Welcome to the first installment of A Day In The CX Life With CCW Digital, a series where we take a look into the people, technology, tools and trends that drive the customer contact industry. In this series we ask employees just like you to share how they spend their workday–from wake-up routines to meetings and what’s on their dinner plate for the evening.
In this daily log we meet Stefnie Howley, who just wrapped up four years at Match as a program manager, where she Consulted Match Group and Match C-Suite on product development and technology roadmapping across Tinder, Match, Hinge, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish and other online dating applications. In her role she analyzed new technologies for the Customer Care department and built initiatives for the optimization of back-end and client-facing systems. Today, she’s sharing what a Thursday at Match has looked like for her.
Name: Stefnie Howley
Industry: Tech
Age: 34
Location: Dallas, Texas
Years At Role: 12
Personal Hobbies: Raising Free Range Children, listening to Audible, making business ideas a reality, pitching decks with my husband, staycations, food
THURSDAY
5 am: I am usually up between 4-5 am each morning when my baby wants to nurse. That’s our quiet time, just the two of us to bond. Actually, these are some of the only quiet moments I have with her before the rest of the family wakes up. It makes me feel connected to her–she is my third baby girl and I know firsthand these are only moments. Life goes so quickly that I don't mind waking up early to be with her, instead of being angry that she wakes me up. I am delighted.
6 am: I pick up the kitchen, start breakfast and do dishes. After that I get fully dressed–hair, makeup, cute clothes for work, even when working from home. I have found it has helped me 1) still be able to fit in my jeans (lol) and 2) feel more prepared and confident and that I am bringing my best self to work each day.
7 am: I wake my older kids up for school, make lunches and then drop the kids off.
8 am: I start my work day by going over my calendar and then meetings start. I’m WFH today, but I prefer a hybrid schedule going into the office once or twice a week. I found that connecting with others while being remote takes much more intentional outreach, rather than organic meetings or conversations at work.
9 am: I have a one-on-one meeting with my manager to go over my completed projects and plan for the following week. This makes me feel prepared for the week and weeks to come, which in return makes me feel confident in my ability and workload.
10 am: I check in with the development team to go over our progress and roadmap–2022 was the year of implementing new technology at Match, which included a new AI bot, new CRM and omnichannel, so we’re working through what that looks like for us now in 2023!
When I first started with the dev team here it was a lot of smiling and nodding and then Googling after. It was almost like I had a blackout, because if I didn't write it all down I couldn't remember what my coworkers said since it was so foreign to me at the time.
After about three months of learning on the job I understood and finally felt like I knew what I was doing. Fast forward three years and it's a breeze now to work with the development team–if I don't understand, I just ask!
11 am: Now it’s time for a leadership meeting and check-in on the progress of projects, hiccups and accomplishments that have occurred during the last few days. This is one of my favorite meetings of the week: we see the headway each team has made or see where something might be stuck, and then we can all solve the opportunity or delay together.
I meet with and brainstorm with multiple teams across Match through my job: dev, leadership, legal… This collaboration is so valuable to me since I’ve been struggling with career direction for the past two years since my mentor left Match. But one of my goals in 2023 is to build a relationship with a mentor again!
12 pm: More pumping for the baby, working, and eating lunch for me. I eat at my desk a lot of the time. We have a nanny and she will bring me lunch or coffee while I’m working, which I appreciate. I don’t want to waste time taking lunch while working from home because I would rather sign off a little earlier to spend the time with my family.
Even though I work through a lunch hour to cut down on time I can’t resist a good snack, and my go-to is beef sticks! My husband is a cattle rancher and we have our own grass fed and finished beef, so it’s an easy high protein snack.
2 pm: I walk to pick my daughter up from school–2:45 pm is nonnegotiable for me. I love to walk and pick my daughter up from school. We live a few streets from her school and we love the time to catch-up on the day. We are home by 3:05-ish and then the nanny steps in again.
3 pm: I like to block from 3 pm-5 pm off my calendar to actually work so that I don't get distracted by the urge to work during a meeting. During this time I think of ways to or research how to innovate what we are working on or doing at Match. I update on my progress, follow up on loose ends, work on timelines and decks for the next two hours.
5 pm: I wrap up the day and set up any meetings I need for the week to come. Then I take the kids to swim lessons.
It turns out that I don’t really have a post-work wind down. I have total mom guilt being a working mom of three girls under age 6 that most of the time I will do a fun outing with them–the park, playing in the neighborhood, ice cream, letting them pick candy at 7-Eleven. My wind down includes my girls and their happiness which makes me happy in return. And so, to swimming we go!
6 pm: After swim classes we usually eat an easy homemade dinner, but we love to eat out. We moved out of Dallas proper last year and now live in a suburb right outside of Dallas. We find ourselves with the kids in tow driving into Dallas a couple times a week to eat out.
We do cook most of our meals at home, and tonight’s dinner is a fan favorite of salad and good ol’ marinara and spaghetti noodles. I spend a small fortune on organic food and do my best to make sure we have well-rounded meals each day.
7 pm: I get the kids ready for bed, tuck them in and then spend time with my spouse. The bedtime routine and dinner takes about two hours at our house and by 8 pm I am beat.
I usually spend about an hour on the couch or less (lol) talking to my husband, decompressing from the day, dreaming up a new idea, thinking up an adventure to go on, or falling asleep within the first 10 minutes of any movie we put on. It’s so bad that I don’t even pick the movie anymore because we know I will fall asleep!
9 pm: Bedtime!
Know somebody who might be a good fit for our series? If you’d like to nominate a member of your team or highlight new initiative your organization is tackling through your work, email wandy.ortiz@cmpteam.com