During my internship at UTS: Centre of Autonomous System. I was working under two supervisors, working on robot docking system. I have been working at a specific lab desk since the start of my internship. The researchers in the lab consist of a lot of people coming from different culture and background. A new researcher came along and occupied a desk next to mine, which I have no issue with it. She is older than me and from China.

As the week goes by, she started to broke rules that have set by the lab supervisor. The rules that she broke was letting unauthorised people enter the lab and bringing food and drinks. She was very messy with her working related stuff and began to put her belonging at my desk.

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I was very frustrated with her work ethics and felt uncomfortable with her broke the rules. I was so afraid to warn her or speak up to the lab supervisor about these issues. I was concerned that she might harm other people’s safety. I believe that we must respect people older than yourself, and this leads me to the confusion of come across being disrespectful toward her.

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Later, one of my supervisors came and checked my progression. He was in disbelief state on how messy my desk looks and find a drink in the lab. I explained to him what has been happening since she came in. He told me that I need to speak up about her behaviour and her breaking the rules. He helped me out to organise her stuff back to her table. He also talked to her about letting unauthorised people in the lab and bringing food and drinks. He mentioned about her belongings and not invading other people working space.

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I realised at the end that if I were the lab supervisor, he could deal with a lot of complaints about the safety of working in the lab. People might get injured during this period of her breaking the rules. I should be braver to speak up on what is right and should not be afraid of disrespecting people when it comes to safety. She was also very open with the feedback from me and my supervisor and promised will not let this happen again in the future. Alert Force stated that workplace injuries can prove to be a massive drain on businesses’ costs and productivity. According to Safe Work Australia, work-related injuries cost the Australian economy around $60 billion every year, representing almost 5 per cent of the nation’s GDP (Alert Force n.d.).

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In the future, I will aim to develop my confidence level in speaking up about issues that might affect the outcomes of someone safety. Older people or more experienced should be able to take criticism or feedback to ensure everyone safety at work. I will make sure this will be my goal for my learning in the future working environment.

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