Lisa Lin

Hi everyone, I’m Lisa and I’m part of the 2019 Graduate Program. I am sharing my routine as a Product Management Graduate. In my entry, I will reflect on the difference between working in the office (before COVID-19 occurred) and working from home.

5.30 AM

The first thing I hear in the morning is my alarm. I never enjoy hearing my alarm more than once, I always wake up immediately. I head straight to the gym and unfortunately, I’m allergic to working out after 5pm, so I’ve found that morning workouts are the best for me!

7.30 AM

Today’s special for breakfast is a boiled egg and a cup of green tea. This is the time when I look through my emails and check what meetings I have on for the day.

7.45 AM

I’m out the door, and I stumbled upon this… the nbn™ network is coming to my area! Yay!

8.45 AM

I arrive at the office and say hi to my team. Most importantly, I decide where I’m going to sit. Being in an activity-based environment, I always pick a different spot to chat to new colleagues.

9.00 AM

My first meeting of the day is catching up with my manager. We usually chat through what’s recently happened in our lives and I run through the status of my current projects. My manager is great because she challenges me by never giving the answers. She always trusts that I will make the right decisions or find the right stakeholders to talk to and if I make the wrong decision, she lets me learn from my mistakes. I’ve got a pretty awesome manager!  

9.30 AM

I read through my emails for the day and reply to any stakeholders that I need to.

12.00 PM

I present to external clients about a new project coming into development that I’m the lead for. The clients ask some great questions that I answer, and I note ones that I’m unsure of, to check with my team after.

1.00 PM

It’s lunch time. The joys of living at home is that I still get to eat my mum’s home cooked meals. Usually, the graduate cohort come together and bond.  

2.00 PM

I work through some monthly reporting numbers. This is a report I developed from scratch using Excel and I’m deciding on the best visualisation to present the data to the management team.

3.30 PM

I have a phone call with my teammate who is based in Perth. We’re currently planning the next phase of activities for a project. He’s three hours behind me so we usually have meetings in the afternoon.

4.00 PM

My grad buddies hijacked my phone!

5.00 PM

Finished work and I’m off to karaoke with some of the grads and alumni grads. I’m really fortunate to have met some great friends through this program.

During COVID-19, working from home became the new norm and the one thing that hasn’t changed, is the team’s ability to stay connected.

7.00 AM

I turn off my alarm and lie in my bed for a bit to read the morning news.

7.15 AM

I’ve been loving Chloe Ting’s YouTube workouts now that gyms are out of the picture these days.

8.30 AM

Some habits don’t die, I continue to boil my egg, make myself a cup of tea and bring it to my desk. I always start my day with some music in the background. I read through my emails and look at the meetings for the day.

10.00 AM

I have a meeting with internal stakeholders from different business units on a project I’m leading. I run through the actions, allocate responsibilities and run through the timelines..

10.30 AM

My usual Thursday catch up with my manager. Since working from home, she has been super supportive. She checks up on me to see how I’m going and as usual I run through the status of my projects. We have a bit of banter and go on with our day.

11.00 AM

This is the time when the grad cohort and my managers come together to have a casual chat and run through any important updates. Check out the editing skills of one of the grads.

11.30 AM 

I’m updating a manual guide that is distributed to customers when they set up their nbn™ broadband connection. I receive a fresh copy from the marketing agency and review the document for any modifications.

12.30 PM – 1.30 PM

Lunch time! nbn has introduced company quiet hour for employees to achieve work/life balance. I’m really lucky that my mum always makes me yummy food. Today’s dish is pork chop with rice.

Then I play with my dog Sugar for a bit.

3.00 PM

I’m planning a marketing communications strategy that is going out to Retail Service Provider customers. I’m drafting up the timing and the content of the communications.

5.00 PM

Finished work and it’s time to dance. I’ve been trying to keep myself moving and planned dancing sessions with my grad buds to keep our endorphins going.