Question

Do you prefer to work alone or in teams? Why?

Answer 1

Having an extensive experience of working alone as a freelancer as well as in teams in my past assignments, one of which was as a store manager for a leading fast food chain, I believe there are advantages and disadvantages of both formats of working. When working in teams, you have to majorly focus on just your part of the work and do not have to really worry about the other aspects of the project. At the same time, team work requires great people’s skills and team management skills. Most of the time you need to collaborate with others and often, have to work with people from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds. Your individual achievements does not get noticed or appreciated if the team as a whole fails to produce desired results. For example, in my assignment as a store manager, I was responsible for the performance of my whole team. For the incapabilities of any of my team member, I was the one to be blamed. I remember on one particular occasion, when one of the kitchen staff served burger to a customer with a burned patty, the customer as well as the regional head of the store called the manager, that was me, and held me accountable for the mistake of the kitchen staff. As a manager of the store, I learned it is practically impossible to monitor each and every order when the customer footfall in the store was more than 1000 per day.

On the other hand, working alone has its own set of pros and cons. I personally prefer working alone, that is the reason I chose freelancing as a career. While working alone, I am completely responsible and accountable for my own work and I do not have to worry about someone else’s work or their capabilities. I get appreciated by my clients when I do a good job and get bad or poor feedback when I fail to meet their expectations. But, at least I get to know what are the areas of improvements and what additional skills do I need to meet client’s expectations in future. I can plan my work at my will and can work and deliver at my own pace. Although, when you work alone you do not get any helping hand and are responsible for every aspect of the work, but the challenges that come along in working alone makes me happy and satisfied with my work.