7.30 AM

My alarm goes off and I resist the urge to hit the snooze button. I am generally not a morning person, but when I realise that today’s a Friday, I jump off to start my morning routine in a good mood. (TGIF!)

I’m heading to the office today, but most of the time, I work from home. While working remotely is great—I’m able to save both time and money—I do like working in the office once a week to connect with my workmates. With this hybrid work setup, I get the best of both worlds.

8.30 AM

When I arrive at the office, I pull up my weekly planner on Notion to get a sense of how my day will look like. Afterwards, I dive right into a project task I had started the day before, which involves structural modelling and analysis of transmission towers on a software called SPACE GASS. These towers are part of a transmission network that will connect wind and solar farms to the electrical grid.

Even prior to joining the workforce, it has been my dream to work in the field of renewable energy. I feel a sense of fulfillment in contributing towards the global energy transition and decarbonisation movement.

10.00 AM

My team leader introduces me to a visiting colleague from our Brisbane office, who is also part of the Energy group. I learned that he is a Filipino civil engineer who migrated to New Zealand on a student visa and has since climbed the corporate ladder to Power Transmission and Distribution Associate! He tells me about the significant role of civil engineers in providing the world with access to energy, the value of finding a good mentor to guide you in your career, and the importance of keeping your chin up amidst what may be an intimidating work environment, among other things

10.30 AM

I finish up my earlier task and send my output, an updated structural model, to the team for their review. The group consists of a senior engineer from our Sydney office, a lead engineer from the Manila office (my team leader), a structural engineer from the Brisbane office, and myself.

After some time, my team leader and I have a little chat by my desk about some project updates. He gives me a heads up to anticipate a new set of loads to be applied to the model. Such is the nature of designing structures—we go through multiple iterations before arriving at the final design.  

12.00 PM

Our visiting guest has generously decided to treat the Manila Energy team to lunch! While enjoying our meal, he recounts anecdotes from his time overseas as a Filipino engineer.

On other days, I usually have lunch with my fellow graduate engineers in the mall where our office is located.

1.30 PM

After lunch, I work on another project that will also connect power generated from renewables to the grid. I am tasked with marking-up the locations of transmission towers and winch sites to indicate the vegetation clearing zones. For this task, I use Google Earth Pro and Bluebeam, a PDF mark-up tool.

2.00 PM

Every first Friday of the month, the Manila Global Delivery Center holds a town hall meeting. Today’s hosts are my friends from the Water group who are fellow graduate engineers.

During our monthly town halls, we listen to updates and announcements, play games, recognise outstanding employees (dubbed “STARs”), and—arguably the highlight of these meetings—welcome our new starters, who are given the opportunity to showcase their talents. They typically choose to sing, dance, read original poetry, and the like. Today, someone performed a piece on their recorder. During my first town hall as a new starter, I performed a dance number with my fellow graduate engineers (and did hosting duties as well)!

4.00 PM

I return to my desk and continue working on the vegetation clearance mark-up task.

5.15 PM

Before the workday ends, I answer the check-in survey our Philippine Global Delivery Center Leader sends out every week, in which he asks about our stress levels, team morale, health status, and the like. I also accomplish my timesheet, which involves entering this week’s tasks and the corresponding hours spent working on them.

6.00 PM

It is officially the weekend! I grab some dinner with work friends, and even meet new ones from other teams. After hours of talking and playing card games, someone comes up with the brilliant idea to go on a road trip right then and there! And so, our Friday ends with a very spontaneous trip to a town in the south.

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