Bartender or Lab Technician?

Hard work bartending, but livelier and you will meet more people.

Then die from second hand smoke.

Bartending is very fun. It's exhausting, though, Dlowan's right.

I was a lab tech for years. I'm not sure you'd find it very exciting.

The big plus about lab tech is that it's a job that is in demand. I could pretty much live anywhere and find a job with decent pay and benefits.

Bartending would be more about fun. Plus, I wouldn't have to go to school for two f*cking years just to get started. Plus, of course, I think I'd like it once I got confident.

But I like the idea of having a set procedure in your job. Lab technician interests me because I am so not into being creative at work anymore. I just want to be able to know what to expect at work, do my job, and get the hell out of there. That is very appealing to me right now.

Bartending at some kind of resort though...that sounds pretty much like paradise.

Hmmmm, I suspect you might go nuts, Kicky.


You think your creativity all burned out, but I wonder???

How much do you know of lab tech work?


Any chance of going and observing?

Probably not. Well, I guess I could, if I really wanted to...couldn't I just call up some lab and ask them to let me stop by for a look? I bet they'd let me. I have looked at the websites of some schools that offer it as a program, and it looks okay.

And besides, I think youse people think I'm more creative than I actually am, because I am in graphics. I've never really been on the real creative side of graphics. I have always liked the nuts and bolts pre-press side of things much more than actually designing things.

Well, bartending is no long term career...


Do you think lab work is, Kicky?


Hey! Why not PM Osso to come here. She has worked as a scientist. I bet she could tell you lots!

Have you ever considered bartending in a lab? Just set up a small bar in the corner of the lab and when the technicians get thirsty they'll wander over and tip a few.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Trust me, you do not want to be a lab anything, or a medical anything with a two year degree. You will be at the bottom, and stay there. You will not like it.

I like the bottom. It's where the fun people usually hang out.

Not in labs, dear, not in labs.

Well then I'll be very popular. I'll be the fun guy in a boring bunch of people...they're gonna LOVE me! I will bring excitement to their boring lives!

Reverse Gus' idea: start a bar called "The Lab." Every night try out a new concoction.

Ooh, that's good...

Kicky, life is to short to be responsible.BE A BARTENDER ! I worked at a strip joint owned by the mafia.I worked as a carnival worker.I sold acid and pot.I was a bouncer at a punk bar. People die planning for the future.You are perfect to be a bartender. But you'll have to start at the bottom.(I just found a bar with the inernet.I'm drinking beer,music is pumping,pool tables,people laughing,)people are afraid to live.Their afraid they might not look like the guy on the billboard they pass on the way to work if they try to do something different.

Bartending in a lab, easy, find the absolute alcohol bottle...

Now then.
I was a trained as a clinical lab tech (BA Bacteriology, internship at clin lab) but my first job was setting up a clinical lab for a medical center rheumatology department, putting researched tests into a functioning clinical system. I really liked it, I learned a lot about rheumatology and immunology, mostly liked the people in the nearby research labs - who at that time weren't boring at all - and, dammit, quit, because I had really meant to be a hematology person. Took a job in that in a regular clinical lab, nearly hated it if not quite, lasted 10 months, reapplied at the med center with the idea of getting a job doing hematology teching there, and my application got pulled when they checked my old department. Damn, the head guy called and said this other guy, who I thought was sharp, was coming back from the his stint at another med center under such and such an expert and needed someone to set up his lab.
So I did it, and that was a research lab - mostly I did the testing for our published papers, with some help from others, and occasionally some tests for unusual patient situations.

I loved all that, participating in the what if discussions.. the atmosphere in the lab was good, not least because of the person whose lab it was, who was a sane boss. Years went by and I worked for too many months with a resident I could barely tolerate on some interesting tests... and someone setting up a immunology oriented clinical lab called and asked if I knew anyone who could help set it up and I said, yes, me, if I could work 4 days a week. Long story short, I burned out in that next job.

So, I remember the pros and the cons of my own situation.
I dunno about you - I was always curious about medicine, to put it mildly, and liked being around it.

While I was burning out, I studied studio art after work.. but you know all that.

I can't say, because I didn't do it very often, whether or not you might be bored with routine screening testing day after day. If you get in with a place that has a wide variety of departments and tests going on and is always keeping up with new ones... that might interest you enough.

With a hospital lab, you tend to not get to know the patients as much as people or perhaps at all unless perhaps you are attached to a chronic disease clinic. In a med practice situation (maybe for a med group) you do see people over and over and that can be interesting.

Where I live now there is an apartment building across the street that rents out for six months at a time, or sometimes less, usually to nurses who come to work at some of our local hospitals. I am not sure if there are travelling lab techs like that, but that might be interesting for a while.

Do you have basic science college courses in your background?

Segue -
I ended up liking the design world better because I get to be the one to do the conjecturing and problem solving. Landscape architecture takes both creativity and some patience for detailed thickets.

Are there any teaching hospitals near you, Kicky? Teaching hospitals are use to having visiters. Call the lab director and explain that you are interested in a career in laboratory medicine and would like to have a tour.

Roger is right about associate degreed techs being at the bottom of the ladder. Also, if its a hospital lab then you need to cover your share of weekends and holidays. There are many tech jobs in the pharmaceutical industry, public health system (think forensic labs) and the food industry with better hours and oftentimes better pay. Most of them would require a bachelor's degree at a minimum.

You're right that lab techs aren't creative. Creatively performing lab tests would get you unemployed very quickly.

Lab techs don't get much respect in the medical world. They are primarily considered button pushing monkeys because most of the testing is automated. That is precisely why I became a blood banker. It's still in the lab, it's life critical - you make a mistake and someone dies - and it's completely manual. Your knowledge is what saves lives. I found it very rewarding.

BARTENDER