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Hearing about the day of Elizabeth Dolcourt, director of technology at Trimedia (soon to be known as Grayling), is exhausting in itself

My Day
5.50am: Hmphf? Ah, Radio 4. Snooze. Snooze. Headlines.

6.15am: Second alarm. Eagle Radio. Traffic. Weather. Trains running on time. Off to the kitchen, Blackberry in hand. Is there any client coverage? Have any requests for proposals (RFPs) landed overnight? Bread toasts. Water boils. Hotboy21@rxuk.com can score discounted Viagra. Delete. Add milk to tea.

8.20am: Right, I’m awake now, having barrelled into London at 80mph. By the time I reach Soho I’ve read the Metro, flipped through City AM and, courtesy of the banker next to me, eyeballed the FT. I fire up my system, check news and Twitter feeds and am ready for the day.

9.00am: First up is a call to our security client, Sophos, who spent the previous day commenting on the hotmail phishing scam. This company is brilliant at issues concerning hijacking and coverage has gone supernova. Hey, have you seen the BBC? Check. The Telegraph? Check. The Indy? Check. The message is well and truly out: people, change your password.

11.15am: Ring ring. “Allo?” It’s Klas from our Swedish office. He’s got a five-country brief from an outsourcing company, which is great news. But the client wants to increase its profile in three Nordic countries for €1,000 per month. Oh ho, the glamour of global PR. We settle down to play with the figures and map out alternative scenarios, from reducing the number of countries to suggesting quarterly projects.

1.30pm: A quick check on Twitter and I’m out of my chair in a shot, “Google’s been phished!” My account manager looks up, one earbud streaming her track du jour, the other dangling loose. “Yep” she confirms, “I’m already on it.”

1.50pm: No rest for the wicked, I’m barrelling towards Brighton to meet a cleantech company. In this sector, talking tech isn’t enough. We debate the finer points of Cop15, private equity investment and (stay with me here) Chuck the Eco Duck.

4.00pm: We take five, I check The Guardian. The Arctic Sea is becoming so corrosive that mussel shells are weakening and will soon dissolve. For the first time today, I stop thinking about my profit and loss. The trains I’ve taken puff across my conscience. We reconvene. I ask about its video-conferencing capabilities.

6.30pm: Time to head home, a much earlier hour than I’m used to. But I don’t live in London and homeward-Brighton takes a few hours. The train chugs along; it’s impossible to ignore the pollutants. I tidy up notes from the meeting, check emails again, start organising for tomorrow.

9pm: Home. A jacket potato is still warm in the oven. “I had a feeling you just ate biscuits today,” lectures my boyfriend. He puts out butter, cheese, beans. A beer. I become human again.

10.05pm: One more beer and I’m ready to pack for a three-day conference. My team’s already up to speed, so handover notes are short.

11.30pm: A mint tea, one last email check and the world is stable again until tomorrow.
 

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