A "typical" day

[pumpkinpi]

I sometimes laugh when anyone asks what a typical day at my work is like; in fact, that's pretty much an unanswerable question for anyone. For example today I went from inspecting carpet installation to see if there need be any fixes, to moving heavy equipment into storage, to spending an hour on email and google calendar trying to coordinate interview schedules between 6 candidates and 3 members of the hiring team, to reading the article "Contrasting nitrogen and phosphorus budgets in urban watersheds and implications for managing urban water pollution" for a planetarium program.

So, what's a typical day like for you?

[Rommie]

OMG, yes, this sucks in my job as well- people often ask what a typical day is like as an astronomer, and it's just so hard to answer! Because most of the day I'm doing research, and then you have to describe research, and that really depends on where you are in the project.

[Swift]

Yeah... hard to answer, and the level of detail that would be meaningful would depend a lot on how familiar someone would be with research, particularly industrial research.

At any given time I am involved with six to ten "projects" - some are formal Projects, some are just dealing with some current crisis on the production of a product for which I am the R&D contact for. I actually spend very little time in the lab, but spend a lot of time writing instructions for experiments I want our technicians to do, writing requests to the Analytical lab for what measurements I want done on the product from those experiments, analyzing that data, writing reports and memos and presentations on that data. I do a lot of D and very little R. And all these steps have lags that go from days to weeks, so I'm constantly jumping around from project to project ("wait is this the sample for customer X or customer Y? Its been so long I don't remember.").

Toss in a lot of email exchanges with customers, the marketing department, etc. And about 10% of my time for administrative stuff like safety training, safety inspections (yes, we all have to do them), other types of training (we just had a fascinating 9 part web training on cybersecurity. Our annual "don't break anti-trust laws" training will be coming soon.

[Thumper]

I sit in front of this computer an awful lot QCing the data stream from our permanent stations. Looking for missing data, piecing together bits of data to try to make complete days. I research what is wrong with a particular counter to aid my field techs in fixing the problem. Actually, I must first discern if the problem actually lies within the counter, the sensors in the roadway, communications between the counter and my download computers, communications between the download computers and the uploader routines, communication between the uploader routines and our data warehousing service, or an issue within our warehousing, processing, and reporting partner. Then there's scheduling and performing calibrations for our sites in the field. Lots of online training: Sounds like some of us have to do similar: Cyber security, Fraud and Ethics, Dodging active shooters. Oh and promoting diversity and preventing a hostile work environment. Then there's the time sponge meetings I'm always required to attend but never contribute, picking up/dropping off mail and packages, recycling, and recently cleaning the snow off of and fueling up the vehicles for various deputy directors. I also drive one of the vans on our office retreats/team building meetings.

[geonuc]

Being virtually retired, the most obvious typical part of a day is that I get to choose what I want to do that day, and it often depends on weather.

Prior to retirement, when I was an engineering supervisor, I noticed that the most obvious typical part of the day was that the day seemed never to turn out the way I had thought in the morning. Something unanticipated would occur and throw everything into a panic.

[Thumper]

Funny thing, the boss came in and told me that I had to complete the sexual harassment training by the end of the month. I said, "what SH training?" He said the one in the new online E learning system that they haven't told us about yet and nobody knows how to access or navigate. And I said, "Oh, that one..." I guess it takes an hour not including the time to find the link, call IT and get a password setup and then navigate, find, and launch the training blindly.

As I was typing this we had a power outage. My 2 UPS's on my download computers proved they are no longer uninterruptible. Emergency power kicked on after 10 minutes. During that time the swipe access in our new non ADA compliant security doors would have left you trapped in the elevator lobbies and stairwells unless you could find someone to let you out. After 15 minutes, the VOG came on and informed us we were experiencing an "area wide outage. Facilities was aware of the situation and working on a solution." E power kicked on and off several times, finally after about an hour, we had full power restored. One of my UPS's is making an annoying loud whine. I've unplugged it, failed at getting the battery out, and put it in a cooler surrounded by a bunch of files in an attempt to dull the scream. Funny it has plenty of power to do that, yet none to actually act as a backup.

Carry on.

[SciFiFisher]

Funny, that story about the screaming battery.

A few days ago they installed an AED device and display/storage case for it in our lobby. An AED is an Automated Electronic Defibrillator. It lets you shock people whose hearts need a shock. So... I came in from doing home visits and this alarm is screaming bloody murder. I go to check it out and it is the AED station screaming. And there is no way to turn it off. No one in the immediate area appeared to need shocking so I carried on and went to my office where the noise was barely hearable.

A couple of hours later the facility manager emails everyone and tells us that the AED has been installed and that the alarm will go off if anyone opens the case to alert the whole building that there is a medical emergency. Of course, the device is on the first floor of a three story building. I suspect no one can really hear it on the third floor. and if you are in an office at the far end of the building on the second floor no one will hear it there either.

Ah.... the joys of modern civilization.

So, no, I don't have anything resembling a "normal day" from day to day. Some activities and processes are the same and repeat on a random basis but at any given moment it really depends on the day.

[Swift]

Funny thing, the boss came in and told me that I had to complete the sexual harassment training by the end of the month. I said, "what SH training?" He said the one in the new online E learning system that they haven't told us about yet and nobody knows how to access or navigate. And I said, "Oh, that one..." I guess it takes an hour not including the time to find the link, call IT and get a password setup and then navigate, find, and launch the training blindly.

I laugh because we do this kind of crap all the time. And it is made even worse (yes, that's possible) by the fact that we work for a French company, so a lot of that online training was originally created in French and then gets badly translated to English English. And the French seem to love goofy little cartoon figures, with no pants and no genitals, so the training things are usually filled with them.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_13678377_3d-white-people-stop-sign-with-traffic-cones-and-wearing-a-safety-vest-isolated-white-background-3d-.html?term=safety%2Bvest&vti=njxbmj5k4qaoe0wk0d-1-7

[Thumper]

Wow, those guys would improve our training by an order of magnitude.

[squ1d]

My days are far more predictable

- 9 million emails
- Configure Jenkins
- Configure Jenkins again
- Change some Maven scripts
- Design some shit
- (Rare) Write code
- Test things
- Test things again
- Fill out forms

[SciFiFisher]

My days are far more predictable

- 9 million emails
- Configure Jenkins
- Configure Jenkins again
- Change some Maven scripts
- Design some shit
- (Rare) Write code
- Test things
- Test things again
- Fill out forms

I am guessing that "fill out forms" takes up more time than it should.