• Question: Is your job tirsome? Training people who dont know as much as you would be quite hard, what are your views?

    Asked by milshky to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Hi Milshky: My job has NEVER been tiresome – it’s just that some of my work colleagues have sometimes been rather trying. And if you think that training is a bore, then think again. It’s all about the “Ah-ha !” that people say when they finally understand something. Like Pythagoras’s Theorem; or how to calculate the surface area of a cylinder; or how the Mobius Strip works; or how to design a piped water supply system. I never get tired of hearing those “Ah-ha”s.

    • Photo: Harriet Fletcher

      Harriet Fletcher answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      No my job is not tiresome. I agree with Ken, certain personalities are quite wearing to work with and office politics are a menace. I think that there is less of that sort of thing though in engineering offices because on the whole people are interested in what they are doing and are not in competition with each other but working together.
      As for training people, it is a real buzz to get somebody to understand something and often less experienced guys will come up with the off the wall suggestion that “just might work” because they are less restricted by experience.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I really enjoy training people. A new person has started in my team this week and I’ve been taking her to visit sites, explaining how the river works, taking her out on a boat and also setting her various jobs to do that help me out as well. I find all this fun as I get to talk a lot about all the things I know about the river!! Normally if I do that to my friends or family they all start to look really bored and talk about other things!

    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I would hate to train people who know more than I do about the subject. I would feel a right fool. It is important for the learners to have a necessary background knowledge. But this is where you have to judge correctly what do you teach them first.

      Personally I really enjoy teaching as long as people wish to learn. I do teach occasionally at work but it is by no means my key role at the moment. As I get more experienced I think I will teach more often and I am looking forward to it. I have worked as a tutor in university and it was a good job. I also teach regularly as a dive instructor and I get lots out of it.

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