Josie Williamson


6:00 AM

I love an early start and have gotten into the habit of stretching first thing before my run each morning. I live right in Wellington city and have a couple of favourite running routes – Newtown through Berhampore, Oriental Bay through Mount Victoria, or up and around Kelburn. My runs can be anywhere from 6-12km and I like a bit of variety, both in terms of scenery and gradient. Today I’m off to pound the streets of Kelburn. It’s such a great start to my day. It clears my mind and helps me feel energised for the day ahead.

7:45 AM

Transpower has offices around Aotearoa. but as I live in Wellington, that’s where I work. It's just a 15-minute walk to work in the morning, which is so convenient. I aim to arrive at work by 8 am, so my post-run cooldown and morning prep, including eating breakfast, is pretty quick.

8:00 AM

I start my working day by grabbing a coffee down on the ground floor in our office’s communal kitchen.  It’s good espresso coffee and I love the daily ritual. Making my own, thanks to Transpower providing the machines with coffee and milk options, also helps save a few pennies. I then head upstairs to Level 4 to log on and check my emails. I like to use the mornings to make review my to-do list and run through what I have on my calendar for the day. Having a good handle on what I have coming up for the day really helps me prioritise and maximise my time.

8:45 AM

Our 15-minute daily team catch up is on. It’s a chance for our team of 22 to get together and talk about any important news. It’s online and a great chance to connect with colleagues from different offices, like Hamilton. We also try to balance the serious stuff with some team building. I really enjoy it when we do the Stuff News quiz – it’s always a good laugh. It’s something we started doing with all the changes to the way we work since COVID-19 hit.

9:00 AM

I read over some of the comments on a report I have been working on, which a colleague just sent through. They are from a fellow grad who I had asked to peer review my work. Luckily there's not too much to change. My colleague has made some great suggestions though, so I’ll spend some time considering them and tightening up the report this morning. I want to get it off to my group manager to review next.

The report is on analysing reactive capability curves, which is a representation of a generator's ability to import and export reactive power. At Transpower, we work a lot with energy generators as they are our customers and an important part of the electricity market. It’s an internal report that will essentially help with giving the system operator a clearer idea of the generator's reactive power capability and also may assist in planning outages.

When I first started at Transpower there was a lot to learn in terms of understanding technical terms and how the market works. Every report I write gives me more understanding.

12:30 PM

I meet up for lunch with another grad, Alvin, who is in the same team as me at the moment. Today I brought my own lunch. It’s chicken pesto pasta. I quite like cooking bulk meals and having my lunch pre-prepared. We have a kitchenette and space for eating on every floor of the office, so we just decide to eat on Level 4 today as it’s a bit overcast. Sometimes I’ll go to the big eatery downstairs from our office. There are some great lunch choices on offer. I’m always partial to the burritos when I buy lunch. On a sunny day, it’s great to take a short stroll to the waterfront or find a spot for some people to watch.

1:00 PM

After lunch, I start on some modelling work. I'm working on validating a model for one of the generators. I'm waiting on some test data from them, so I set up everything I can in PowerFactory to make sure it's all ready to go when the data comes in.

2:00 PM

Every month all the Transpower graduates meet. There are 12 of us going through the programme at the moment. Some of us are into our second year and some have just come on board this year. The main purpose of the meeting is to come together and share our experiences. Sometimes people have specific topics or interesting stories related to their work to share.

We all take a turn chairing the meetings. I’m chair today and had emailed everyone a proposed agenda asking for additional contributions a couple of weeks earlier. Chairing a meeting is great practice. I find the biggest challenge is keeping everyone on topic and sticking to the agenda. Some people are enthusiast communicators and can lose track of time.

3:00 PM

I get back to my desk and write up the minutes from our graduate meeting. It’s great to get it done while it’s all so fresh in my mind. We had spent a bit of time today talking about a challenge the first-year graduates were working through. As part of their induction, they were tasked with writing an engineering report each. We talk through the different approaches they took, and those of us with more experience at Transpower were able to give some feedback and ideas to help them along. Next on the agenda, another second-year colleague showed us all how to use Transpower’s expense reporting system. It’s always great when we learn something new in these meetings. I then managed a round table, to give everyone a chance to update the group on their work priorities. It’s a really great way to understand what’s going on and recognise our different challenges and successes.

3:30 PM

Transpower offers great development courses as part of its graduate programme. I’m working through tasks in a self-leadership course. We are allocated an hour of work time each week to commit to our development. This week the tasks are related to setting SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timebound) goals. It’s great to hone my approach to goal setting. I like sharpening my skills and finding ways to be more productive. We all come together on Friday afternoons with the course facilitator, so I always like to get through the work well in advance.

4.00 PM

I take 15-minutes to pause, drink some water, have a small snack and stretch my legs.

4:15 PM

I have a meeting with my placement supervisor first thing tomorrow. I prepare a few things to discuss with him. I jot down a short summary of what I’ve been working on this week and list a couple of questions I have for him. We will probably talk about my development goals tomorrow, which is great for keeping on track. It’s usually just a 15-minute catch-up but I like to be prepared and to get the most out of it.

4:30 PM

I finish my working day by writing what tasks I need to get done tomorrow. It just means I’m ready to hit the ground running in the morning. I log off after checking my emails for the last time and head to the gym. I like to do some easy strength training and stretches a few times a week to help my running.

6:00 PM

I'm heading to meet a friend for dinner tonight. Wellington has some great dinner spots and they're all super close. Tonight, we're getting Korean.

10:00 PM

After doing some reading of “In an instant” by Suzanne Redfearn, I head to bed. The week has gone by so quickly. It’s been a satisfying week work-wise so far and I'm excited for Friday tomorrow!