Evenin' all. PJ here reporting live(ish) from the CSC. I've been here for a couple of days, sticking my nose in and generally making a nuisance of myself. In fact, now that I've got myself all settled, I think I'll sit here in the call centre tomorrow as well. (Although with the number of questions I've been asked in the last 30 mins I might just change my mind). We had the company rally today. This is our regular 3-monthly get together, where everyone congregates in the lower floor east side. We got to hear from Neil Laycock and some of the Directors, who spoke about our plans for the next few months and the challenges that we, as a business, face in the current market. Good presentation folks but less of the buzzword bingo please. The downside to having our rally is that during the hour that it is on, we've got fewer staff on the phones if it gets busy. So if you called us this afternoon at 2.30 and had to wait longer than usual, we're sorry. It's good for the guys and gals on the phones to get to hear about the wider business but it does mean our call centre performance takes a hit for that hour. Adheel here in the CSC tells us more about what today's issues have been like: Hello constant reader (and people reading our end of day posting for the first time!), the top 5 as seen in the CSC today is as follows: 1) Router Set-up: Always a popular reason for customers calling into the customer support centre, normally just details for getting a router connection or sometimes callers asking for advice on setting up a wireless connection etc. 2) Email Set-up: As above, customers calling in for settings in order to have their email client configured correctly. The more regularly seen applications include Outlook Express, Thunderbird and MAC Mail. 3) Fault Diagnostics: Customers calling in with issues with their broadband service, either their router losing communication with the broadband network or local exchange, sometimes problems with speed. 4) Fault Updates: Different to above as this is where a fault has actually undergone testing and is awaiting further updates from the customer, such as whether another router has been tried on the line or if the issue is resolved. And finally..... 5) Provisioning Updates: Something seen more often around this time of the year, as a number of customers either moving address or starting a broadband service with us. Customers calling in to supply MAC keys, chase an activation date or confirm router orders and addresses. Hi guys, this is Hijas Veerasan from the Dev floor. It's been almost three weeks since Arun and I joined the team. This is my first time in UK and I was really nervous when I first stepped into Plusnet development floor. But things have changed now. It's really nice having Ben and Rys around helping us. Apart from being a good lead, Ben is a good friend too. We are looking forward to taking 'em with us when we go back home! Today, I was working on Service Customisation. There is an Email Event Administration tool on the workplace and my task is to modify this tool so that we can keep separate versions of auto-email contents and email event definitions. It makes the system highly configurable and flexible. The APIs for this system also need to be modified to comply with the database changes. Hopefully I can complete this stuff today itself. Did you get all that? That's what they all talk like down in Development - nice and friendly though wasn't it? Who's next? Ah Bob, more communicative today then? Hi, Bob of Comms ilk here... Today I've been largely concentrating on problem investigation/activities. I've also prepped a service notice that we need to send to a handful of customers, had to miss the quarterly company rally (which everybody else had the opportunity to attend!), posted the odd Service Status and been reviewing today's change controls. Now it's over to James who has apparently been attending to, "the writing of a service status message with our new tone of voice, Forums, Meetings (x56.3)" - I guess that means 'lots of...' - "Problems (possibly), Training (almost definitely), Taskwork (maaaaybe), Staring in disgust at Mark's dirty plate (without doubt). That is all"... Hmmm, OK then. As for Matt, he's been working on problems and doing some WLR (Home Phone) work. He's also attended a few meetings. Hopalong Parr - err I mean Chris - is still suffering at home with a damaged ankle. There's a rumour he's been denied crutches too, which is a shame as I already had a prank or two up my sleeve for his return! 
For the Comms link of the day it was a toss up between this graffiti-laden collection of snails and the numerous comedy reviews of the humble Bic biro that exist on Amazon (apparently it's "Very good if you need to write on paper"!) - I couldn't decide between the two so I've posted both. Over and out. If you can pick yourself off the floor and carry on reading through the tears of laughter.. here's.. Mr Readman, uber-DBA reports in from Networks: Nothing out of the ordinary to report from the Networks floor today apart from all taking an hour out to attend the quarterly rally. Net Ops and Parbin - usual tranche of problems, tickets and operational requests Net Dev - datacentre consolidation planning - dealing with Postini issues - Ironport roadmap planning DBAs - only 1 out of our 'normal' 3 in today (me) - so: attempting to monitor our core database platforms whilst addressing all manner of data-related requests from around the business. Martyn from pets corner Marketing: What a strange 24 hours I've had. I found a ferret in my house, I've fallen down the stairs and also picked up my award for 5 years of service here at Plusnet Towers. I've managed to fit all this in while working on the new look sales pages for our site. Brian and Gavin have been working hard on this too - it's definitely our big project at the moment. Amy has been working on a load of affiliate marketing stuff, as well as celebrating her birthday. Happy birthday Amy! Chris has been modeling some new offers, Sameer has been analysing our web traffic and Phil has been focused on our phone sales again. That's it from the Marketing desk for today. We'll be back tomorrow, hopefully 100% ferret free. And lastly it's Web Development and an ever-happy-to-do-the-end-of-day James: Here we go with the events in Web Dev today, which include some special mentions to two members of our team (see later)... First up, Nick has been conducting some project planning for future developments and has been squashing pesky bugs as an when they crawl in front of him. Mark has been continuing his video setup guide for the D-Link DSL-320B broadband modem, including some re-editing and the recording of voice-over narration. The G-Man(Grzegorz) has been chopping, styling, and shaping various design pieces for the Portal. Duffy and Andrew have been correcting problems and working on support material. A big "congratulations" to Andrew for receiving his 3 Years Service Award at the company rally which was held today! Sam once again has been wielding his creative crayon on various Portal design tasks. Dan has been hammering away at general problem work and NADS related tasks, now that his development machine is back up and running. Another huge "congratulations" to Dan as he too has won an award, this time for Improving Efficiency & Lowering Costs! This was given for his work on Workplace improvements, particularly with the hopper problem feature. Kelly has been tinkering with and compiling slides in MS Powerpoint for the company rally presentation. Colin and Rupert have once again been teaming up to work on My Account development. And finally, with the smart-search bar almost ready I've been highlighting the final niggles and issues that need tidying and have started fixing them (thanks to Kelly for his testing and feedback) "Each day provides its own gifts." - Marcus Aurelius Right, that's wrapped up the 24th July. Now I'm off to see Batman.. best fly. P-j
End of Day: 24th July