Most undervalued job

[Joe J.]

I can say from experience that the most undervalued job is the position that my team called our Pit Chief, the years I held the position it entailed supervision of all aspects of robot build, cleaning and organizing the workshop, and recording build season hours.

[Nin_estarSaerah]

on our team...marketing/media person. and when i say person, i mean one girl does the whole thing. and we can never appreciate her enough, and we often don't. she spends as much time on our posters/scrapbook/videos and what not as the rest of us do on the robot. we luv u Ashlee...

[rhoads2234]

Originally Posted by KathieK

The most undervalued person on a team? The one who makes sure the team is fed.

And the one who arranges the travel plans so that the bus arrives on time, the hotel is selected, the airline tickets are all set to go with everyone's correct legal names on them.

And the ones who get up at 3:30 in the morning in order to get you to your facility to make the 4:30 a.m. bus that is taking you to a competition.

And the one who puts together the hospitality baskets and places them in the restrooms so we all don't stink at regionals.

It's the wife/husband/family of the mentor who acknowledges that this program is making changes in people's lives, so they let them go to work on the robot program for hundreds of hours a year.

It's the employee at some big corporation that writes the check that is mailed to your team leader that gets deposited into your team bank account before you even see it. It's the school secretary that writes the check to FIRST so that you get your kit of parts. It's the custodian that makes sure you can stay late and work on the bot during build season. It's the family that reads about your pasta dinner in the paper and decides to support your fundraising efforts.

And the people who are there working/volunteering in the background YEAR-ROUND to ensure that the four FIRST programs and their competitions will be of the best quality that we can make them. And taking all of their vacation days to go to training, and give presentations and demos, and staff the events. And are volunteering to come in the Wednesday before to help set up, and are staying long past everyone has vacated the pits on Saturday to break the field down.

The "team" is not just the students and the mentors. They are the tip of the iceberg. Acknowledge your "undervalued" team members and say thank you. Write a personal letter to your sponsor and tell them what being in FIRST means to you. Say thank you to your school administration, treat your custodians to dinner. Find out who is on your Regional Planning Committee and let them know how much you appreciate what they do.

I agree - the most undervalued people are hard to name because you don't know their name.

(Warning elow may be a little bias - I did not see it from the builders point of view)
The main section during the build season is the Build team - this year they gave the programmers maybe an hour with the robot before it shipped. They pushed out latecomers to the entire team because "they don't know enough of what was going on with the robot"
They then called over all other parts of the team to tighten screws...

so... I also agree that each team thinks their work is the most important... they are only important when it works together with what the other parts of the team can do

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by rhoads2234

I agree - the most undervalued people are hard to name because you don't know their name.

Carol Taylor, RN, Ph.D. recently gave the commencement speech where I work and sums it up nicely: "Each of you has the ability to make the critical difference for others, be they family members or strangers. A quick story shared by a student about her most important life lesson:

'During my second month of nursing school our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and probably in her 50s, but how would I know her name. I handed in the paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say ‘hello.’” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.'"

so... I also agree that each team thinks their work is the most important... they are only important when it works together with what the other parts of the team can do

EXACTLY! And your team extends beyond the boundaries you think it does. The support people are as important as the person in the limelight!

[Brandon Holley]

a quick sidenote here...ive seen a couple instances of rambling in this thread...believe me when i say this, we all know where you are coming from, but rambling on a forum doesnt solve those problems..please try to keep an optimistic outlook and think of ways to solve these problems you have within your team...


as for underrated jobs...

1. cleaners...the magic elves that somehow put the room back together every single night

2. the machinists...i know ive experienced it, as im sure others have, but there always seems to be that time where you are on the lathe or mill for 10 hours, and dinner comes, and someone forgot to tell you its there, and you come out only to find theres nothing left....but machinists put in crazy hours

3. helpers of the rookie teams...i know a lot of teams are recognized for helping out other teams, but there are way mroe teams that are not recognized for their help to rookie teams...whether its giving them your fisher price motors because they burnt them up already, or taking in 3 rookie teams a week before ship because they arent goign to finish without your help...these people and teams are underrated

[Gabe]

Lots of jobs aren't appreciated until it is obviouly noticed. There are the people who clean up the room or pit on their own time and organize tools, the scouts (whose existence slowly is forgotten as they spend their time in the seats until alliance selections), and the person who sorts mixed screws by thread and length (that's me ).

[=Martin=Taylor=]

#1 Safety Officer - Our safety officer doesn't get any respect. Just look at the helmet he has to wear! It has a hammer lodged in it! The more he tries to do his job and enforce safety the more people try to rebel against him. Thankfully our mentors have started supporting the safety officer - so hopefully his job will be more valued next year.

#2 The person who makes the 'Parts List' - This is the person who has to catalog all the parts used on the robot into a list which can be presented to the inspectors. Not only is it the most boring, grueling, time consuming job, but the inspectors often forget to ask for it! Since it has no real value to the team, this list is often completely worthless. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of robots over $2000 that pass inspection...

#3 Battery Charger - I don't know about other teams, but the battery charger is one of the most valued jobs on Team 100. Charging batteries can either make or break you. Our old battery charger once failed to strap the battery in during two consecutive matches! Causing it to fall out both times Lets just say his career was over... Our new battery person is amazing. She has never once failed to replace both batteries on the robot with fresh ones.

My job is really over-valued Operating the arm is really easy...

[Nin_estarSaerah]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

#2 The person who makes the 'Parts List' - This is the person who has to catalog all the parts used on the robot into a list which can be presented to the inspectors. Not only is it the most boring, grueling, time consuming job, but the inspectors often forget to ask for it! Since it has no real value to the team, this list is often completely worthless. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of robots over $2000 that pass inspection...

making the parts list is hard, exspecially when some of the parts have been lying around the shop for a while.
"what is this?'
"ummmm...i dont know, but it works great"
"where did we get it?"
"that shelf over there"
"what about before that?"
"who knows?"

[HypnoticSheep]

I'd have to say the team leader is probably the most undervalued position. They put in time and effort to keep the team running smoothly, assign jobs, keep things in order, and usually set up most of the team's agenda (ie comps, sponsor visits, t-shirt orders, etc.), yet they're usually looked at as just another team member.

Another undervalued job (slight bias from me) is the member who doesn't have a specialty and helps out all the other members with their jobs. You've got to know about just about every aspect of the bot so you don't destroy anything, but you don't get to just sit with your section of the bot and work on it. Usually the busiest member, too.

Also, the cleaning crew is awesome. That is all.

[Sam Cat]

I would have to say the animation team isn't valued anywhere near as much as they should be. These guys put in just as many hours as the build team, if not more. They put some much work into the animations and they always come out fantastic. They are probably some of the most dedicated and least remembered members. This year, they spent hours literally watching grass grow (it was part of our Think Green animation)! Since they work in a different room, we kinda sorta forgot to take their dinner orders. We did go back later once we realized our mistake, but we felt pretty terrible for forgetting them. They did get recognized with several animation awards in the past two years (including National Safety Animation Award 2007 - go animation team!), but I don't think they are respected as much as they should be on our team.

Let's try to correct these problems and give everyone on our teams the credit they deserve. Everyone is forgotten at one point, but it's important to make an effort so that it happpens as little as possible. We are a team, and each member on it is important, no matter how small their job may seem.

[Warren Boudreau]

Without a doubt: Drill Bit Sorter.

Other underappreciated jobs include scouting, battery person, pit boss.

[LightWaves1636]

Defiantly room clean up for us. Our coach nicknamed five of us the core(aka the Drive Crew) because we stay the entire time from build to clean up and it really gets to us how we noticed a majority of our other members make sure they leave a half hour before we start cleaning up the place because we have two classrooms, an autoshop garage, offices, and etc. to clean up because members who come and don't stay the entire time just leave their mess thinking, "oh the night crew will get it.", *sigh*.

[BadameAmie]

I am with you on that one Warren the person who sorts the drill bits...

but I feel that most of the jobs undervalued... you really don't know how much work is put into the job until you do it so most people think it is easier than it looks and don't give them enough credit

[Romeo1351]

The custodian who has to wait until we finish our late night workings to be able to clean the Physics Lab and go home.

Half the team probably doesn't know his name, but no job is less appreciated.

[LightWaves1636]

Originally Posted by Romeo1351

The custodian who has to wait until we finish our late night workings to be able to clean the Physics Lab and go home.

Half the team probably doesn't know his name, but no job is less appreciated.

We know our janitor, BILL!!! We love Bill, we give him a team shirt, a set of dog tags, give him food, drinks, and invite him to the competitions because his job seems small but he lets us into the school to work on the bot, and turns on the heat during snowstorms. Plus he loves hanging out with us during the build days. "Watching what you kids do is amazing." That was cool, Bill's awesome.