• Question: What was the most frustrating work experience you had, and what learnings did you take out of it?

    Asked by geo123 to Helen, Amy, Nicolas, Daniel, Thorrun on 10 Jun 2017. This question was also asked by AmberCorless.
    • Photo: Helen Frost

      Helen Frost answered on 10 Jun 2017:

      Most of my work-place frustrations are centred around management or communication. It’s really stressful when a group of people with different responsibilities are all working towards a common goal, but not communicating to each other what they’re up to. I try to be as honest and open as I can, and have learned to send detailed emails in follow up to meetings, so that everyone can be reminded of what they said and agreed to do/not do.

      I think the most frustrating experience I have is trying to get the mainstream media interested in the scientific research we’re doing. Journalists and writers are always busy, and can’t always see why it’s important for their readers to know about a particular piece of research which has just been published in a scientific journal. I have been practising not getting stressed when I don’t hear back from people, because if they can’t see the magic in the scientific research, then perhaps they don’t deserve my time!

    • Photo: Amy Grayson

      Amy Grayson answered on 19 Jun 2017:

      The most frustrating experiences I have at work are usually when experiments go wrong or a machine breaks down – this either means I have to repeat all of the experiment again or if the machine breaks, I cannot do my research using that machine until it’s fixed (which can sometimes take a long time as the university need to find the money to fix things that break).

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