Christina Nicholas

6.30 AM

Snooze.

6.40 AM

Snooze.

7.00 AM

Panic - I wake up, skip breakfast and walk to the station.

I work in between client sites. Sometimes this means Olympic Park or Parramatta or if I’m lucky I get to be in our city office. Today is a lucky day.

9.00 AM

My set up for the day always includes a round of hello’s to anybody in the office, scanning my emails and calendar, creating a to do list and grabbing a piece of fruit before they’re gone.

After running through some administrative tasks like emails and scheduling, I get started on my tasks for the day. I have a client meeting this morning, so I prepare our materials and have a quick debrief with my manager.

9.30 AM

The daily coffee notification is sent out in our Microsoft Teams chat. A group of us head out of the office aggressively searching for discount codes and coupons on the plethora of coffee ordering apps. We find a half price coupon on a café around the corner and take a stroll.

I chat with my friend who is heading off for work training in Chicago. Protiviti provides international training to all consultants, senior consultants and managers. It’s a great chance to build up a professional network across the globe and build upon your consulting skills. I already spent my first trip in Japan and am still talking about it.

Go on, ask me about Japan! 

10.00 AM

Our client meeting is in Darling Harbour, so we take a walk down to their office and enjoy the fresh air along the way. The meeting is used to provide an update for the client. We validate our observations and recommendations with them and make a few brief edits to make sure we’re both on the same page. This is a good opportunity for the client to provide any business justifications to support the observations we have made.

11.00 AM

I have returned to the office now following our meeting and begin work on my other tasks. I am currently involved in a program of work which spans over a couple of different group businesses. I juggle each of these as we run our projects concurrently.

My next task is to conduct data quality profiling over the organisation’s key sets of customer data. Based on discussions with the client we have been asked to confirm their concerns as well as perform testing as per data quality standards.

This is a technical task which requires us to use the tools that the client organisation uses. In this case it is simply SQL Server. I run my SQL codes and have results returned immediately that I analyse and report to my manager.

These results and analysis will make the basis of our observations to report back to the client.

12.30 PM

After a few sneaky Skype messages to my colleagues we have settled on taking lunch at 12.30 pm. I have had a perfect streak of bringing my lunch in everyday, unless it was provided for free. It has been 9 months in and we're going strong.

We decide to have lunch indoors today since it is a little cold and I simply cannot risk having another ibis swoop me. We decide to brave the cold and take a walk around the city to stretch our legs.

2.00 PM

I have a bit of spare time in my day, which I fill with extracurricular activities. At Protiviti, we have a range of groups and networks to get involved in. I’m spending some time working with our Pride network. I’m joining a monthly call with the network to discuss our upcoming initiatives in Australia.

We also have a social club, greens committee, innovation guild, women’s network and parent’s network. The groups host events every few months and involve the whole office. Events can span from trivia or lunch & learn sessions, to trampolining and fine dining. It’s a great way to unwind in the office and talk about something different.

3:00 PM

I send out a few Skype messages to my colleagues to see if anyone would like to join me for a stroll to the Woolworths Metro for a yoghurt break (AKA, yog-o’clock). I swear this isn’t a Chobani sponsored post, but Chobani please hit me up.

4.00 PM

So close yet so far. I power through the rest of my tasks and stop looking at the clock. I shoot off a few emails to a colleague about preparing for a presentation. We’re organising a welcome evening for our new starters and are planning to talk about a day in the life of a grad (so this article is conveniently timed).

We toy with the idea of only including a slide show of funny photos from our consultant training program in Japan.

5.00 PM

Spontaneity is no stranger to consulting. News just came through that we will be visiting our client site in Queensland again, so I quickly book flights and accommodation for the next week.

5.30 PM

I lean back in my chair wondering who will be the first to leave the office.

5.35 PM

I decide to take one for the team and start to pack. I’m joined by my friends and we pile into the elevator together and have a laugh about our day. We fill each other in on our projects and talk about our plans for the week which involve an office wide movie night and hot pot dinner with the consultants.

7.00 PM

I get home around the same time each day and relax for the evening. I give my boyfriend the full breakdown of my day and chat about our plans for the week. I decide to prepare some cookies to bring in for the office movie night and load them with chocolate chips.

10.00 PM

It takes every bit of strength in my body to head to the gym this late – but I’d rather not get stuck in the after work gym rush.

Our office signed up for the CitytoSurf in August and I am hyping myself up to run the full 14ks and support a wonderful cause.

11.00 PM

I drag myself back home and get ready for bed. I set my alarms for the next morning and immediately fall asleep.

Thinking of experiencing life as a Protiviti Graduate? Sign up to Prosple to receive job alerts for Protiviti.