A day in the life of Ross

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I’m Ross and I lead on Dundee City Council’s involvement with Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc. Here’s some insight into what I do, with a write up from one day of my busy week.

We are all now getting used to working from home (WFH being the new acronym of the moment) I’m trying my best to get into a new routine that works for me and also balances with my wife who is running college classes from her desk on the other side of our study, and my son Rory whose playroom and kitchen table now doubles as classroom / desk. It’s working (sort of..)

My alarm goes off to at 6.30 and I try to get out of my bed for 7 and get out for a walk or on the bike to start the day.

Once I’m finished, I will have a shower and then have an espresso and some cereal. I’m aiming to be at my desk for 8.30am. First of all I make a timetable for the day and a task list – I find this really important. By this time, Rory is jumping around like a loony in the background to Joe Wicks and running through to tell me what’s different in Joe’s front room (If you watch it, you’ll understand..)

I then check in with my Team Leaders, our daily huddle – WhatsApp is the preferred app for this. It’s good to see everyone at the start of the day and check that all the teams are ok. It’s a new way of working for most of us and it’s really important to focus on communicating with each other. Then I will join the MSIP daily call. I have to admit, I usually do this call in the garden with my headphones on whilst watering the green house or a bit of weeding – proper multi tasking!

When I get back to my desk I will put the headphones back on (it can be noisy in the office with a number of calls and lessons on the go at the same time) – my current preference is Radio 6 music, but I’m also enjoying the new Bombay Bicycle Club album and a whole range of podcasts. If you like golf, I recommend the Pepper Pod with Andrew Cotter and Eddie Pepperell. Brilliant.

One of my first MSIP calls today is a meeting to review our enquiries with Carri and David McCallum from SDI.  It’s important to gauge where we are with our enquiries particularly at this time. We are doing our best to keep in touch with those who have shown an interest in coming to the site.

Normally on a Tuesday, most of the MSIP team are all based at Michelin and at lunchtime we try and go over the Michelin canteen and have a team lunch. But today, it’s just the three of us in the house and we all, log off and take some time out and catch up. Lunch is nothing exciting – usually soup, cheese and biscuits.

At the moment a lot of my time is spent working on COVID response– what we are hearing from businesses, working with local and regional partners and where we are from a Council perspective in terms of administering grant support and also engaging with businesses who are offering a range of support to help the Dundee relief efforts. I actually spend a bit of time here speaking to Gill and also Colin, with different hats on!

I join a webinar at 3.30pm with Fraser of Allander Institute about the wider economic impact of COVID-19.  It’s helpful but sobering stuff.

I then join a call with my colleague, and fellow MSIP-er, Diane Milne. We talk through where we are with arrangements for concluding our internal approval process and hopefully release DCC’s funding into the project.  It’s a good way to finish the day off as Diane is so cheery and she always makes me jealous with what she is planning to cook in the evening – tonight its mushroom risotto.

5pm and I am trying to log off from the working day. If we need something from the shops I will usually do this now. Then I’ll spend some more time in the garden – I’m trying to work through a number of tasks that I’ve put off for years – aka painting the fence, greenhouse etc. I will also kick and or throw a ball about with Rory.

Then its dinner time and chill out time with the family. Not much of a TV watcher, and with no live sport I’m really struggling, but we’ll try and watch something on the planner. Our current favourites are “The Nest” with Martin Compston and World Without End based on the Ken Follet book.

Ross Mackenzie

Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc

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