• Question: What do you get out of the job mentally? Is it fun, or stressful? And have you made any new relationships from the job?

    Asked by Grace R on 15 Jan 2020.
    • Photo: Craig Leff

      Craig Leff answered on 15 Jan 2020:

      My job is fun and stressful. Most of the people I have worked with have chosen to work on space projects because they love it, so that’s the fun part. So is being creative in solving problems. However, there’s a lot of “homework” every day, and there are reviews and presentations in front of important engineers and scientists that can be very stressful. The reviews are important because they make sure you’re doing the right job in the right way, but it takes a lot of work to make a good presentation and you want to do your best.

      I have made many new relationships in my job. When you work with people many hours a day (and sometimes at 2AM) it’s like being in a new family. It’s great for the people and it’s great for the projects — the more that people work well together, the better things run when your spacecraft is on Mars or in orbit around another planet. And I’ve gained a lot of friends, which is personally important, too.

      I am still in contact with people from all of my former jobs, and am still in contact with the professor who got me started on Mars 40(!) years ago.

      It’s a great job for many reasons — and there is stress in every job.

    • Photo: Yuri Yushtein

      Yuri Yushtein answered on 15 Jan 2020:

      I would say my job has all the elements of human emotion. It is interesting, intriguing, stressful, frustrating, rewarding, and eventually very satisfying.
      As I interact with a lot of people, for years, we find common interests also outside the job activities. This leads to friendships.

    • Photo: Divya M. Persaud

      Divya M. Persaud answered on 15 Jan 2020:

      There’s both fun and stress! I love my work and I find it so much fun, but sometimes when it gets complicated I can find it annoying or stressful. Just like school! But I try to focus on the fun bits and find solutions to the annoying bits, often with the help of my colleagues, friends, and family.

      I have made so many friends all over the world through my job! I’m from the US and made friends and collaborations all over North America, and now have made a whole community here in the UK, along with friends in Europe. Space is really cool because it takes so many people from so many backgrounds to send missions or study it, and so we get to meet and worth with a lot of people.

    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 20 Jan 2020:

      I find it mostly fun. It’s often challenging, but I think that’s why I find it interesting and rewarding – because you don’t get bored if you’re busy, and anyway I love problem solving and finding solutions to new challenges.

      And I have a lot of friends through work – I moved to the area just for my job, so I didn’t know anyone in the area when we first arrived, but that is the same for a lot of the other people who work on our site at Airbus too – and there are 1300 people on the site- mostly living locally, so it is easy to find people that you get along with and have things in common with.

Comments