• Question: have you ever had a situation were you just wanted to give up? if so when and why?

    Asked by chloebn_ to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Yes! Not in any major way I suppose, but occasionally there are times when a project gets a bit frustrating, or is taking too long, and you feel like giving up. I won’t stop doing the work (because it still has to be done!) but I might find that I’m not putting as much effort in as I should be.

      When that happens, I usually try to refresh myself by taking a break and doing something different. I might go for a walk to the shop, or find another task to do for a while. If it’s something technical that I’m stuck on, I’ll go and seek out help from someone who can help me solve it (luckily, when you are working, it’s not like you are being assessed all the time, so it’s okay to admit when you don’t know the answer. Usually there’s someone with more experience who can help).

      And, if that doesn’t work, a chat with my friends and a bit of food usually does the trick!

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      In a word Yes!
      When you feel that the project has gone down a dead end and you think that you can’t find an answer that you are looking for. But I find that if you put the problem down and go off and work on something else for a couple of hours, days or even in one case months. You can revisit it and look at it from a different perspective.
      The other thing is that research and development does not have a 100% success rate. You have to remind yourself that at times, that it may never achieve what you wanted it to achieve at the outset.

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Hi 855envf47 🙂

      Yes – my laboratory work can sometimes be so frustrating! I’m currently doing a lot of laboratory tests at the moment and when they go wrong, I sometimes want to give up! My tests don’t always give me the answers I’m looking for – or sometimes I make a mistake – and at times I just have to take some time away and refocus or rethink the way I’m doing things 🙂 It’s always good for me to have an idea of what I’m expecting before I run the test. I really enjoy what I’m researching but you always have some days which are better than others!

    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Hi there, good question!
      Yes, im sure everyone has times like that!
      For me, the most difficult time was when I had to write my upgrade report.
      That’s basically like an exam or long piece of coursework that the university use to assess whether a researcher is on track to get their doctorate.
      I found it really hard because the feedback they gave me was that basically my work wasn’t quite up to scratch – I basically had to resit.
      I had to rewrite part of the report and I found the whole thing very demoralising.
      But I got through and it actually helped me a lot because the feedback was right and it showed me where I needed to focus more.
      Hopefully now, I’m in a much better position to finish and pass.

    • Photo: Ashwanth Vijay

      Ashwanth Vijay answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      I do experience many situations were you just wanted to give up while troubleshooting the equipments in the offshore enviornment. Firstly dueo the limited technical support. I am the responsible engineer to troubleshoot and fix things when they go wrong. Most instances I over come the situations by taking rest and apply logical thinking to the problems. When I fix things everyone around me appreciates and thanks for reducing the operational downtime.

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