Do you like working with other people or not?

Heather Lamming answered on 4 May 2020:

I do like working with other people. Engineers often work in teams so it is important that you can get along with other people, even if you don’t always agree with them!

Marie-Louise Synnott answered on 4 May 2020:

I do like working with other people I don’t have all the answers but working as a team can help people come up with ideas – especially if other people have skills that you don’t, or would like to learn.

Rob Husband answered on 4 May 2020:

I much prefer working in a team and in Engineering pretty much all work is done in teams, it is very rare for engineers to work alone. Some people are harder to get along with but this comes with any job and it is important to be able to work with others even if you don’t agree with everything they say. Disagreements can bring about a fresh way of thinking that each individual may not have come to without a discussion in the team.

anon answered on 4 May 2020:

There aren’t many jobs (if any) that you can do where you don’t have to work with people in some sort of way. Some days it can be fun, and you get on really well with people and you feel like you achieve a lot, and other days it can feel like really hard work. We all have good days and bad, but I wouldn’t choose not to work with people.

Garrick Simpson answered on 4 May 2020:

I enjoy working with others. Where i work the people are normally really happy and we can make each other laugh. There are times when things get a bit tough but we generally help each other out during this

Amira Tamam answered on 4 May 2020:

I do, I believe it’s essential to be able to enjoy working in a team, because learning from others is one of the best ways to learn, especially when the team has a diverse set of skills.

anon answered on 4 May 2020:

I love working with others and collaborating with other engineers/scientists and etc. as I think the more creative and collective minds/ideas are better than just my mind and view on a topic. I love to hear other people’s opinions and advice and be able to bounce off that with other suggestions and ideas. It makes for a better product and design I think.

Graeme Ralph answered on 4 May 2020:

I do like working with other people, you get to see different points of view and learn alot from the experience! Sometimes it can be hard as you don’t always agree but this can lead to the best way forward and improve your communication skills as well as making friends along the way.

Frances Askill-Kirk answered on 4 May 2020:

In engineering, if you don’t like working with others – your life will be pretty hard. I don’t think you’ll particularly enjoy it.

We work in small teams, cross functional teams, zonal teams. Everything is solved through teamwork. It is very rare that one person will come up with the whole solution alone.

I enjoy working with others as their experience and knowledge will be completely different to mine, therefore they will think in ways I can’t. Whether we agree or not, opening your mind to other people’s opinions and way of thinking is very important to problem solving.

Rhys Edwards answered on 4 May 2020:

I very much like working with my team. That being said, one of the few advantages of the lockdown is that it has given me some peace and quiet to concentrate on some jobs without distraction!

George McIntyre answered on 4 May 2020:

I love working with other people…most of the time. As an engineer you will work in lots of multidisciplinary teams so you have to be good at working with people as well as in a team. Just remember that communication is key!

Nicola Grahamslaw answered on 4 May 2020:

Sometimes! For me the ideal engineering job would involve a balance of working on my own at a desk and working together with others. I’d get bored on my own all the time, but on some days it’s nice to sit at your desk with a cup of coffee and just get on with something on your own. Luckily most engineering jobs I’ve had, it’s been a mixture of the two.

Katie Sparks answered on 4 May 2020:

I both enjoy working with other people and working on my own. They are quite different and I certainly wouldn’t want to do one or the other all the time.

Working on my own, I like being able to chose what I want to do and having the time to work something out, explore different ideas and have a go at things.

I then like to be able to take what I’ve done and found out to a group – so that we can each compare what we’ve done, what it means, and work out what sort of things we want to investigate or work out next.

I also find it useful to chat through my ideas with someone, it helps me understand more what I’m trying to do and often the other person will spot something that has been missed, or even something that doesn’t need looking at. I do the same for other people with their ideas too.

A balance is usually a good thing!

Owen Jeffreys answered on 4 May 2020:

Hello Nancy,

The short answer is yes – I love working with other people. I find working with other people is fun, rewarding and brings many, many benefits. If I’m working on a project or studying a subject I do not fully understand, I can turn to one of my colleagues and ask them a question. If they don’t know the answer, they can usually point me to someone who does know. Also, if I know the answer to someone else’s question, then I can share that with them and that is very rewarding for me. One of the biggest advantages of working in a team is the ability to support each other. Everyone has different skills and everybody knows different people and everybody thinks in different ways and together everybody can contribute and create an amazing product.

The ability to work with other people is very important in engineering as you won’t find an engineering job were you work on your own. However, I’m not going to lie – you will come across people you do not like, and you will come across people who are irritating and you will have to work with people have different views, but it is important that you find a way to work together. Maybe you can think of some people like this. Maybe you have to work with them on an assignment. It can be very hard, I know the feeling. There are some people I know who have different views to me, so I try not to bring up those subjects in conversation. Being able to get along is a two-way street, and involves the other person to help as well, but I find if I do my bit to help and if I’m as kind and supportive and helpful and friendly as I can possibly be, then usually that contagious personality will rub off on the other person, and they will put aside their views and help contribute.

Getting everyone involved, asking them for their ideas and making them feel valuable will help them to feel part of the team and encourage them to play their part and get along with everyone…and when you all row in the same direction you win the race! and the more races you win, the faster you row.

Juan Carlos Fallas-Chinchilla answered on 4 May 2020:

Hi Nancy, teamwork and collaborations are very important in major projects. Problems are not easy to figure out and people bring different ideas, backgrounds and perspectives making it fascinating and quite rewarding. You can learn a lot from colleagues around you.

I have also worked large chunks of projects on my own but only after being trained in the use of certain equipment and the results were checked by peers or supervised by a line manager. Was interesting figuring out the problem solving part but it can be a slow process.

Claire Brockett answered on 5 May 2020:

I love working in a team. When I was younger I thought working in a university would be all about wearing a white coat and spending hours by myself toiling away in the corner of a laboratory – whilst I do get to wear the lab coat, and spend time in the lab – there’s definitely very little time spent by myself – I work with an amazing team of people!

Charles Sparey answered on 5 May 2020:

Hi Nancy, I enjoy working with other people. As a project manager, a large proportion of my time is spent working with others, solving problems, keeping deliveries on tack and so on. That said, I do like time by myself to collect my thoughts, think about the issues and come up with the necessary plans, along with my own project contributions and outputs.

K-Jo O'Flynn answered on 5 May 2020:

I prefer working with other people as I am always learning new things from other people:D and there’s always support there:D

David Linsell answered on 5 May 2020:

Working with other people is an essential part of engineering. No single engineer will know all the answers to all the problems, so one must collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines. Then there are Clients to work with, and so on. As individuals we all have different views on people, we are not all the same. What matters is whether we can engage with and respect other people, and earn their respect.

Conrad Manning answered on 6 May 2020:

Definitely, you cannot have all the answers and sometimes other people will have better ideas than you so being able to work as a team is very important

Jeni Spragg answered on 11 May 2020:

I do enjoy working with others – it makes life more fun & it means you don’t get stuck working on a problem. However, I like that my engineering jobs have always had variety – sometimes I work in teams with others, and sometimes I get the opportunity to sit down and tackle a challenge on my own. It’s important to have a mix – big teams of people bring a diverse mix of strengths, but it’s also important to sit and work through ideas or calculations independently.

Colin Donaldson answered on 11 May 2020:

I enjoy working with other people. Engineers work in teams a lot with people from different backgrounds, including other engineers, managers, planners and safety staff so it is important to engage and get along with others.

Ken Mollison answered on 16 May 2020:

I really enjoy working with other people and meeting new people to work with at the start of a new project. One of the really interesting things is that we are not all the same (thankfully) and each of us has a different view on problems as they appear during a project. These differences make it interesting and beneficial as they are all explored to find out which one or combination give the best solution. I think engineering today is very much about working with and communicating with other people.

Martin McKie answered on 21 May 2020:

I really enjoy working with people.

Everyone is different whether it be sex, age, social, racial, and they all bring something from their own professional and life experience. I feel like the more diverse the team, the more ideas that are generated and the better the result.

On the contrary if everyone in the team was the same, same upbringing, sex, age, race, social background. Then their ideas may be similar, so it is important to get that broad based experience from everyone fresh eyes perspective from the young or experienced point of view from someone who is a little older, for example.

It is also important in a team to make sure that everyone has a say and that the team isn’t ruled by one or two individuals.

Question: Do you like working with other people or not?

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