I have only been working full time for about 7 months now, but I already have my days quite structured out and definitely have nailed down my daily routine. For those who are new to this blog or who are unfamiliar with my professional background, I graduated with an Bachelor's degree in accounting and am now employed as an internal auditor in the financial services industry. Luckily for me, I have had a positive experience with the bank I work for thus far, and have worked in teams that are pretty flexible with my hours. Typically, I start the day at 9am and will sign off at 5:30pm, with a 45 minute lunch break at noon(ish) and a couple of coffee/chat breaks scattered around here and there. Of course, when I am working on a live audit, I put in more hours than usual and my days are pretty hectic with meetings, creating flow charts, and performing testing. One of the most popular questions I get during family get togethers or dinners with my friends is "what do you actually do at work?" Since it is quite difficult to share what I work on without getting into the technical, nitty, gritty details, Jess and I thought it would be fun to document a day in our 9-5 jobs to give a perspective into the lives of an internal auditor (me) and a consultant (Jess).
Day - Friday, January 27 , 2017
9:00am - I arrived at my desk after a 40 minute subway commute and read any e-mails I may have missed since I left the office last night. Since I am quite low on the corporate food chain, I don't usually get bombarded with e-mails and only have 4-8 waiting in my inbox for me every morning.
9:30am - 10:30am - I had a meeting set up at 11:00am with my stakeholder to discuss the flowcharts I had created the past week, so I spent most of the morning reviewing my flowcharts and preparing for questions I had for the meeting. My tasks differ depending on what stage of an audit I am in. Currently, my team and I are still in the planning stage which means having a lot of walkthroughs with our stakeholders to learn about their processes and documenting key controls and control gaps. Similar to blogging, editing is key in auditing - I have probably revised my control language and flow charts about 3-4 times now and will definitely be making additional changes after my managers review my work and provide their input.
11:00am - 12:00pm
I had a one hour call with my stakeholders where they helped me make the necessary adjustments to my flowchart and answered any additional questions I had about their process. One of the most important things you can do as a successful auditor is to remain curious and always ask questions! Honestly, I cannot highlight that enough and as someone who used to hate speaking on the phone or speaking up, I quickly realized that without asking the right questions, I essentially could not perform my job.
12:00pm - 12:45pm
This is usually my lunch hour, where I either go out to eat with my co-workers at a few restaurants near our office or bring lunch from home. Recently, I was introduced to Black Fox, which is an Australian cafe that has the best avocado toast and lamingtons! I know avocado toast it pretty basic and can be found in many, many restaurants around the city, but if you have not tried a lamington, please add it to your bucket list. It is an Australian sponge cake that has a similar taste to a rainbow cookie, but with more coconut flavor to it. Lamingtons are absolutely delicious and is a reward to myself whenever I do good work or is a pick me up when I have a bad day (basically anytime is a good time for these desserts!). Some days when I am absolutely swamped at work, I will eat lunch at my desk while working, but luckily those days are few and far in between.
1:00pm - 3:00pm
I spent the next 2 hours after lunch cleaning up my flowchart again, managing the deliverables list, and finishing up a few online training classes that I was required to take.
3:00pm - 3:20pm
Break time. I am definitely not a person that can sit/work for hours on end without taking a break here and there. Normally, this is my bubble tea/coffee break where I get to leave the office and walk around for with a co-worker for 15-20 minutes to clear my head and destress. My go-to drink in the winter is a matcha latte from Bluestone Lane. On days when the weather is less than ideal, I would stop by a co-worker's desk and chat for a few minutes about how their day has been going or what their weekend plans are.
3:20pm - 6:00pm
I spent the last couple of hours at work catching up with my managers about the work I had done for the day and finish up any additional tasks before heading out for the night. As stated before, my work-week hours range from 40 - 50 hours depending on how busy I am and whether or not I am assigned to an audit. December was a quiet month for me, so I was in the office 9-5, but now as my current audit is ramping up, I do find myself putting in more hours than usual.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week!
P.S. Jess does not work with me, but I needed someone to be my photographer (lol). Stay tuned for Jess' Day in a Life post coming next week!
Love Always,
Melissa
Outfit Details
Turtleneck - Banana Republic (similar), Skirt - Zara (similar), Shoes - Steve Madden (grey version)