12
Fotos: Julie Collins; iStockphoto/iStock.comSpotlight 1/2020 A DAY IN MY LIFEi, my name’s Robyn
Riddett and I’m 45
years old. I’m an Aus-
tralian, but I work as
an executive assis-
tant in a large bank in
the UK. I was born in
Canberra — the capi-
tal of Australia — and
moved to Melbourne
with my mum and my
sister when I was 10
years old. I lived there
until I was about 27, when I decided to
move to London.
On an average workday, I get up at
around half past five in the morning.
I take the Tube to the gym, which is at
Bankside, behind the Tate Modern. After
that, I get coffee on the way to work at
my nice, Aussie-style coffee shop called
Lantana.
Then I take the bus to Liverpool
Street in the City. I get to work at about
half past eight. It’s quite a modern work-
place, with flexible hours and the kind of
things everybody in the modern work-
force wants. It’s all open-plan, like a We-
Work-type office: you just find some-
where to sit for the day with a laptop.
They have these little pods you can sit in
— almost like airline pods.
I spend most of the day organizing my
boss. He’s the global head of risk — well,Aussie-style
[(Qzi staI&l] Aus. ifml.
, australisch angehaucht
executive assistant
[Ig)zekjUtIv E(sIstEnt]
, Assistent(in) der
Geschäftsleitung
fast-paced [(fA:st peIst]
, temporeich
flexible hours
[(fleksEb&l )aUEz]
, Gleitzeitgym [dZIm]
, Fitnessstudio
homebody
[(hEUm)bQdi] ifml.
, Stubenhocker(in)
off-site [)Qf (saIt] ifml.
, externer Veranstal-
tungsort
open-plan
[)EUpEn (plÄn]
, Großraumbüropod [pQd]
, Kabine, Kapsel
shift [SIft]
, sich verlagern
staff [stA:f]
, Mitarbeiter (Pl.)
Tube [tju:b] UK
, Londoner U-Bahn
unless [En(les]
, außer, es sei dennKeeping the
overview
Wir stellen eine Chefassistentin in London vor,
die sich täglich den unzähligen Herausforderungen
ihres hochmodernen Arbeitsumfelds stellen muss.
JULIE COLLINS berichtet.MEDIUM AUDIO PLUSA DAY IN MY LIFE
H
risk finance and HR technology — at a large bank. It has roughly
3,000 staff worldwide, based in London, Manchester, Edinburgh
and several locations in India. I organize his agenda, meetings,
travel, book meeting rooms and reorganize things as priorities
shift and change. I like my job. It’s fast-paced, and the people
I work with are nice, which is important to me.I usually have lunch between 12 and one. I mostly take my
own lunch to work now, because I’ve been doing a lot of train-
ing and healthy eating. I spend the rest of the afternoon working
through whatever the priorities are, whether it’s arranging travel
or booking meetings, or pre-planning off-sites or big events. So,
it’s all about planning: always keeping ahead of what needs to
be organized, and then rearranging the agenda whenever things
change.
Most of our meetings are held via a videoconferencing sys-
tem called Zoom. In the past, I would have had to book rooms
in multiple locations for a videoconference. Now, I just book a
room, put in the Zoom link and people can then connect from
wherever they are. From that perspective, technology in the last,
say, two years has really changed the way people work.
Technology’s shifted so much — I think we’re starting to see
the future way of working. I think there’ll be home bases in of-
fices, but more and more people will spend at least half of their
time working from home or some other place.
The flexibility we have these days is amazing. I recently trav-
elled to Holland, to visit friends in Amsterdam. I didn’t take hol-
idays. I just worked out of their house for a week. And that was
fine. Obviously, they were at work during the day, but because
we were in the same location, I was able to work and also spend
time with my friends without taking vacation days.Work finishes between five and seven, but, of course, I prefer
to leave at around five. Depending on how early I finish work, I
sometimes go to the gym in the evening and do a class or a per-
sonal training session. Otherwise, I go home and cook dinner
with my boyfriend, and then do my food prep for work the fol-
lowing day. In the evenings, we’re quite boring. We just watch a
bit of TV and then go to bed because I have to get up so early. I’m
in bed by 10 or 11 o’clock. We don’t go out on weekdays much,
unless it’s to meet a friend. We’re generally homebodies during
the week, and that’s about it.