Though this feels like something all of us heavily relate to, particularly the further you are into your career or uni, it also applies to pretty much everyone. Nonetheless, this blog particularly relates to the struggles of someone coming from a varied background that has grown in both environments.

Interacting with engineers from a creative background - from my experience, this occurs when one is trying to enter an engineering environment or when is trying to actualise an idea. Engineers tend to think in a very systematic fashion and this often causes creatives to struggle with their blunt and inflexible attitudes. What I mean by this is that a creative will come to an engineer with an idea and the engineer will respond with ideas on how it can work, what it logically can produce and lastly (the usual conflict starter), what problems there are with the system hypothesised. This blunt response from engineers on what will work and will not is fairly common and whilst it is problem that engineers have which needs to be addressed, creatives should also ensure that they too, are flexible with the advice and have the capacity to take on the realistic limitations of their idea, only to provide more creative matter to use and possibly mould the project into a success.

Interacting with creatives from an engineering background - Personally the more challenging of the two as you can nearly always learn about engineering, whereas you cannot always learn to be creative. This depends on the context but the challenges remain for engineers where they may feel bombarded with ideas that could very well seem ludicrous to them. This will spark frustration in their own right where they would rather see a tangible and solvable problem than a concept that can only be described with loose suggestions and at the most, theoretical tests that often come out incorrect due to missing parameters in the creatives design. Although the struggles here can be incredibly frustrating, the engineer must remind themselves that this loose and scattered approach is the usual and once again, patience is key to the project's success. Listening to the creatives ideas and being honest with its limitations is good but it is also critical that the engineer does not take total control of the project, instead, acting as the tool for the creative to realistically fabricate the project.

As the 5th month starts I reflect on the last couple of them. My limited experiences so far have highlighted factors of this role that whilst intricate in nature, are reassuring in the fact that time and experience can solve most problems.

Over these months my role as middle management has largely been reactive and hugely directionless. This is due to the majority of staff being on holiday and the summer time promoting a more relaxed approach towards work, however, for an individual that strives for direction to then give it their all, it was kinda stressful! Regardless, throughout this period, each request that came through was dealt with quickly and in turn, leaving a sense of pride that I was able to be so on top of things. That was until I had a meeting with two important people in the department, who asked whether or not three of our major projects (that have not had any progress since I first started) had any updates on them. A sense of dread flooded over me as I am largely responsible for them, yet I knew nothing could have been done to them over the holiday period (a subject I would like to discuss in detail later). They were told about the situation and lack of progress and in turn, an event was planned.

The event was in short, the other department managers coming together and getting their act together, as such, we all drafted out a plan of what we all want doing in our respective areas opening up to the much longed for idea of an objective to work on. A relieving thing to hear, to say the least. Even after a few weeks, I’ve been able to focus so much more as the objectives have provided a sense of clarity towards the role and the intricacies behind it.

Now on the flip side, the concern of this situation is that my role is entirely restrained by the whims of the other managers, something I mentioned previously. It’s not that you cannot focus on other areas or your own growth, but when you are employed as a technician for a lab or the resident engineer, your purpose is to largely support, rarely spearhead, in turn, leaving you feeling a little lost when you’re done with a task. Funnily enough though, at the same time, everyone relies on you (almost a little too much). Unless you give your go ahead or confirm things are okay in certain projects, absolutely nothing happens in the respective project areas. I feel that this is one of the root causes as to why academia can be seen as so painfully slow in comparison to industry. A solution to this? God knows. It’s a little difficult considering everyone is at the pinnacle of their field, leaving any sort of cross over to be a bit of a joke in respect to each individual level of experience (with exceptions of course).

Nonetheless, I digress. The conclusion to these thoughts and concerns is simply to allow time to continue and for experience to flow in. To focus on handling issues that you can deal with and when coming to a block, either due to a lack of experience or something being out of your knowledge base, you should prioritise the communication of this issue to the people you feel are relevant to the task. Most of the time it’s really out of your hands when you’ve passed it on but that does depend on your ability to hand over the relevant material to the relevant person. I do believe that communicating with your managers is a skill in itself, one that is made far more complex when the mentioned managers are specialists in an entirely different field.

Duration of Course: 2 years (4 semester)

Eligibility: Graduation in BMLT/BMLS

Well, unsurprisingly and as usual life only got more complicated. Thankfully this time was in a good way! I moved to London, started dating and also realised that it’s very expensive to just be here (I’ll discuss this another time). What I will discuss now is that the lab manager position has progressed steadily throughout its handover phase and its come with its own challenges.

So, handover. I’ve had little experience in starting a role that has such a large handover but that’s the whole point of a new job, to challenge you. From what I know now, the transition will largely depend on two factors, the first being what your predecessor left you. If it was vague advise and barely anything tangible, you’ll likely be learning as you go along (much more so than another). Whereas if they left you with a comprehensive list of matters to address, then life will be much easier! You’ll still learn on the job but at least you’ll have a racing line while you’re going along. The second is your colleagues. Thankfully everyone is really nice, either out of disposition or the possible fear that I’ll be a nightmare that I’ll hold their experiments up as lab manager (mwahaha). Either way, decent colleagues will give you advice and tips on the fly that make a huge difference to how well you pick up the pieces. A bit of advice from yours truly, remember, no question is a bad question. If they are decent people as well as colleagues, you’ll find yourself naturally dropping into conversations between whatever your work talk was originally for and they’ll casually slip in handy quips of experience if you ask. All you need to do is ask. Now for the ones providing said advice, this might seem pretty standard but the reality is that those short conversations make a huge difference to the environment of this new staff member. An unconscious welcome if you will but also small building blocks that genuinely improve the work life and work flow of your colleagues.

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Laboratory Manager – Auckland Grammar School

We are seeking an energetic, organised and motivated Laboratory Manager to join our Science Faculty at Auckland Grammar School. We are looking for an individual who has the following attributes: Passion for Science- through previous teaching or laboratory experience Attention to detail. Good communication skills. Excellent organisation and time management skills. Management experience,…