'So what do you actually do?'

'So what do you actually do?' - this is a question I get asked a lot when I come home. My world is so different to most of you, my work so foreign that people can't make a mental leap to it.

To help I thought I would attempt to document an average week in my life for you. Then I realised after a while of trying to do this that a) there's no such thing as an average week in this work and b) it would probably be a very boring read. So instead, I'll just give you the general headlines of my work.

To set the context, my role is a management role - I manage the work of my charity (the Danish Refugee Council) in multiple locations in northern Iraq. There are 3 of 'me' in our charity - one further north than me, me, and then one in Baghdad. Above us is a Head of Programmes (otherwise known as my non-boss-boss) and a Country Director (otherwise known as my boss). Around us are multiple experts to support our teams in things like Protection, Water & Sanitation, Shelter, Camp Management, Grant Management.

In my job I manage both project teams and what we call support functions - finance, HR, logistics and safety. I currently have 3 bases to manage, with another in the pipeline. They vary in size but each of them has both projects and support functions. I currently have 11 direct line reports across the locations, which means that a huge amount of my time is spent supporting them in their roles. Each week I will have a mixture of office days and field days. I love field days, and they're incredibly important - I need to see how things are going in reality, keep up to date with the context and spot check our work. But field days back fire in the sense that they leave me behind on other work. I also try and make sure I get a day simply based in the office in the other locations regularly, so that the staff get to know me, and feel part of the wider team.

So the kind of tasks I cover in any given week are:

• General trouble shooting. With this many line reports, a huge amount of my time is spent simply answering their questions, helping them process issues and problem solve. (One of my favourite bits of my job).
• Reviewing project proposals and reports to donors such as the EU, US Government, Danish government, German government, UN etc.
• Reviewing actual spend against budget on any of the projects in my area - currently I have 18 different grants open of varying sizes and durations. But sadly that means 18 separate budgets to track.
• Meeting with donors to give updates on project progress and context. Many donors are not able to visit the field regularly as their security restrictions are often tighter than ours and so they are reliant on us providing continual updates to ensure their strategy remains relevant.
• Meeting with contractors on high level contracts to ensure things go smoothly. Examples are the contractor who provides our vehicle fleet, our cash transfer agent, construction contracts etc.
• Meeting with government officials to keep them informed about our work.
• Processing access permissions through various security agents to ensure our staff can travel freely to field sites.
• Attending external coordination meetings - meetings generally arranged by UN agencies and designed to encourage coordinated work, so we don't all descend on a single village with mattresses for example.
• Signing paperwork - this takes up a lot of my time. I am the main budget signatory for my areas, meaning that anything above a certain value, or a certain type of purchase comes to me for approval. My signature is needed multiple times within any procurement process so there's a lot of paperwork. Plus my signature is needed on staff contracts, staff pay slips, leave requests, sick notes etc, etc. I also have to sign a lot of cheques. I try and do paperwork processing once in the morning and once in the afternoon, but inevitably someone will turn up with something too urgent to wait.
• Reviewing security - desk assessments, field assessments, writing 'standard operating procedures' etc.
• Answering text messages - staff have to message me at certain times when they're in the field and I need to respond. I must send 20 'thanks' messages a day.
• Spot checks on paperwork in logistics and finance, and spot visits to our warehouses - a kind of pre-audit audit to make sure procedures are being followed properly.
• Cash counts - ensuring what we have in each safe is what we should have in each safe.
• Staff meetings - I have a weekly meeting with my wider team, a weekly expat meeting, a weekly meeting with the staff working in our newest base, a monthly senior management meeting, a monthly individual meeting with each project manager, a monthly support services management meeting and a bi-monthly Iraq senior managers meeting. It's a lot of meetings. 
• Strategy - I need to continually assess new areas, both geographically and sector-wise to see if I think we should be positioning ourselves differently or if we are ok as we are. 
• Emails - I get over 100 emails a day. I don't have to respond to all, but I do need to read all of them.
• Skype - people in this line of work use skype A LOT. I am in no less than 7 security skype groups for different areas of Iraq, various team skype groups for different functions, plus individual skypes. It's a lot of traffic to keep up with.
• Recruitment - with a staff this size, there are constant recruitment processes. I don't get involved in the detail of them all, but I often have to join interview panels, write job descriptions, review references or agree offers.

So, hopefully that gives you a better idea of my work. It's probably not as hands on as most of you would expect, and it's highly stressful, but for the most part I love it. I'm constantly learning new skills, working with people from all different cultures and backgrounds, and I get to see the impact of the work I manage regularly.