End of Day: 21st December

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Who else out there has the delight of working through Christmas? I'll be in all the non bank holiday days, and there will the usual CSC bunch the whole time. They are here 24x7x365 after all! First up is an end of week report from Amanda in HR This week leading up to Christmas, the New Year has been at the forefront of our work. We have been very much into planning, particularly regarding a number of new initiatives. Fortunately for us, we have not had as many tasks raised as usual this week, and so have managed to do some HR "Housework"!!!! Gemma has been putting final touches into our "AWOL" process, so that standard procedures are followed when recording and investigating any absences. Diane has been heavily involved in our planned probationary period process, and organising internal recruitment vacancies and interviews, which were open to existing staff. By advertising posts internally, it allows our current PlusNetters the scope to develop and increases career prospects within the company. Together Gemma and Diane have been handing over responsibilities, as after Christmas Gemma will be the main contact for CSC, Finance and HR staff queries and changes, and Diane will be the contact for the everyone else. Finally, from everyone on the HR Team have a lovely Christmas and New Year break and best wishes for 2008! Catherine next from QA Hello from QA! Everyone's beginning to wind down a little before the holidays, but that doesn't mean we're any less devoted to quality (and Nik Naks). I'm single handedly attempting to make the team a bit more Christmassy today by bringing in some mince pies (home-made, of course 😄 ) and wearing my special Christmas t-shirt. So, this is what we've been up to... Kelly has been forcibly sharing ;-D the chocolates he got this morning from the coffee shop and managing resources for P1 ownership. Paul has, as ever, been Rollouts Master, assigning time slots to everyone who wants to roll something out onto our live platform. He does a very good job at this and doesn't get a lot of appreciation for it, so thanks Paul! I've been helping Paul with problem investigation and clearing up some P1s from last night. I've also got Warrant's Song and Dance Man stuck in my head! (ed: \m/) Nigel and Gavin have both been troopers hammering away at some tricky Madasafish phone service and billing bugs respectively. Finally, Matt B has been doing some much needed work clearing out gamma tests from our problems pool. Most of the team will be off over the whole Christmas period, lucky things, but I'll be in in the week between Xmas and New Year. No rest for the wicked.... Next is the week round up from Lee in Networks This week has been all about getting ready for the Christmas break. This has meant a fairly rapid flurry of change requests up until yesterday evening, and relative peace and quiet from today! We've also been clearing down as many open problems and tickets as possible, finishing some core database capacity improvements, testing data centre site failovers, completing this year's security improvements, improving our monitoring and getting our backups into shape. Apart from that I've been making a big list of things to kick off immediately after the break so I don't suffer too much from memory loss after time off and the odd tipple or 6 🙂 All the best! Martyn from Marketing It's so close to Christmas now that I can taste the turkey. Today we've been working more on the Broadband Your Way journey after a successful review yesterday evening. Chris has been sending out the Christmas edition of the newsletter, so keep your eye on your inbox. He's also been preparing the festive blogs for the next few days, as they'll be carrying on every day between now and the New Year. He also hit the 100 mark on Santa's Ski Jump (see yesterday's blog Link if you're confused). Ho ho ho, merry Christmas! Owain from the Development Team Hello from the java development team; things are starting to wind down now for the Christmas break which gives us an excellent opportunity for planning the major backend development items that we want to deliver in 2008. Today I have been working on the detailed designs of one of a major new system, the first phase of which we hope to deliver in the first quarter of the new year. As well as planning for the future we have also been ensuring that all systems are rock solid for the Christmas break - nobody wants that call out during their christmas pudding! Darren next from Products Jingle Bells indeed everyone, Christmas is around the corner and you can sure feel the spirit in the office. Unfortunately I spent most of my day trying to solve one of those annoying little reporting errors which you just can't seem to fix, then you realise all you had to do was press one simple button! /sigh.... Never mind. I also have been working on call processing and affiliate reporting. Rich has been working on our VoIP platform and working through ticket pools. As for Mr Wild, well he's been tidying up lots of tasks he's been working on. Next is double-barrelled Brad with an update from the CSC Here's the Top 5 from the ol' CSC today:

1. New Faults - These are more No Sync faults being raised but most of these caused by internal wiring and Christmas light interference.
2. Router Setup - Customers calling us for advanced settings on their new router or customers wanting to be walked through the setup.
3. Fault Updates - We have had a few customers wanting to find out where their fault is at, most of the time we are waiting on BT for updates.
4. House Moves - Customers wanting information on how long House Moves take and everything involved.
5. Sales - Getting calls from customers wanting info on speeds, usage, and package costs.

It's Friday so have a good weekend all! 2nd to last is Mark from the Finance Team Well its been a sad day for the finance team with the loss of Niki though she had a good send off last night which we are all feeling today. Even though we have had the hangovers to deal with we have been Christmas crackering on with our jobs. I have been dealing with tickets while Alex "I don't like the camera" Corker has been adding cheques to customers accounts. James has been doing inter-company cost reconciliation and Rob has been helping Fiona with failed billing as she has been busy looking after accounts with billing dates over Christmas. So its good bye from Finance, if you're not in on Monday have a proper Bo Crimbo. Last up is Tam from the Web Team Today's Web Team EOD is kind of made up. The reason is that I, Tamlyn, am working from home in London today and hence haven't been around to see or hear what other folks were up to and, what with it being nearly Christmas and all, the rest of the department seems to have gone home early. So this is what I THINK people MAY have been doing today. Colin & Dan have been doing stuff on the beta community site tag cloud & internal ideas tool. There's also been some progress on user contributed support pages section. I've been applying Sam's new skin to My Broadband Speed. And other people have been, um, doing other worthwhile things. Merry Christmas y'all. --- Well, that me done! Talk to you again on Monday...!