8.00 AM

After silencing 3 alarms from 7.00 am onwards, I’m now finally awake. It can be difficult to get out of bed on those cold Canberra mornings.

8.30 AM

I leave home to commute a short 15-minute drive to work. I usually throw on one of my Spotify playlists to wake me up along the way.

8.45 AM

I get to work and say good morning to my team. Our team consists of staff based in Canberra and the Gold Coast.

9.00 AM

I login to my computer and open all the programs I need for the day. This is usually Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word and Microsoft OneNote. That’s a lot of Microsoft! I duck upstairs to grab a quick coffee and occasionally a cheeky croissant.    

9.30 AM

The next half hour is a mix of checking and responding to emails. What makes today a stand-out is the sheer variety of emails from various stakeholders. It always keeps work fresh and interesting, as we sometimes receive the most obscure and random requests. I normally have a quick chat with one of my colleagues to review our shared task list and follow up on any outstanding work items. The list seems to get bigger every day! 

10.00 AM

Normally, we have a meeting with one of our internal teams, such as Payroll or HR, to provide any updates or issues that need addressing. I’m usually responsible for taking meeting minutes.

10.30 AM

The meeting ends and I review and edit my notes before sending them off to my team. We’ve been utilising Microsoft Copilot AI at our agency, which is useful as a writing assistant for my meeting minutes.  

11.00 AM

There’s another meeting with one of our key corporate clients. This is a regular fortnightly meeting to discuss how work items are progressing. 

11.30 AM

These meetings usually take about an hour as there are many items to discuss, but on this occasion it finished early. The meeting with our client wraps up and I chat with my team about what follow-up actions are required. This might involve contacting other internal teams, reviewing documents or organising follow-up meetings. The to-do list grows ever larger.

12.00 PM

I head off to lunch, either bringing leftovers or purchasing something from the café. I have my lunch in the break room, or if the weather is nice outside, I have it in the courtyard. I normally chuck on some tunes and read the news. 

12.30 PM

I go back to my desk and check if there’s any new emails. I’m the team’s gatekeeper for new work items received to our group mailbox. I make sure that they go where they need to and that my team knows what’s arrived, especially if it’s urgent or high priority.

1.00 PM

I’m working on several pieces of documentation to add to our knowledge archive, including Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). These are step-by-step guides on how to complete regular processes, such as issuing invoices. It’s quite fun having to articulate in a clear, easy-to-follow manner the procedures that I do every day without thinking. Some are brand new, so I need to start writing them from scratch, while others simply require updating with new processes and details. I add screenshots to the SOPs to make following the steps easier.

2.00 PM

I finalise writing and updating the SOPs and add them to the task list for review by my colleague. Their feedback is invaluable to help improve the clarity and content of the SOPs. It’s also an opportunity to see if my instructions make sense!  

2.30 PM

I receive an email from our billing team containing several invoices to be sent to client agencies. I start by going to my key contacts list and begin distributing the invoices with covering emails to client representatives. I keep a checklist of all the client agencies I’m sending emails to, ensuring I can follow up with them if I don’t receive a response. This task provides an interesting insight into the variety and number of different Australian Public Service agencies and the services they require to function.

3.30 PM

Weather permitting, I take a walk around the block with one of my graduate friends. It’s a good opportunity to keep in touch with my graduate network and catch up on what they’re working on and get some fresh air.

3.40 PM

Feeling refreshed, I return to the office to check if any client agencies have responded to my invoice emails.

4.15 PM

I’ve had a busy day of endless emails! I’ve managed both inbound and outbound queries and leveraged our internal stakeholders to help resolve some of the smaller issues we’ve received today. I also take this time to schedule in some meetings for the coming days off the back of the unresolved queries. Microsoft Outlook is my best friend!

4.30 PM

An urgent escalation email comes through alerting us to a system outage that affects our client agencies. I assist my team with drafting a response to communicate with these agencies. We’ll follow up on whether the system outage is resolved in the coming days. We don’t know when we’ll get an urgent escalation or priority query from our senior executives, so we always ensure we’re prepared to respond promptly and professionally.

5.00 PM

I log off for the day and head home, eager for a new and exciting day tomorrow.

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