Becoming a sampling technician at our laboratory has opened up a new world of knowledge for Ma Marriner.

Ma, who has been in her role for a year, has always been interested in the natural environment and studied environmental science at AUT.

"I had just finished an internship at a company dealing with kiwifruit and I saw the sampling technician role advertised. I was looking for a job where I could be outside a lot. I love being out and about."

Her degree covered a broad range of topics, including a paper on water quality and monitoring, so the sampling role wasn't completely foreign.

"We looked at invertebrates in streams and we do similar things in sampling sometimes. But I didn't know about a lot of the things we do before I got the role. Water just comes out of the tap, and I didn't think too much about the process for it to get to people's homes.

"It's been eye-opening seeing the whole complex system we have in place, and not just at the treatment plants. There are so many people doing different roles in that process."

Ma enjoys her part in the process, helping to make sure that our water is healthy and our impact on the environment is minimal.

"Shellfish sampling is one of the cool things I've done for my job. It was interesting learning about how we use them as water quality indicators."

Her workday starts around 7am, when she collects the equipment she'll need for the day.

"I'll calibrate equipment like probes if I need them. It depends on what I'm testing that day."

She loads up her work car and runs through the list of sampling sites she needs to visit to figure out the most efficient route.

Her job takes her all over Auckland and sometimes past the boundaries to Hamilton, the Waikato and Raglan.

"It's quite amazing. I've seen more of Auckland in this job than I have in the rest of my life, and I've lived here for most of my life."

Sometimes she goes out sampling with a colleague and sometimes by herself.

"We might do between 10 and 14 sites in a day."

She visits a variety of sampling sites, such as reservoirs, streams and network sampling taps housed in bollards.

The samplers do chlorine testing on site because chlorine levels in samples start to drop after 15 minutes.

"We have chlorine meters that we use. We also take the temperature of the samples at the time of sampling and once they're back at the lab.

"When we're doing environmental sampling, we sometimes go on boats into the harbour and use a probe to measure things like conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and salinity, if required."

She says environmental sampling can involve a lot of walking to get to sampling sites and she loves the opportunity to visit remote places.

"I end up at some really beautiful streams, taking samples."

Once she has delivered her samples to the lab for testing, the rest of the day is spent preparing for the next day's sampling run.

Ma says the sampling team help each other with preparation.

"It's a really awesome team and we all get along. Everyone is so knowledgeable and I feel like I learn something new every day. They're happy to share their knowledge and experience, which I really appreciate. The continuous learning is one of the best parts of the job. No two days are the same."

Her job also provides inspiration for her hobbies – she loves the outdoors and hiking around Auckland and drawing illustrations from nature.

"I now know a lot more places I can visit that I didn't know existed before. I love going out exploring with my partner, so now I can keep active at work and outside of work."

She says her pen and digital artworks are mostly nature-based.

"I'm very grateful to be able to spend so much time outdoors."