Ms Grujoska.

So, before you leave any trash somewhere on a train or station, think twice. There might be an 80-year-old cleaning up after you.

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