• Question: Do you enjoy your work? it must get boring from time to time doing the same thing?

    Asked by katierfletch to Julia, Sara, Amy, Drew, Kimberley on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by cmcgread684, joneslj7r2, nuha123, aamarnii98, iluvskittles, chloeegray, sweetiesampsonx, francescasef, eb99, aljanh7r2, isaac, mwilliams, shigamoo19, daidai, mollyhenry, babysportz, emccullagh784, embmay, nataliefrancisca, jackietang.
    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      Overall yes!

      But of course you have good days and bad days, and things you like doing more than others. Just like you do at school you have your favourite lessons. But you have to do them all good and bad to get the final result!

      I try to keep my work and day varied and there is always a problem to solve or a something that didn’t go to plan that needs fixing.

      My work involves a lot of problem solving and thinking fast which keeps you active!

      For example: Last month I had a reaction that didn’t work, it wasn’t giving me the results I wanted, I’d be looking at it for over a month changing different things and studying it in detail, this was rather boring. Finally though I managed to change the conditions and get to product I wanted. All the time and effort I put in was worthwhile!

      p.s also I work with great people! This helps tremendously when your having a bad day! Just like you’d have friends to cheer you up. Doesn’t matter if your doing the washing up, if you have someone nice to help you, it makes it less boring!!! Same applies to so many other things don’t you think???

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi katierfletch and cmcgread684! I do enjoy my work!! For me it is a lot of fun to ask questions and try to find answers. I wouldn’t be a scientist if it weren’t fun – I’d be doing something else like painting or being a professional video game player. But for me, science is what I enjoy doing the most. It is so amazing to discover new things. There are of course boring days from time to time. This is true of everything. For example even playing professional sports you have to practice practice practice which can be boring at times. It is certainly not as exciting as playing a match!! Science is the same way, some of the daily stuff can get boring or tedious from time to time, but is the excitement of scoring at the end (discovering something new) that keeps you going!

    • Photo: Kimberley Bryon

      Kimberley Bryon answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I do enjoy my work. It is really exciting doing lots of experiments and when I get really good results I am very happy. However, there are days (weeks, months) where nothing works and I do it over and over again. It gets a bit tedious but I try and come up with a new way of doing the experiment or try doing something else.

      Overall, I find being a scientist really rewarding 🙂

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      My work is pretty varied – I use lots of different techniques… so you don’t get too bored!! 🙂

    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I enjoy my work. The only boring things are repetition – when I teach exactly the same things to classes, or mark twenty similar answers to the same question. One of the great things about a background in computer engineering is that if something gets boring, I can turn it into an interesting problem to work out how to make a computer do the boring bit for me.

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