During my time in Turkey, one skill that I developed was how to resolve disagreements with coworkers. For instance, one day my unit felt that we were doing more wheelbarrows than other units were. We first asked individuals if they would take wheelbarrows down. They would then take down the wheelbarrow we asked them to, but did not take any others afterwards. We then tried a tally system, where everyone was required to tally how many times they took a wheelbarrow, and no one was allowed to do more than three until everyone had done three. This worked at first, but due to a miscommunication about who was able to take the wheelbarrows, tensions ended up getting worse with this system. Since then, other units have begun to take more wheelbarrows, which has helped resolve some tension between various units.
Another skill I have developed is attention to detail. When working in the unit, it can be tempting to just remove as much soil and rocks as possible. However, it is important to work more carefully because there are many small pieces of pottery, bones, glass, and other objects hidden in the soil. By working methodically, I am able to better learn what happened in my unit by finding all the pieces of evidence. It is also important to carefully inspect everything that could be pottery because sometimes you can be fooled by a piece of schist or another kind of rock. By not rushing through the soil and making sure I’m collecting all of the pottery, I have improved my attention to detail.
