Carla Fleisher Petersen

7.30 AM

After a good night of rest, my alarm rings and I get out of my comfortable bed. I miss out on breakfast at home as there is food in the office. I quickly have a shower and collect my things, ready for the day. My 4-minute walk to the station is followed by a 20-minute train trip into the city.

8.30 AM

Arriving at level twenty, I walk over to the kitchen to grab some toast with cream cheese or jam and coffee. It is a perfect time to catch up with my peers from all DXC practices. 

9.00 AM

My belly is filled and so I am ready to start my day. I begin by checking my emails for anything urgent and keeping a trail of open items as a note to prioritise during the day. 

9.30 AM

I have reviewed my emails and it is time to have a quick call with my manager. We discuss the day and any updates to our clients.

We have just gone up to visit one of our most important clients outside of Sydney. We have created a list of items that we plan to implement over the next few weeks and months. These items include enhancements to all areas of security delivery. This means that I get exposure and learn the big picture of managing a client relationship.

10.00 AM

Our enhancements require communication with several of our delivery teams, each of which play their part in providing an outcome to our client. I give some of them a call to discuss their actions and ask them how I can help them with any ongoing issues or with these new tasks. Coincidently, this time around, the monthly client security report is due in 4 days. I remind them of this and request they send their components to me as soon as possible. 

11.00 AM

I have received some more components of the monthly client security report. I spend some time updating the template, ready in advance for submission. 

12.30 PM

Lunch time has arrived! The team comes together and we head down stairs to MLC tower for what seems like an unlimited number of options. My favorite is a nutritious burrito bowl .. that extra guac just makes my day. We come back to the office kitchen to eat. We spend some more time catching up on events over the weekend and also any news around the business. Always refreshed after a good laugh.

1.30 PM

Back to our desks and we get a call from our teams. There has been a detection on a Priority 2 security incident. We all jump on a call with our incident response team who are experts in handling and remediating issues and crisis like these and are engaged to investigate, quarantine and reduce the damage of the ongoing incident.

Actions are assigned and meetings are arranged to re-convene every 3 hours. Incidents are very stressful as everybody is required to work together effectively and quickly to come to the best possible resolution. 

2.30 PM

After one hour has passed, the incident response team has contained the threat. We advise the stakeholders of the status.

We can mostly relax now.

We all work together to complete investigations for a post incident review and root cause analysis. This could take days or weeks.

3.30 PM

As the teams work together on the post incident documentation, some billing requests have come through. This is not complex work, but cross checking the volumes and charges with the billing team is key to ensuring we the money flows as it is meant to. 

4.30 PM

The tensions are releasing as we wrap up the day. We head to the kitchen again, but this time for a game of pool. We come back up to finish off any documents or chase up any requests that are required.

5.00 PM

A call to my manager again to wrap up the day despite communication throughout the incident really helps to offload and be ready for the afternoon and coming days. Home time. The trains are full but alas, it is only 20 minutes.

I keep my phone available at all times in case my input is needed for anything after hours. It is unlikely that I get any calls, we all respect our personal time, but working in cyber security can be time critical. A few minutes of my time can save somebody else hours. 

6.00 PM

Soon enough, I am home. I drop off my work belongings, have a shower and change into some more comfortable clothes. Depending on the day I will go to social Salsa dancing, indoor rock climbing or to the swimming pools for some laps and a sauna session if the center of that day has one. I enjoy having friends that try different cuisines, so we go have some Korean bibimbap, Indian Dosa or Chinese hand-made noodle soup. An amazing Italian dish is my favorite if I am feeling like comfort food.

9.00 PM

I get home and prepare for bed. I check my emails in case there are any urgent items.

There are none. The incident is under control, I put some music on my speaker and I check my social media.

On a quiet day, I will check the DXC university platform and do some training. There is always more to learn.

10.00 PM

I slowly relax into bed and fall asleep, thinking about the day, the week to come and the activities that I call my hobbies.