6.00 AM

The first of my 7 alarms go off. I begrudgingly snooze it and try to go back to sleep. I repeat this cycle 6 more times every 5 minutes for the next half an hour.

6.30 AM

Now it is really time to get out of bed. Some brain food and a cup of tea to start off the day!

7.30 AM

I hop on the train. I like to get the most out of my time and do something useful with it. For an early morning train ride, the constraints are that it can’t be too demanding and must fit in a 30-minute commute. Podcasts fit these requirements perfectly. Effortless entertainment requiring minimal brain activity. Today I am spicing up my morning with a crime mystery from Casefile and some random titbits of knowledge by Freakonomics.

8.15 AM

I set up my workstation whilst waiting for everything to start up, before quickly grabbing a cup of tea from the café area in the office. I flick through the paper briefly and head back to my desk.

One of the first things I will do is check my email to see if there are any important design changes that have gone through and need to be addressed. These are added to my to-do list. Once my to-do list has a bit of volume to it, I like to get straight into my work so I put my headphones in. My playlist for today is ‘Electronic Alarm Clock’ – because it’s Monday and quite frankly I really need something to get me pumped after a long weekend in the Blue Mountains.

As an engineer working in the Highways team at Arup, I work a lot on roads. My current project is designing a new intersection to facilitate future traffic needs. For me that involves a lot of skimming through standards, entering the correct data into my model and analysing the output to ensure that everything works. All exciting stuff when it does what it is meant to do, frustrating when it doesn’t, but what I find most exciting about engineering is finding solutions to problems and that’s something I probably spend most of my time doing!

10.00 AM

Time to go to a meeting with the client. My team updates the client on the progress we have made and we discuss any changes that need to be made. After the meeting we have a quick rundown of everything mentioned in the meeting so we can implement the comments into our design.

12.00 PM

Lunch calls as I get a message on Skype from one of my friends to head over to the café area in the office. A highlight of being part of the graduate program at Arup is that you get to start off your career with other people who have recently graduated from university and since you have so much in common with them you all end up being friends.

In an effort to be more environmentally conscious in the office, my lunch buddies and I bring in home cooked lunches, which we eat whilst pondering over the Sydney Morning Herald’s crossword of the day.

1.00 PM

Despite suffering from a slight food coma, it’s time to get back to the grind again. A new playlist calls – ‘Stylish Solo Nocturnes’ – it’s neither stylish nor sleep inducing so I don’t know what’s up with the title. The music is loud enough that it drowns out the background noise, but calming enough that I can concentrate on work. I have a deadline coming up, so being able to focus on my work is one of my key priorities.

3.00 PM

My department has this unspoken rule that if it is your birthday, you should bring in baked goods for your colleagues. So it is afternoon tea time and it is someone’s birthday – free cake to boot!

3.15 PM

The end of the day is nearing and there is still a bit of work to do! I quickly help out one of my colleagues before getting back to my desk. Everyone around me is really getting into their work, which motivates me to smash out some final pieces.

Before hitting the shutdown button on my laptop, I update my to-do list so I am prepared for tomorrow and I don’t forget about essential tasks overnight.

5.30 PM

Done! Now it is time to kick back and relax… AT WORK! With board games and a cheese platter! It’s a great way to wind down and bond with the people you work without leaving the office.

It’s getting late. The final thing to do is to go to my yoga session for some mental and physical relaxation so I’m ready to do this all over again the next day!