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5 things that make me sad…

Poor movie endings, older people falling over, my overdraft, ordering food in a restaurant that has concealed mushrooms in it (I’m Mycophobia - google it)

… But most importantly Monday mornings!  You’ve had the time of your life over the weekend, narrowly avoiding a heart attack from the vast quantities of lard you’ve consumed, woken from an alcohol-induced coma on Sunday morning barely able to recall your own name and a chance encounter with the love of your life, sadly never catching his/her name.  And then it happens, you barely went to bed 5 minutes ago (or so it feels) and you’re pillaged by your own alarm clock at some ungodly hour.  I really hate Monday mornings.

I’d like you to think that there is a happy ending to my rant but sadly, no.  Monday doesn’t get any better when you get out of bed - quite the opposite.  You surface to realise that whilst you managed to cook and eat a full English breakfast with all the trimmings on Saturday and Sunday as well as a Sunday roast, you never did any laundry or shopping or housework. 

So before you leave the house, you spend the rest of the morning lurching from one room to another desperately trying to match a pair of socks together whilst the late Richard Whiteley counts you down! 

‘Thank the lord’ you’ve made it to work.  Ok, perhaps not in the best condition; your socks don’t match (quite possibly the 6^th thing that makes me sad), you’re trying to conceal breathy remnants of kebab and you’ve no money till lunchtime and your tummy sounds like the theme tune to Um Bongo.  But hey ho!   

So what makes Monday’s so painful?  I could never put my finger on it. 

Was it the weather?  The depreciated bank account from a weekend of plundering?  Not being able to stay in bed and I really wanted to? 

Well to be honest, the weather was always better on a Monday, my bank never had any money in it regardless of weekday or weekend and I rarely ever stayed in bed at the weekends because I’m terrified of missing something.   So to conclude, I thoroughly hate Mondays.  I have written to our Prime Minister on countless occasions urging him to vote in favour of a 6-day week but I’ve not had a response.  However if you agree, let me know.

  - Matt

One of the reaons I like working at O2 is the fact that we never stand still.  We’re always looking at how we can do things differently and better.

Working in Resourcing, we spend a lot of time looking at how we can improve the candidate experience.  We want it to be a great experience every step of the way.  However, we also know that Hiring Managers are usually juggling lots of other responsibilities as well and managing a vacancy can be very time consuming.

To help Hiring Managers and candidates, we’ve recently extended our Resourcing Team so we now have Resourcing Specialists for every area of the business, not just our stores and call centres.  They’ll work alongside Hiring Managers, helping to move things forward and also act as the consistent link with candidates.

This is great news for Hiring Managers who will now get help with their vacancy and great news for people wanting to work for O2. The new team will give us more flexibility and more resource to ensure we really do deliver a great experience.  Of course, we can’t offer everyone a job who applies to O2, but we can still work hard to ensure your application receives the attention it deserves.

   - Fiona

This day, would be the best day to remember. everyone’s buzzing about the new iPhone 3GS and the staff are setting up for a long day ahead,  The shop opened at 8.02am, which not to our surprise a queue had already formed.

We had one concierge and all other staff on tills.  I didn’t start work till 2pm because I was getting ready for the late shift. Once I arrived the queue was steady and as the hours past the odd customer came in here and there. Gone 6pm however the queue lead out to the shopping centre. This is where I had to make sure everyone was being properly treated by getting chairs out for the customer waiting and we need to give each customer the time they need.  

First you have to identify the best tariff for the customer. This means asking a series of questions in order to give the customer the tariff for their needs. Once you have confirmed a tariff, you discuss which iPhone they would require. This would mean demonstrating the iPhone so they can see the difference in the old software compared to the new software, also again asking questions on how much data they would need to store and sometimes they would need help understanding how much a 16GB or a 32GB can actually store.

After confirming the tariff and the handset costs, we also ask them about any extras they may need from a new case, in-car charger or a Bluetooth headset. This in total takes about 20 minutes. Once all this has been done then we can process the contract.  

That day I sold a good 10 iPhones. But I wasn’t just selling new iPhones, I was also updating existing customers iPhone 3G to the new 3.0 version. The software update takes about 20 - 30 minutes depending on how much data needs to be backed up.  

It soon got to 9pm and the queue had then died down and everyone left the store with a happy experience. The day wasn’t just about the iPhone,  we were still helping customer who weren’t looking for the iPhone and were just looking for a new accessories or had a query on a  bill or device or just wanted to us to demo other handsets but yes the majority of customers that day wanted the amazing iPhone 3GS.