Nazish Zaman Khan

Having joined Vista Entertainment Solutions back in September 2017 as a Graduate Software Services Consultant, I have come very far and excelled exquisitely thanks to the working culture, the people I work with and the type of work I do which is very motivating and satisfying.

5.00 AM

I am an early morning person, so usually wake up around this time to have a calm morning and some me-time before my husband and toddler get up. After getting fresh, I do some light yoga, pack my lunch, and have breakfast. Also, get breakfast ready for my family and the toddler’s belongings for his day at daycare. I prefer driving to work and the commute takes me around 20 minutes with little traffic. While driving, I listen to some good, high-energy, peppy Bollywood music on the radio stations to get myself amped up for the day.

6.45 AM

I aim to get to work by this time for 7 starts. Once I’ve parked my car on-site, I head into the office, go upstairs to keep my lunch in the fridge and then come settle down at my desk. The first hour I set for going through my emails, and Teams messages and making a quick plan of what the priorities are for the day. Sometimes, there is a slight backlog of customer incidents that would have been logged after we finished for the previous day as we deal with customers in the NZ, Australia, Asia and Pacific Island regions. I assign these incidents to the consultants in my team. As more people start to come into the office or join virtually, we greet each other and have quick check-ins. I have really missed the socializing aspect of being in the office physically after Covid, it is rejuvenating especially when you are surrounded by friendly, funny and caring people.

10.00 AM

Important catchup meetings are usually scheduled around this time, with other Managers in the Services department or with my own team for a scrum. It allows everyone to have started work at their own flexible pace. We have a bit of a banter and then get onto who’s working on what, blockers in achieving desired outcomes, any updates around the department and follow ups from customers and/or Account Manager. We utilize the team scrum as a time to discuss any new learnings and get help from each other too. After this I head up to the kitchen for our Sweat with Pride morning tea, goodies with a purpose!

12.00 PM

I try and have a fixed lunch time daily which helps both my brain and body to look forward to that, as my break time. I’m usually reachable during lunch by my team but only for urgent matters. Like I’ll check my email at 15 min intervals to see no urgent Priority 1 incidents have been logged by the customers in our region to cut my lunch short. Otherwise, lunch is my time to be away from screens and refresh my mind. I usually go out to the very close Victoria Park – it gets some walking in, get fresh air and have my meal outside as a picnic. For lunch today, I’m having leftover chicken fried rice and veg samosas. People watching at Victoria Park as I eat lunch then taking a walk back to work is a great experience, it gets my body moving and back in an active state of mind. Once I’m back at the office, time for a quick game of pool before heading back to my desk.

2.00 PM

Between lunch and now, I’ve worked on some incidents, remoted into customer environments to replicate the problem they described, asked them questions to get more information and made some suggestions regarding how to fix the issue. After that, have responded to some of my team member’s queries regarding change requests and following up on bugs that customers are following up on with the Bug Management team. I’ve also scheduled some training sessions to happen from next week for a new starter in our team. I am responsible for scheduling application-based training for our Vista product suite for the Services department– so this is something that happens every few months. Since we are reaching new heights at a rapidly fast pace, we have new people joining the Vista Whanau all the time in different departments. Time to grab a cup of coffee for an afternoon boost at our very fancy Nespresso!

3.30 PM

Usually from now, I start wrapping up work in a state that I can come back to it tomorrow, aiming to finish at 4pm. If there’s any high priority incidents my team is still working on with no resolution in sight, I reach out to the after hours on call person to let them know this may be something that continues into the evening. Driving home can take me anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes at this time, depending on the traffic. During my commute home, I look back at the day, thinking about the highlights and lowlights at work. Once I’m at home, I try and switch off from work mode and spend time with my family. My phone is still reachable though for any urgent matters, as a Manager I’m technically working 24/7 but only as and when necessary. For now, it’s play time with my son where I try and fill his power and attention buckets to the best of my ability.

5.30 PM

We have our dinner as a family together around this time, catching up on each other’s days and sharing good things that we are grateful for. Dinners are usually leftovers from another day or quickly putting a dish together with minimum effort. After dinner, my husband and I take turns to play with the toddler while the other person prepares things for the next day and cleans up. This is so we can enjoy and have some downtime later, instead of continuing to work until we sleep.

7.00 PM

By this time, our son has had his bath, gotten ready for bedtime, and slept. The next few hours are the time for my husband and I to chill, talk about our days or anything on our minds, have a relaxing cup of tea and unwind. We aim to get into bed by 9pm for a good night’s sleep and wake up to conquer the next day.