My typical day …

6.45 AM
After snoozing my alarm a few times, I get myself out of bed and get ready for the day. If I haven’t snoozed my alarm too many times I’ll make myself some avocado on toast, otherwise I’ll grab an Up & Go for the drive.

7.45 AM
Drive to office, it’s typically only a 25-minute drive but I normally aim to leave a little earlier than I need to so I can avoid the bulk of the morning school rush. During the drive I’ll usually listen to some music or occasionally a podcast.

8.15 AM
Arrive at the office, I typically start my day by making myself a coffee while my computer starts. I like that our office has an espresso machine so I can practice my latte art!
I’ll then settle in at my desk and start by checking my emails and reviewing my calendar, I like to write out a to do list at the start of the week to help arrange my priorities. If I’ve got any smaller tasks, I’ll try to get these completed earlier in the day, this could include quick design checks, reviewing shop drawings or responding to RFIs received from builders.

9.00 AM
Every Monday morning the structural team will have a workload meeting. We’ll discuss upcoming deadlines for projects and review everyone’s capacities for the week. It’s a good way to work out priorities and see who’s busy or who’s ready for a new project that week.

10.00 AM
Head to site for an inspection. Today’s inspection was first of many reinforced concrete slabs for a really unique house (with a pretty awesome view). My job is to inspect the reinforcement prior to concrete placement and ensure that it has been installed in accordance with our structural drawings. At the end of the inspection I’ll speak to the builder about anything that needs to be addressed.

11.30 AM
When I arrive back in the office, I save any photos that I’ve taken on site to my computer and type up an inspection report which summarises items to be addressed by the builder before the concrete is poured.

12.00 PM
Lunch time! I’ll try my best over the weekend to prepare my lunches for the week in advance, if that fails, I typically venture down to the local takeaway spots for a burrito. When the weather is nice, I like to sit outside on the balcony and catch up with some coworkers. It’s nice to get away from the computer screen for a little while, enjoy the fresh air and chat about things outside of work.

1.00 PM
Back to work! Today I’m starting on a new project which involves structural design for an extension to a local school. When starting on a new design, I’ll set up a job summary which includes reviewing the architectural drawings and a bit of research to determine the building classification, durability and loading requirements. A big part of the set up is a wind load analysis, which I’ve set up a handy spreadsheet for.

Once I’ve got an idea of the loading requirements I’ll get started on a design concept, which typically starts at the roof and progresses down the building.
This job included a roof over a basketball court, with not a lot of space to put columns, so we opted for steel trusses to span the large distance between columns. For more complicated structures I’ll use a design software to determine deflections and design actions. The goal of the design is to determine the truss member sizes required for strength as well as deflection.

5.00 PM
Leave office. I’m lucky that the office is only 5 minutes from my favourite fitness studio, so I often head straight there after work for a class or two a few nights a week. It’s a great way to get my mind out of work mode as well as adding some physical activity to my week, it’s also just a lot of fun.

8:30 PM
Arrive home, my partner finishes work earlier than I do, so on nights that I’m home a bit later he’s often started dinner by the time I get home which is a great help. We’ll have dinner together and watch an episode or two of whatever series were working through before getting ready for bed.

11:00 PM
Bed time, generally I’ll spend some time scrolling on my phone and catching up with friends.