Keaan

6.00 AM

I wake up to an alarm that sounds like a nuclear meltdown, while the sun lights up my room from the windows. I swipe through today’s news and have a quick shower before I’m on the way to the station, brushing my afro into shape on the way.

7.00 AM

I catch the train to Sydney’s Town Hall station where I stop at the local Woolies for a breakfast snack! Blueberries or raspberries are my usual go-to. A ham and cheese croissant is another favourite. It’s a pleasant walk from here to Darling Harbour. The office I’m in is bright and super spacious and there are plenty of treats in the kitchen!

8.00 AM

After having a brief chat to my manager, I normally dive straight into reporting. There’s lots of variety in the type of reporting we do here.

My role is to provide a ‘data compass’ which is equipping the leadership team with a broad view of the data and helping them identify trends or inconsistencies. If the data isn’t pointing in the same direction as a corresponding report, we know we need to investigate and fix any errors we come across.

9.00 AM

Reporting is one of my most important tasks – where I compile all of the data for our leadership team. For one of my projects I get to pool together with stakeholders from across the business and together we tackle reporting to ensure our data and insights are presented clearly and effectively. I really enjoy chatting to my colleagues as I scoot back and forth across the office.

11.30 AM - 12.00 PM

It’s lunchtime! There’s a sweet little alleyway just downstairs filled with everything from Japanese matcha curry to super fresh bahn mi sandwiches. Darling Harbour is a pretty place, so sitting outside with lunch, and soaking up the sun is my preference.

1.00 PM

My afternoon starts with report automation. A lot of my work involves finding ways to make the way we work more efficient. Once I’ve finished that, I create some simple instructions for people to follow so that [the task] can be done even when someone from the team is away. While the whole process usually involves multiple excel spreadsheets and more formulas than I can count, the feeling of simplifying or making something easier never gets old.

3.00 PM

Partway through this exercise, I get asked to help with ad hoc reporting tasks. [These tasks] can be anything from reporting on mandatory e-learning results to investigating and building staging reports. Some of our reporting requirements are still being built so my team must be flexible and quickly adapt to change. While I understand this might be tricky for some people, I really enjoy the variety and new challenges.

5.30 PM

Time to catch the train home. In between watching YouTube videos, I use this time to catch up on group-wide messages with my closest friends.

6.00 PM

It’s been a big day, so it’s time for some rest and recuperation. The food choices around Sydney are pretty spectacular so every now and then my housemates and I dig into some Korean BBQ just next to our house. Tonight, my six online buddies and I play a zombie game. After many laughs, we call it quits an hour later. I’m looking forward to another action-packed day tomorrow.

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