A Day in the Life of a Malbek Business Analyst

Editor's Note: This post was written before the current COVID-19 shelter-in-place guidelines. Any reference to the gym now involves working out at home  🏋️ but, because Malbek employees have always worked remotely, little else day-to-day has changed.

Having now been a Malbek employee for a few months, I’ve settled into a routine.

Well…no, that’s a lie. 

There is no routine, because every day is completely different. Constant variety is part of what I like about this job. Flexibility is a necessary skill at Malbek; you may think you have a quiet afternoon planned, but that will almost certainly change. A customer will have a brilliant new idea for their setup, a coworker will want to bring you in on a discussion, or (the best surprise) we have a new customer to work with. 

• 6:30 am – Go to the gym. See the notifications coming in from my East coast team members who are already at work and get an idea for how the day might go. Check Teams messages to see what amazing new features our development team has added overnight. They build things at the speed of now!
• 8:00 am – Coffee, breakfast, and log on. Check email for any issues that have popped up overnight.
• Morning – The whirlwind begins! No two days are the same. Most East coast customer meetings are in the morning. I need to communicate with my team members, field customer questions, and do design work in the Malbek solution. There’s a lot of rearranging schedules on the fly as new calls and meetings come up. Never a dull moment.
• Noon – Grab a quick lunch and give the cat a treat. (She gets upset if I miss this step).
• Afternoon – West coast customers usually meet in my afternoons. In between meetings, I’m learning new system features, configuring Malbek customer environments, and doing project management and planning. I try hard to stay one step ahead! Organization is key to keep all the details of all your customers' different needs straight.    
• 6:00 pm – I usually have a final wrap-up with my boss, who is not your typical boss at all, and then I log off. I start my long traffic-less commute from office to kitchen. I’ll continue to monitor my phone – West coast customers are still working, after all – and see if anything urgent comes up. It’s easy to hop back on the computer if needed, or type out a quick response from my phone. 

Repeat, repeat, repeat. The only certainty is that tomorrow will be completely different.