My day as an ATP trainee

My working day usually begins around seven. In our company flexitime is the rule – which I like because this means that one can be out of the office by five as long as the work has been taken care of. There are some real work-animals who work late into the night, meaning that in the morning they have usually left me some dictated note to transcribe. The post trolley generally comes around nine, and I distribute its contents to the project management, structural engineering and site monitoring departments. Then there is usually time for a quick smoke-break!
The rest of the day can then develop in any way. One of our site supervisors is presently in Schwertberg and constantly sends me tapes (of site-meetings and memos etc) to transcribe. While waiting for him to send me the corrections of these, there will usually be copies to be made, digital photos to download, site reports to be collected, material for new site reports to be prepared and meetings to be plied with copious amounts of coffee. If a new project begins, then I must prepare the information storage system. Last summer, I learned something of what it is like to be a site secretary, by spending a week as holiday relief in the site office of the Innsbruck Rathaus Project. It was rather exhausting and tumultuous, but also very interesting.
In March 2003, I began my third year of apprenticeship. Every Monday I return to the classroom to take in ten hours of theory. After three years of apprenticeship, I shall be a fully trained office employee.

Corinna Fresner
ATP Innsbruck