Honestly, a typical day in my life would be pretty boring. Get up, go to work, sit at my desk for 8 hours writing and editing, maybe a short break for cakes and other goodies from the ladies on our food mag, come home, blog/read/watch TV and sleep.
Some days are a bit more interesting. Behold:
7.30: Up early as I actually have to be at work at 9am today, so no catching the later bus as I usually do. Wolf down a bowl of cereal. Get dressed and head to the bus stop about 8.
It’s cold and windy – almost coat weather! I regret not taking my outfit photo indoors. This is one of my favorite dresses, I believe it was a Target find in the US – and my power shoes. This is about as dressy as I get, but because I have a fancy lunch to go to I’m making the effort.
I’m glad I stashed tissues in my bag before leaving; with the drop in temperatures my nose is dripping like a leaking tap. But we’ll wait and see – the sun might come out and turn the day sweltering (by Auckland standards) in minutes, like it has the last few afternoons.
8.45am: Traffic is horrendous. Finally get off the bus, commence walk to the office. This is my favorite part of the journey.
8.50am: Deal to important emails. Check scheduled tweets for the day, and check site traffic. We had a big story preset to publish first thing this morning. Embargoes are a pain but this company wanted Techcrunch to break their news in US time. It’s happening more often – NZ tech startups that are truly international are giving stories to Silicon Valley media first, which I understand even if I don’t like it.
9am: Down to the photography studio to assist on this photo shoot. Turns out I didn’t have to worry about being on time, since our art director doesn’t turn up for a little while. I notice one designer still hasn’t sent stuff over as he promised (sigh) but it’s okay, we have plenty of stuff to work with anyway. I had a feeling about him!
Between 9am and 11.30am: Bounce back and forth between studio and my desk upstairs – fetching stuff, packing and unpacking stuff, checking emails, etc.
11.45am: Hop in a taxi and head into the CBD. Have an interesting chat with the driver about our experiences of racism in NZ.
Noon: Arrive at the Hilton for lunch. It’s mainly accounting types, and mostly pale males in suits. Sigh. It gets a little more interesting when somebody I interviewed last week arrives and we get to meet in person for the first time (Auckland is a sprawling city geographically but it’s tiny in that sense).
The dude across from me (from one of the Big 4 firms) actually utters the words “post-acquisition synergies” at one point. Take that corporate bullshit and choke on it. That moment aside though, lunch isn’t too bad overall – three course meal with decent food and amazing dessert, plus interesting speakers.
The bathroom is nice, too.
3pm: I’m back in the office. Dash to check on emails and site traffic, then back down to see how the rest of the shoot went. Pack everything back up and lug the boxes over to dispatch to be returned. Photographer praises me for taking care of a thankless task – which it is, but it’s gotta be done, and that someone should probably be me since I’m responsible for coordinating the whole thing (and am the one who’ll be in trouble if anything happens to the products). If only we had any interns right now …
4pm: Clear emails, take care of some admin. Make sure things are lined up for two interviews I’m doing tomorrow. Publish a couple of stories (preloaded interview, a couple of syndicated posts).
5.15pm: Leave work and head to the bus stop. Go back and forth about my plan to go donate blood for the first time – I just had a flu shot this week, will that matter? Decide even if I get turned away, I only have a 15 minute walk home from the venue.
6pm: Find a whole ton of people at the church where NZ Blood has set up for the day. Fill in some forms and wait. They eventually test me for iron levels (I was a bit worried about this – mine have always been low, but apparently I pass muster) and ask if I’m over 50kg (I was at the time of my last medical appointment – I don’t own a scale).
When I finally hop into the chair, they have some trouble finding my vein. That initial prick of the needle is sharp but bearable, no worse than the anaesthetic injection I had when I got my wisdom teeth out.
7pm: After some water and chocolate biscuits, I’m off. As I walk through New Lynn, a guy calls out my name. I think fast – I don’t recognize him, but upon a second look (I’m terrible with faces) thankfully I remember who is he, despite his totally new hair. We used to work at the same company and always got along well. We talked for probably at least 15 minutes on the footpath and could’ve gone longer.
8pm: Home! T’s still out (we talked briefly on the phone earlier) but thanks to my huge lunch and the biscuits I’m not ravenous like I normally am. Have a quick shower then call him again. Turns out he already made dinner and it’s in the microwave. Score. It’s almost 9pm by now, which is insanely late to eat, but it’s actually the second day in a row this has happened – yesterday I was in town catching up with a friend over drinks and nibbles.
10pm: Catch up on some blogs in Feedly and some of my regular reads through Flipboard. Start a new book and get through a couple of chapters.
11pm: Lights out.