Sarah Spice

6.45 AM

The day begins. Straight after my alarm goes off, I’m greeted by my beautiful wee cat, Chippy, who is meowing relentlessly at me for some breakfast. Once I’m up and dressed and Chippy is fed, I have some breakfast myself and head out at 7:50 to catch the bus. I typically like to listen to music on the journey, but sometimes I read. It’s only about 15 minutes on the bus, and what’s even more ideal is that my office is only 200m from the main bus interchange, so it’s a pretty cruisy commute.

8.20 AM

Arrived in the office. Once I’m in the office I put my pre-prepped lunch in the fridge. I love my office space as it’s open plan and the whole thing, including every meeting room, features floor to ceiling windows which are great for natural light and people watching. Here in Christchurch, we get an awesome view of the Port Hills too. I say my hellos to the friendly team and sit down to read any new emails or Microsoft Teams messages. I normally have correspondence from the other members of my internal team, maybe asking me to write a new Contract Instruction (CI) or update an excel tracker with new invoices we’ve received, or it could be someone from the wider project team, potentially the client, contractors, quantity surveyors or structural/seismic engineers. I check my calendar to see what meetings I have on, and today is the best day of the week because we are going out to site for a meeting. Going to site is my favourite part of my job. It’s fun to spend time away from the office and see how your projects develop and progress over time. 

10.00 AM

First meetings. My first meeting of the day. This weekly meeting is held with other members of the RCP project team based in Auckland and Hawke’s Bay, as well as an external Quantity Surveyor from Hamilton. Sometimes the client jumps in to get a quick update on proceedings. Today we talked about budget and insurance for the project, which is a large further education institution that is having some remediation work done following Cyclone Gabriel. 

12.00 PM

Lunch time! This is our kitchen space. It’s great for socialising and what you can’t see in the picture is the fridge filled with soft drinks, ciders and beers! The dartboard is a great addition to the space too, makes for some very competitive lunch times. Most people bring food from home but, since we’re located on the high street, we’re a walk away from tons of good places to grab some food. Quite often we flick the TV on and Tipping Point is always showing at lunchtime so we like to play along. We also read the newspaper that we get daily. 

1.00 PM

Onsite meeting. Off to site! We drive our brand new company car (one of two) to the site to have our bi-weekly construction meeting with the Client and the Contractors. Since the works have started, we are required to wear PPE, so I’ve brought my hi-vis, hard had and steel cap boots. During the meeting, I take minutes under sub-headings of design, cost, programme and Any Other Business, and record actions so the team has a checklist of what needs to be done by the next meeting. After the meeting wraps up, the Site Manager takes my colleague and I around the site to check up on the progress since the works started. He takes us up the scaffold and into the offices. Inside, we see the hoardings they’ve put up around the internal works areas to reduce noise and heat loss, as well as to keep the works separate from the usual workings of the Client’s office. The final place he takes us is the roof where we discuss design points from the meeting regarding flashings and parapets. While we’re up there, we notice a couple of Health and Safety observations, so we input them in the RCP H&S app. 

3.00 PM

Women’s Forum prep. Now I’m back from site I join a meeting I’ve set up with my colleague - she is the Christchurch champion for the RCP Women’s Forum. I volunteered to give a presentation about language and gender in the workplace (I studied lingustics for my Bachelor’s degree and it’s an interest I’ve sustained since), so we are doing a practice run through. I am super grateful that she offered to do a practice run through with me, as this will be my first ever professional presentation! I feel really privileged that I get to present about something I’m so interested in. It also feels good that I get to draw upon my first degree and share my knowledge with the women across the company. I try and be as involved in the Women’s Forum as I can, and I have raised a couple of ideas of how RCP can further improve their gender inclusivity. I feel lucky that I work for an organisation that is keen to bring more women into the industry and wants to hear our voices.  

RCP is also a member organisation of NAWIC (National Association of Women in Construction) and a couple of weeks ago I attended a free event they held at my local Bunnings. They brought in some speakers to teach women about and how to use power tools. I brought my friend from outside of work along and we loved it! We both used a nail gun and a circular saw for the first time and learnt more about what sort of tools are for which type of job and general power tool safety. 

5.00 PM

Off to training. The last thing I do every day is update my timesheet, so all of my hours are recorded accurately. I like to do it daily as it only takes a couple of minutes, and it saves me from having to do it all at once on Friday afternoons! I head home and quickly change into sports gear as I have to shoot off to my fencing lesson at 6:30pm. I train in fencing every night of the week, and RCP was great in allowing me to be flexible in my hours so I can get to every session (ie. Thursday training starts at 4:15). As I am training for the next Olympic cycle, it’s imperative that I am able to train as much as I can, and RCP were more than 
accommodating to help. 

8.00 PM

Day winds down. I finally get home for the evening and take a quick shower after training. I cook a healthy dinner and chat with my flatmates about how their days were. Sometimes we play a board game or go to the pub, and I get to tell them about how great it was to be up on the roof of my site and even show them pictures of the views! I’m in bed by 10:00, chill on my phone for a bit, then settle down ready for another good day at RCP.

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