• Question: Whats the most difficult part of your job?

    Asked by to Sandra, Amy, Anita, Daryl, Nimesh on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sandra Chiwanza

      Sandra Chiwanza answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Hi Hattie,

      The most difficult part of my job is making sure I meet turn-around-times. We promise our clients that we will have their results ready within a certain time frame after receiving patient samples in the laboratory. I work in Microbiology, and because we are growing living organisms, they can be slightly temperamental, and refuse to grow when they should, or will not identify correctly with the tests we run in diagnosing diseases in patients. Sometimes, people do not really understand this, and can be impatient and unpleasant about it. But, what can we do, it just depends on what mood our organisms are in that day…Hahahaha.

    • Photo: Anita Thomas

      Anita Thomas answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      There are two main hard things. 1. getting funding. Going nowhere without this.
      2. never having enough time! The more I do, the more there is to do!

    • Photo: Amy Monaghan

      Amy Monaghan answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      Hi Hattie, Keira

      The most difficult part of my job is when an experiment I have spent months setting up doesn’t work. It can be very disheartening, but I then spend some time working out what has gone wrong and I can usually fix the problem. Fixing the problem then makes you feel awesome (I usually do a little dance).

      Amy

    • Photo: Daryl Jones

      Daryl Jones answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      Hi hattiewiggins and keirahughes!

      I must have missed this question! The most difficult part is managing the projects of students and technicians whilst also managing your own project- that is a demanding role! I currently have a medical student and a bioscience student who each have their own project, and i have my own big project, and also another one that i manage for my technician. Everyday you have to check the progress of all the projects and work out what to do next! It can be overwhelming.

      But it’s also fun 🙂

      Thanks for your questions!

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