Technology - specifically biotechnology - is a booming sector of employment here in British Columbia and in other parts of the world as well. Your prospects of getting a job are better in the biotech sector than they are if you were to train to work in a beauty spa in Edmonton or even on an oil rig. But not everyone has the ability and temperament to work in a laboratory every day. To help you get an idea if this is the career for you, we'll describe what it's like working in a lab.

People who work in laboratories are scientists or technologists. In order to get their laboratory position, they did a four plus year degree in science or a course at a technical college that is a year or more long. These aren't the types of courses you can do at home in your North York condo, either, because they involve a lot of hands-on laboratory work that just can't be done over the internet. Only once their training is complete can they even apply for a laboratory job.

Applying for a laboratory job is the same as applying for any other type of job, but working in a laboratory is not like working anywhere else. There are four safety levels in laboratory work, from level one, where the substances being worked with pose little danger, to level four, where the danger is so deadly you must wear a vacuum suit. Could you handle that sort of pressure, or would you wish you were selling aquarium fish foods instead?

Even at the most basic level, laboratory workers must cover up with lab coats, hair nets, booties, gloves, and eye protection to keep from contaminating the substances they are working with. They must also follow a very strict set of rules and procedures to do their jobs or the Toronto naturopathic doctor who ordered the tests might get the wrong result and misdiagnose a patient. As a laboratory worker, people's lives would depend on you following orders and getting things right every time.

In order to do well in a laboratory job, you must be patient, methodical, careful, consistent, and able to document your work in great detail. You must be comfortable indoors, working in proximity with potentially dangerous biohazards, and able to use expensive equipment like microscopes and incubators. If you can't, perhaps you ought to go help build Yonge and Bloor condos instead.