I’m an early riser. I have to walk the dog – so more often than not, I’m in the park by 6.15am with our lockdown puppy, a cockapoo called Boo. Then it’s back home for a coffee and three Weetabix before catching my train into London, or sitting down at my desk.
I’m in the office three days a week, Tuesday to Thursday, which I really like. Hybrid working is the way forward – I was climbing the walls during the pandemic, so it was a real game changer for me to get back into the office. Three days in the office is the perfect balance. I’m home more than I’m not and I don’t have to spend a crazy number of hours commuting.
I’m currently working for a client in the energy sector – it’s a fascinating industry and I have learned a lot. In the UK electricity market, managing supply and demand is a complex process – electricity has to be generated and used in real time, as we don’t have stores of it. It’s not like water, gas or oil.
My role at the client is a senior project manager. The main crux of the project is the replacement of old legacy systems, which are prone to problems and expensive to maintain. It’s a significant transformation to a very modern, cloud-based system, and it’ll bring major change to the day-to-day operations of the client, too.
I manage a number of suppliers on my project, and I am also the account lead for this client as well – there is a lot of pressure, with hard deadlines to deliver against. But we’re used to working in pressure cooker environments. I’m typically at my desk by 8am and I start my day by running through emails and checking DevOps boards. My team and I hold a daily stand up at 9am, reviewing recent progress and discussing any issues or challenges in front of us. Following that, we spring into more specific activities, be that design workshops, meetings with suppliers, or more wider engagements across the client. Towards the end of the day I check in with other Valconeers, ensuring that together we are continually delivering client value that Valcon is well known for.
In addition to my client responsibilities, I am working on developing Valcon’s proposition for the industrials sector. It’s nice to have a role in the development and future direction of the business. I’m attending a virtual conference next week on US time zones, so I’ll be burning the midnight oil for that one!
When I’m in the office, I’ll often nip out to nearby Regents’ Park at lunchtime for a walk. It helps to clear my head and think clearly about any problems we are encountering on the project. I’ll wrap up work at the office around 5:30 as this allows me to get home at a decent hour and spend an evening with the family. I’m training for a 10k at the moment, so will often try and get out for a run – I’m hoping to build up to a marathon in the next year or two – and then probably head out for another dog walk with Boo!
Want to learn more? If you would like to learn more about the day to day responsibilities of other Valcon employees, please email [email protected] and we’ll be in touch right away.
