Well-known at Yarraville Station for his big smile, Happy Friday’s and ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ theme music, Steven Gauci is taking on his role as Metro Trains Leading Station Assistant to a new level.

In his six years with Metro, Steven has grown a love for making daily train announcements and helping passengers get where they need to go.

Leading Station Assistants look after the station and conduct cleanliness checks, help commuting passengers board the train safely, answer questions about train directions, help with ticketing issues and make announcements.

Getting train passengers from A – B safely is Steven’s main goal, but it slowly developed into more during the global pandemic.

When passengers were slim and fair between and some were hesitant about catching the train, Steven wanted to do something about it.

Thinking what he could do for passengers, Steven began handing out small yellow smiley face badges to his passengers while playing the tune “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.

What was supposed to be a small gesture, Steven couldn’t believe what happened next.  Passengers not only continued to wear their badges, it started a conversation and people opened up, sharing their pandemic stories, all the while putting a smile on their faces as they went to work, school or appointments.

While Steven believes the badges were a way for him to thank his passengers, they say it’s helped them get through a rough time.

Steven makes it his daily task to greet each passenger with a big smile and start everyone’s day off in a great way.

“When I originally handed out the badges, I was just happy that I made one person smile but it has been absolutely infectious, and I hope it keeps growing. Putting smiles on people’s faces each day – that’s the aim.”