A Day in the Life of a Data Analyst at Sysco LABS
Derek Genovese is a Data Analyst at Sysco LABS.
At a company like Sysco—with 58,000 employees and customers in 90 countries—there is no shortage of data. Between our ecommerce platform, our delivery trucks, our warehouses full of fresh food, and our global sales teams, Sysco collects new data every minute. Thanks to the Sysco LABS data team, those millions of disparate numbers can become useful pieces of information.
Here’s what a typical day looks like for him.
7:00 am to 9:00 am
Morning Rituals
“Each morning, before the work day starts, I have to walk or jog with my dog, Maxi. Otherwise, it will be impossible for me to have a productive work day. If he does not get his daily enrichment, I’ll be spending the rest of my day shooing him (and the entire basket of dog toys he brings with him) away. After that I'll get my breakfast and coffee squared away.”
9:00 am to 10:00 am
Comms Catch up
“I start off each morning checking my personal inbox and responding to anything that came in overnight or late the previous day. The Data Analytics team also own several Slack channels where LABS teammates ask questions, so I triple check to make sure there weren't any threads or topics where I needed to chime in. Sometimes, analysts are assigned to 'Mailbox Duty' where there is an additional email we need to check. This inbox is where 'external' data requests are sent and whoever is on duty is responsible for responding and managing the requests that come in.”
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Meetings & Team Syncs
“Most of my team meetings or individual meetings occur late morning or early afternoon. This helps us square away how we handle the rest of our day and week. Depending on the day, I’m usually using this time to keep the greater Data Analytics team up to speed with what I'm working on or what is preventing me from finishing tasks. I also sync up with other analysts and data engineers as individual or in small groups to clear up any issues we are dealing with. I'll also use this time for 1:1s with product managers, or analytics managers. “
12:00 pm to 12:45 pm
Lunch time
“Here I take a break to stretch my legs, get some food, and perform the daily dance of feeding 3 ravenous pets (2 cats and 1 dog). “
12:45 pm to 5:00 pm
Get Stuff Done
“Now that the work has been scoped and (most) of my meetings are typically wrapped up, I can really start to dive into the individual work I can accomplish. This typically means querying our database to create data visualizations for our stakeholders, creating or maintaining dashboards in Tableau, setting up experiments with Optimizely, reviewing other analysts’ work, or documenting any work that has been completed. Documentation is an extremely important part of our job, so our peers can replicate or build upon work that's been completed. This is my prime time to throw on podcast or some music and get stuff done. “
5:00 pm - Evening
Me time
“When I'm not getting beaten down by the brutal Central Texas summers, you can find me jogging somewhere in Southeast Austin. I’ve run the last three Austin Marathons and I am not a morning person so I like to use evenings to train. When I'm not running, I love to cook, bake bread, brew my own beer, or burn through a documentary series. I'm super thankful I work on a team that respects work/life balance so I can enjoy and participate in a lot of hobbies once the day is done. “