A Simone Heng is the voice behind Workforce Requests, a three-hour radio show that airs weekdays on Virgin Radio Dubai. The host from Singapore, who was raised in Australia, talks about a typical workday.
7am
I get up at 7 most mornings. If I am feeling energetic, and the weather is cool, I'll get up at 6.30am and run towards the Burj Al Arab to kick-start my day.
8.30am
I leave the house and use the 30-minute journey to Studio City to field all my daily meetings and appointments. I also start the Twitter engine by sending a few tweets and getting my first Facebook updates on the go as I arrive at work.
9am
I reach work and prepare my on-air show until 10am and then get on air. The preparation consists of going through the global news, seeing my prizes and planning each break so that all bases are covered depending on what features are happening and what promotions the station is pushing. I also use the time to do some updates of my show page, Workforce Requests, on the Virgin Radio Dubai website.
Noon
I am very close friends with some of the other hosts under the company's umbrella and we have studios which sit literally side by side. All jocks doing lunch-time shifts know the sheer hunger you go through when you hit 12 o'clock, so normally one will visit me with treats, or I'll order pizza from the downstairs cafeteria for all of us. It's a lovely lunchtime even though you have to eat standing and munching while the songs are on.
Afternoon
After work finishes I would jump into the Virgin office and listen to myself back, dissect my execution of the breaks and make notes on what I could've done better.
2pm
I would normally leave the office. During the summer I love that I can go straight home and clean my apartment. I refuse to hire a maid - you burn more calories and remain active doing it yourself. Then I sit down to paint or knit.
4pm
I am heading to the doctor's, dentist or hairdresser. I call these "maintenance" appointments.
Evening
During the winter I am either hosting or attending events. These can be charity drives, product launches or restaurant or store openings.
After 9pm
I'll get home after these events and immediately get on to www.SimoneHeng.com and update my blog. I have 1,500 readers a day from around the Middle East, and some from South East Asia, where I was based before.
By 10.30pm
I am done … I'll open up a great book and read for 15 minutes, by which time I am sufficiently tired and fall asleep.
* Neil Parmar
