• Question: what do you think the most important part of your work is?

    Asked by wiltmemetal to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 19 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I used to think that the most important part of my job was to provide as much safe water as possible and as many sanitary loos as possible to those who were unable to do it for themselves or who were too poor. My reasoning was that everybody has a right to be able to get safe water and sanitation. Well, during my career, we haven’t been able to achieve providing everybody with safe water and sanitation, but we have closed much of the gap.

      Now that I am retired, I am not in a position to provide water and loos but I am in a position to teach others how to do so efficiently, and in a way in which third world communities want these services. Happily, computers and the InterNet have made this possible from the comfort of my own home – so, now, this is the most important part of my job.

    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Good question. I guess problem solving. Or indeed I would say finding engineering solutions. The work itself is quite varied but there always is a problem to be solved, a requirement to be met.

      Sometimes the hardest bit is to understand exactly what it is that we are trying to do. To achieve this best thing is to talk to the client and understand what is the problem that they wish to solve (sometimes the client is all too happy to give you their solution instead). Example, the ship mechanical officer can tell me that they need a more powerful fan for their air conditioning system. Now the problem is not that the fan is too small, the problem is that they are too hot in certain compartments. A better solution may be to move some equipment out, change the ducts that are used for the vents or drop the temperature of the air supplied by the air conditioning.

      So first of all I need to know what is the problem, then find all options, choose the best one, do all the necessary calculations to make sure it works and present my findings in a good, clear manner to the client. None of this stages is important without the rest, the whole process that solves the problem is important.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      I’ve never thought about this before, so good question!

      I think for my job, the most important part is the end result – so the things that get built and making sure they do what they are supposed to and last for many years. Getting to this point is of course the hard part, but that’s what my job is all about. It could anything from a simple as making a new place for people to moor their boats up, to building flood defences that can protect people from flooding. Either way, it needs to work well and do what it’s supposed to.

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