George Gett

5.00 AM

My first of many alarms go off and get silenced. My passion for sleep is strong but by around alarm four, I have mustered up enough strength to finally roll out of bed. To help quash my passion for sleep and energize myself for the day ahead, I head to the kitchen and smash down some pre-workout. Gotta have my body performing at the top of its game.

5.30 AM

It is now time for my favorite part of my day: gym. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold, or I’m tired or sore, I will always make my way to the gym every single day. Fitness isn’t just a passion, it’s a lifestyle. 

6.30 AM 

I haul my broken body back home and start to get ready for another big day at work. I usually start my day by having a protein shake to supplement my workouts. The protein of choice here is Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Whey. For I “aspire to be the gold standard of mechanical engineering”. I then down some breakfast, have a quick shower, and make sure I have everything I need for work.

7.20 AM

Time to hit the road. Luckily, there is plenty of parking at Rheinmetall so my commute is an easy 30-minute drive from my house. 

8.00 AM

I arrive at the office and after greeting everyone, I log into my emails and begin to process any that have come in overnight. This allows me to structure my day depending on what issue is taking priority. This is particularly important for me as I currently split my time between two teams; the vehicle hydraulics design team based at MILVEHCOE and the BOXER Verification & Validation team based in Melbourne. Today, my Hydraulics Team Lead has tasked me with modeling and drafting an urgent “part” that will be installed onto one of our prototype vehicles.  So, I’ll spend this morning focusing on this and spend the afternoon doing V&V work.

8.15 AM

Time for coffee. Unfortunately, the café scene around MILVEHCOE is almost non-existent so the break room coffee machine sees plenty of action. By now, I have the ritual down to muscle memory; single flat white, 170mL of coffee, 27 seconds of milk, 2 seconds of foam, and one sachet of sugar. Life is good now.

8.30 AM

It's back to the desk now and time to get to work. Coffee in hand I load up Siemens NX, put my noise-canceling earphones on, blast some country music and settle into my modeling work. 

10.15 AM

Luckily today the part I was designing was fairly simple and I was able to get the first draft out pretty quickly. I’ll then have a quick meeting with my Team Lead to review my design and ensure I haven’t missed anything. With the part approved it's time now to start drafting manufacturing drawings. Back to the country music.

10.50 AM 

The first draft of my drawing has now been completed. Time to send it off to my Team Lead for review and to take a quick break before my V&V update meeting.

11.00 AM 

It’s now time for the weekly V&V update meeting where all of the Boxer Block 1 V&V engineers meet to update the V&V Manager on the status of our work. The V&V team is responsible for delivering critical test reports to the Commonwealth in regards to the operational and functional capability of our Boxer fleet. Our time constraints are critical so it is important that everyone is on the same page in regards to what work still needs to be done. This week I updated the team on a report I was writing, that had been road blocked by some data. Due to the criticality of my report, it was decided that we would ask our German counterparts about the missing data in our evening meeting with Germany.

12.00 PM

Lunch Time. A sacred hour of eating food, chatting with my workmates, and playing Magic the Gathering. If the vibe is right, we will eat lunch on the tables outside the engineering building. Some may take this opportunity to indulge in a little Kevin07 style handball, I prefer to take this opportunity to just sit and chill in the sun for a bit.

1.00 PM

Back to work. This afternoon I need to go and collect some data from one of our Boxer vehicles to help write one of my V&V reports. So, I put my high vis on and head over to our production building where our Boxer fleet is being assembled. 

2.00 PM

Armed with all the data I need it is time to make a cup of tea, put the music back on, and continue working on my test report. 

4.00 PM

Time for our V&V meeting with Germany. This is the big meeting of the week where we each bring up our V&V work with our German colleagues and identify any areas where they might be able to assist the Australian team.

5.00 PM

It is time to hit the road. Today has been long and productive, but it is now time to battle the Brisbane traffic and head home.