A Day in the Life of Hannah Dorney, Data Associate

Ever wondered what a day in the life of one of our consultants is like? This series will give you all the details! Our “Day in the Life” subject is Hannah Dorney, an Associate on the Data team located in Richmond, Virginia. Here’s what a typical day looks like for Hannah. 

Morning 

I get up every morning at seven – early bird gets the worm! I start most mornings by reading or grabbing coffee with a friend; I’ve found that during the week, it’s much easier to coordinate schedules in the morning, rather than at night. I like splitting up my work week between home and the office pretty evenly. I usually work from home on Mondays and Fridays and go into the office in the middle of the week. As a data associate at UDig, I focus primarily on data analysis work. I make lots of reports using Power BI and Tableau, I also help with building data strategies, and my next project involves some data engineering work. 

Lunch Time

During lunch, I take at least 30 minutes to let my brain reset, I make sure to spend some time reading or catching up on any tv shows I’m currently watching. When I’m working from home, I opt for an easy lunch, which usually ends up being a sandwich or leftovers from the night before. On the days that I’m in the office, I make a point to grab lunch with my UDig colleagues, there’s always some fun conversations to be had with them whether it’s about video games, or the newest movie in theaters. We’re big fans of Taste and Jack Browns, both located on Grove Avenue just five minutes from the office.  

Afternoon 

I’m a fan of switching up work locations in the afternoon, so when I’m working from the office, I head home after lunch. I try to keep most of my meetings to the first half of the day so that I can get the bulk of my work done in the afternoon without interruptions. Of course, sometimes this gets flip-flopped, but I try my hardest to dedicate one half of the day to meetings, and the other half to work. A good playlist is key to helping me focus – weirdly enough, Yung Gravy has been my artist of choice lately, something about his music puts me in the perfect mindset to get work done.  

After Work

My after-work plans vary from day to day. My workweek is typically bookended by playing games with friends. On Mondays, I get together with a group to play Dungeons and Dragons, and on Fridays, my friends and I have a long-standing game night where we play Blood on the Clocktower. On weeknights, you can often find me making dinner at home to counteract my spending from the weekend…my friends and I are regulars at Lucky AF, an Asian Fusion restaurant in Scott’s Addition. If we’re opting for something fancier, one of our favorites is Pinky’s, they have a great wine list! I also enjoy getting together with the rest of the UDig data team when I can and getting involved in different tech events around Richmond. I recently attended an RVA Tech event, it was a Women in Tech executive council on cloud migration which was super cool, we learned from local executives working for companies like Capital One and Markel.