Jonathan Brewis

7:30 am

Wake up and get ready for the day ahead with a quick breakfast before jumping on the Bike (definitely car during the winter) and cycle 20 minutes to the office.

8:00 am

Make my way into the office from the car park where I leave the bike for the day. Find one of the spare desks (we hot desk here in Tauranga). Set up my workspace for the day by getting the laptop from my storage cupboard. Then I proceed to get ready for the day ahead by showering in the office facilities, putting lunch in the fridge and making the first coffee of the day.

8:30 am

Open the laptop, check the calendar, check the emails and prepare a plan for the day. This includes a to-do list for all the current projects I am working on and the deliverables deadlines to be met.

 9:00 am

Meeting with the geotechnical team in Tauranga and Hamilton via Teams (we are a closely aligned team). We discuss the resourcing of the team, upcoming deliverables and proposals for upcoming work.

10:00 am 

Get back to the desk and prepare for the upcoming site visits, I am currently undertaking construction monitoring on a new infrastructure project in Tauranga. Today I will be visiting two areas onsite to witness pavement preparation and to observe embankment construction.

10:30 am  

Head off to the site and arrive after a 15-minute drive. Here I meet with the site engineer who directs me to a construction area where the inspection is planned to occur. Here I witness the progress in construction, take some photos, take some notes and ensure the works are being undertaken to construction specifications and drawings. A few snapshots of example observations can be seen below.

12:30 pm

Arrive back to the office just in time to catch the office touch team heading out the door for some much-needed practice (up until this season our record was 0-20). We all enjoy the run around to get our minds off work and exercise during the day. 

1:30 pm

Get back from the “training” (really we throw a ball around until we get tired). Finish off last nights leftovers for lunch then get back to the desk. Check the emails again then settle back into the next items of the to-do list.

2:00 pm

Upload the photos from today’s site visit to the system and complete the site observation report. This involves construction elements observed and any issues noted. Today required me to follow up on some issues identified onsite, this involves a quick sit down with the project manager. After resolving the issue, I give the contractors onsite a call and advise them of the outcome and a plan forward.

3:30 pm

After giving the contractors a call, I take a quick break in the lunchroom to grab a glass of water and some fruit. I then proceed to settle in for the afternoon at the desk. This is a good time to work the way through the to-do list. Today the afternoon will be spent processing site investigation data. Last week I was onsite for another project where I observed subcontractors conducting CPTs, the data has just been provided (This data will help to develop a ground profile of the investigation site).

5:00 pm

Coming to the close of the day I finish off processing the data and begin to prepare the geotechnical ground profile of the site. Tomorrow’s task will be to assign parameters to the different layers of the ground model. I begin to close out the day in the office and get back on the bike for the short commute home.

6:00 pm

After a quick stop by the house, I am into my sports outfit and making my way up the iconic Mount Maunganui “The Mount”. Check out the view!

7:00 pm

A quick dip in the ocean at the beach 500m away from the house to cool off. Then back to the house for a shower and dinner.

8:00 pm

Catch up with the housemates over dinner (I live with 3 other Civil Engineers). Then we proceed to watch either the current sporting events or one of our many flat TV shows. Tonight, we are watching the latest Drive to Survive Formula 1 Netflix show.

10:00 pm

Start the bedtime routine and hope into bed after another busy day. Probably watch YouTube and scroll through social media for at least an hour before I fall asleep ready to get up rinse and repeat.