I shadowed her and picked up the basics of the job. Soon after that I was thrown in at the deep end, as the technician for the northern area which covers most of Oxfordshire and north Buckinghamshire. There's a lot of responsibility. To a large extent, I'm my own boss and have to organise my working day. This requires discipline and time management.
Adaptability is also important because no two days are the same.
If you get called to a crime scene on Monday morning, you have no idea what you'll be doing for the rest of the week. It's very exciting but it does often mean you have to draw a lot out of yourself. You can sometimes be out in the middle of nowhere at 2am at the site of a gruesome crime and that does take getting used to. So does working with senior officers. There's constant contact with them and they can be quite demanding.