Anupama Pilbrow

8:45 AM

I get out of bed, get dressed and grab my lunch from the fridge. I always meal-prep and outfit-prep the night before, so I can maximise the amount of time that I’m asleep. I’ve also perfected a swift morning routine—I leave the house at 9.00 am. It’s a short walk to Redfern Station where I hop on the train to Town Hall Station. Once I get off the train, it’s a five-minute walk to our Darling Park office. I’m lucky that IAG offers flexible working hours, so I get to sleep late, skip the morning train crowd, and save on peak-hour fares.

9:25 AM

I catch the lift to Level 6, where my team is located, and put my lunch in the fridge. I put my jacket and bag in my locker and grab my workstation. Our Darling Park office building offers activity-based working, so my workstation is a little basket that I use to store my notebook, documents, pencil case, laptop, and headset. It’s cute and handy. I head to my team’s neighbourhood and scout out a free desk. My favourite standing desk has some open spots, so I grab one and set up my laptop. Unfortunately, the best spot on the table is already taken, so I resolve to come in earlier next week, so I can snag that spot every day. Then I remember how much I love to sleep and hate peak hour, and promptly give up on my resolution.

9:30 AM

While my laptop is starting up, I make breakfast and a cup of tea in the kitchen (I bring oats from home every day and microwave them at the office.) I bring my tea and bowl of porridge back to my desk so I can catch up on my emails while having breakfast. My colleague asks me if I get sick of eating porridge for breakfast every day. The answer is no—it’s the perfect breakfast.

10:15 AM

After reading and replying to all the emails that have accumulated since I went home yesterday, I put away my dirty dishes and then address any pressing tasks that have been assigned to me over email and check my to-do list for anything that is outstanding from earlier this week. Today, my team’s project manager and I have been asked to organise a session with another team. We need to urgently get their input on whether or not we can proceed with a proposed solution design for one of our robots. I walk over to where my team’s project manager is sitting so I can make sure I understand what the session is going to achieve. We figure out next steps and email the rest of the project team for additional information. I also need to keep working on the User Manual for one of our attended robots, but I’ll have to do that later because it’s almost time for my first standup.

11:30 AM

I’m working across four different RPA projects, so I have a couple of different standups every day. This one is the first for the day and covers two different robots. I head to the meeting space and start the conference call, and the rest of the project team joins me in person or on video. We track our progress since yesterday and discuss any blockers that we’ve identified and how to get through them and stay on track. I prefer taking notes by hand, and I note down any actions assigned to me.

12:00 PM

It’s lunch time! I grab my lunch from the fridge and walk up to Level 10 where I meet my friends. There are almost 40 graduates in my cohort, and 22 of us are based in this office building. We have lunch together every day at Level 10—it’s called 'The Café'. This is the best part of the workday because we’re all in different teams working on different things, so we almost never talk about work! It’s Friday, so we’re working out what to do this evening. After I finish my lunch, I put my dirty dishes on the dishwasher trolley and make myself a coffee at the machine. I take my coffee and walk back down to Level 6.

12:30 PM

I get back to my desk and check my to-do list. Time to turn my attention back to the User Manual I’m working on for one of our attended robots. This task involves a lot of trawling through technical documents and reworking technical language to suit the end-user. I love any tasks that involve writing, but I do need to be able to concentrate. I pack up my workstation and head to one of the focus rooms on our floor. These are enclosed offices that can be used on a first-come-first-served basis. I use them when I need to work without any distractions. I set my status on our internal instant messaging service to ‘Do Not Disturb’ and get to work.

1:45 PM

Afternoons are always my busiest time because my team works closely with some partners based in India. A lot of meetings have to be scheduled into the 1.30 pm to 5.30 pm AEST window when both sets of teams are in their respective offices. I leave the focus room and find a regular desk that is unoccupied, where I set up my workstation again. I’ve got a lot of meetings ahead of me, and I definitely need a tea break to mentally reset. I head to the Level 6 kitchen and put away my dirty coffee cup from lunch. Then I make myself a cup of tea and sit down at the communal table to scroll through Twitter for a few minutes. When I’m feeling more refreshed, I head back to my desk, a mug of tea in hand.

2:00 PM

I have two more standups back to back. The first one is in a meeting room on my floor, so I head there and set up the conference call. A few teammates are based in the same office, but the rest of the team is split between Melbourne, Adelaide, and Pune. We talk through the first user acceptance testing session that’s scheduled for this afternoon.

Then, I have my final standup for the day. There’s no meeting room booked, so I head to a private booth on my floor and join the conference call from my laptop. There are no actions for me out of this standup, which is great because Fridays are hectic already!

3:00 PM

Next, I have another meeting! We need to discuss setting up profiles for another one of the robots we’re building. I walk down to Level 2 and head to the meeting room, where my colleagues are already set up. It’s a small meeting, and the project manager for my team is leading it. Setting up profiles for the robots is a lengthy process, and something that has taken a lot of work in all the other projects I’m a part of, too. There are a lot of actions for us to undertake after this meeting, but we still need some more information from other teams and from our partners in India. Once the meeting is over, I walk back up to Level 6 and return to my desk.

3:30 PM

I get a little time to catch up and action some of the items assigned to me in standups and meetings today. Whatever I can’t get to, I note down in my to-do list. It’s also the end of the week, so I send out weekly reports for all the projects I’m working on. I do this on Confluence and make sure everything else is up to date, while I’m at it.

4:30 PM

My last meeting for the day is a test session for one of our robots. This is being held over a conference call. I don’t have a lot of talking to do in this one, as it’s being led by our partners in India and is mostly a dialogue between them and the end-user of the robot, so I feel comfortable staying at my desk during the call. I take some notes for the meeting for my own sake, but also finish sending out the weekly reports and updating Confluence, as there are a few lulls in the discussion while we wait for the robot to do all its tasks. It’s pretty cool seeing the robot in action, so it’s a nice meeting to have the last thing on a Friday.

5:30 PM

I pack up my workstation, put away my tea mug and store everything in my locker. All the grads are going out for drinks tonight, so I go meet them at our new local haunt (it’s essentially in the building, which is very convenient). I stay for one drink, because I have plans tonight, and then I walk home and start my weekend!