• Question: do you find your job hard

    Asked by 374beb39 to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 1 Feb 2015. This question was also asked by 358beb38, Kilkenny supporter 101.
    • Photo: Aislinn Coghlan

      Aislinn Coghlan answered on 1 Feb 2015:

      At times, yes! I love a challenge though. Your brain is always switched on, coming up with ways to solve problems that you haven’t seen before.

      I find my current job particularly challenging as I have only been here since September. There are lots of things I still don’t know about or understand.

    • Photo: Padraic Morrissey

      Padraic Morrissey answered on 5 Feb 2015:

      I think most jobs in the world can be hard at times because you won’t always understand or know everything you’re supposed to. Engineers are always trying to fix or improve things, so there are extra challenges associated with that. In my job as an optical engineer every day is a challenge because you’re always trying to figure out something new. That’s also one of the best things about being an engineer, it’s never boring!

    • Photo: Nathan Quinlan

      Nathan Quinlan answered on 5 Feb 2015:

      Sometimes it’s hard in a good way. It’s hard like solving a puzzle is hard or playing football is hard. For example, one of my students and I wanted to find out the pressure in water in an experiment. It was tough because the pressure was very small. We bought an electronic sensor that should have done the job, but it didn’t. We bought another fancy more expensive one, and spent a long time setting it up, and that didn’t work either. We were stumped. Finally we made our own instrument (a manometer) from scratch. We used the oldest, simplest way to measure pressure, and it worked. So it was hard and sometimes frustrating, but we got there in the end, and we learned a lot along the way. And we were delighted. If it had worked first time, there would have been no fun!

    • Photo: Sinead Quirke

      Sinead Quirke answered on 6 Feb 2015:

      Hi,

      Occasionally its hard but not from a direct engineering perspective. I am not a natural public speaker but I regularly have to make presentations to large groups of people. Managing my nerves can be hard but I’ve learned to do it – preparation is key – the more you practice the better you get. But I never find public speaking easy.

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