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About Technical Safety Services (TSS)
TSS is a biotechnology contracting company with its headquarters located in Berkeley, California and offices all across the United States. Their main services are testing and certification of laboratories and other controlled environments, such as biological safety cabinets, fume hoods, clean benches, and biosafety enclosures for research animals. The field technicians run various studies on airflow, particle counts, air testing for potentially dangerous microorganisms, and HEPA filter integrity in order for the controlled environments to be up to certain ISO standards. In addition to all of that, they also calibrate many types of laboratory equipment, perform microbial environmental monitoring, test high-purity water systems, and facilitate decommissioning of labs. The office I worked out of is located in Morrisville, NC, formerly belonging to Precision Air Technologies (abbreviated as PAT), a company TSS acquired about a year ago.
Position: Technical Writer
For my internship, I was a Technical Writer at TSS specifically in the field of testing & certifying clean rooms. At TSS, certified field service technicians would go to various clients’ facilities and perform clean room testing, producing data sheets full of their raw data. That data needs to be digitized and turned into a report that can be sent back to the client, and that is essentially what my job was. I was part of TSS’s Technical Writing team, although my job was different from the rest of the technical writers. As mentioned above, TSS acquired PAT, and they are still working on integrating them into the larger company. While work was done to integrate them, it was my job to learn how to make their reports (which were in a different format) and reduce the backlog they had.
I learned the report-making process very quickly and was able to complete all reports with efficiency and accuracy, and my work was often praised by the techs. I learned new skills in Microsoft Visio and Filemaker, and improved upon already learned skills such as increased proficiency in Excel and Word, attention to detail, thoroughness, and clear communication. I was able to get a snapshot of what life is like working at a “normal” office job, and gained a new appreciation for the type of work that TSS does. These companies rely on TSS to have peace of mind to safely operate their facilities, which I know is incredibly important. I learned that personally, writing the reports was actually very engaging. It may seem like doing that all day would get boring or repetitive, but it never did. There was something about entering data, formatting, and completing a report that scratched an itch in my brain that I didn’t even know I had. Thanks to this internship, I think I could potentially find success and even genuine enjoyment in this field.
Unfortunately, due to the privacy of the companies who are clients of TSS, and due to the risk of breaking any confidentiality agreements, I cannot provide a sample report on this page.
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