Sam Baxter

7.30 AM

My alarm goes off, I roll out of bed finally. I’ve hit the snooze button too many times already. I put on the morning news as I munch on my cereal. I start getting dressed for work as they roll into the weather forecast. I’m out the door by 8.15 am and heading for the bus. 

9.00 AM

I get to work and take the lift up to the 5th floor. I grab my work stuff from my locker and say good morning to my team. I spy a well-located desk with my name on it. I get myself set up and plug in my tablet. I’ve got a few emails, mostly news summaries. I scan them quickly to see if there’s anything of interest. There are a few emails my director has sent off that I’ve been cc’d into. It looks like there are some changes needed to the brief for the minister’s office that we have been working on. I make a note in my daily planner to talk about how they’d like these changes to be made later. 

9.30 AM

I’ve got some spare time to work on some of the tasks I’ve been sitting on. I’m writing a paper for an international committee on chemical use in Australian agriculture. I plug in my headphones and put on my ‘Concentrating’ Spotify playlist.

10.30 AM

One of the other graduates calls me on Skype asking if I want to grab a coffee quickly. I think a caffeine hit is definitely needed. We go down the elevator and to one of the nearby cafes. We chat about how work is going and our weekend plans while our coffees are made. Turns out they’re heading down to Jervis Bay for some beach time over the weekend.

11.00 AM

I’ve got a teleconference booked in with some of our stakeholders. I quickly make sure I’ve printed off any documents I need and head into the teleconference room. Some of my colleagues are already there ready to go. I sit down and open my notebook ready to jot down anything interesting that comes up. My supervisor asks me if I’m happy to lead this meeting. “Sure,” I say. I dial in the teleconference number. 

12.30 PM

My stomach is growling at this point, I better get some lunch. I go to the break-out area on our floor. Some other graduates are already sitting at a table there chatting. I grab my lunch and go join them.

1.00 PM

I’ve got some more time before my next meeting so I take the opportunity to get back onto my list of tasks. Ah, what! My laptop won’t contact my desktop monitors. I’ll quickly call IT and see if they can fix this.

1.00 PM 

Monitors are connecting to my laptop again, good. My team is coordinating some grants given out to assist producers in accessing the latest agriculture technologies. The next progress report is due soon and we haven’t heard back from some of the industry bodies who received those grants. I better get on the phone and call them up to see how they’re tracking. 

3.00 PM

I’ve got a meeting with my team. We head to the meeting room. We’re discussing some of the long term goals our team wants to achieve in the future, and what work we need to start preparing now to get to those. It’s a good chance to share some of my ideas about the work we are doing. It looks like we’ve got quite a few good ideas and I jot down a couple of notes and future points of interest I might want to take a look into back at my desk.

4.00 PM

I finally manage to catch my director at his desk to chat about the brief. I told him what changes I had made to the brief and he suggested a few more edits before we send it off. I head back to my desk. I better quickly make those changes and then flick it off to be approved so that we can get it back to the minister’s office today.

5.00 PM

I’ve done everything I need to do for the day so I decide it’s about time to finish up. I clean my desk up and say goodbye to my team. I get changed into my exercise clothes and then head down to the building’s gym on the ground floor. A couple of my friends in the department also use the gym and we’ve all organised to go together. They’re already there when I walk in. It looks like it’s arms and chest again today. I can’t remember the last time we did leg day. 

5.45 PM

It’s time to head home. It’s about a 10-minute walk to my bus stop so I plug in my headphones again as I walk and put on some music. 

9.00 PM

I’ve eaten dinner and I think I can probably slip in a few rounds of a popular online game before bed. I usually play with some friends from high school. I message our group chat and it looks like there are a few takers. Perfect! 

10.30 PM

It’s finally time to turn in. I set my alarm climb into bed. I'm ready to do it all again tomorrow.