End of Day: 6th February
We need new editors for the EOD said Pete to Kelly the other day... and to cut a short story even shorter here I find myself in the editor's chair! (quite comfy it is too) It's been one of those weeks, with something looming over Sheffield that causes both panic and joy in equal measure. Yes it's the Sheffield derby tomorrow.. I'm feeling strangely confident about things at the moment but as a Sheffield Wednesday fan I know not to get too excited. May the best team win Up the Owls! I've spent most of the day working on a few subtle updates for our Help & Support index, the main aim is to improve the navigation around the different sections and make it easier for you to find what you're after. There'll be more on this in the coming weeks. So what about my colleagues? First it's Jen with a huge update from the world of HR..
There can only be one possible theme for this particular end of week and it has to do with that particular phenomena that has been descending from the skies and landing on our driveways, pavements, cars and roads. As much as we know that it’s just good old H2O, we do seem to be a little bit flummoxed by it. And, depending on your own particular associations with the stuff, it seems to either bring out a giddy sense of excitement or annoyance and dismay. I’ve got to say I’m more of the former. And I quite like having a common talking point, sharing snow stories. Mine aren’t that interesting, unfortunately. Although my boots do now need a good clean as they are covered in white stuff (no, not snow, but sodium, I guess, from all the grit). Anyway, this is not meant to be a science lesson, it’s meant to be an end of week. And we have done other things, but it’s kind of all been affected by the aforementioned snow…. For a start, Gemma has been off SNOW boarding in France all week. The irony. Amanda decided not to risk the Snake Pass Monday or Tuesday (wise move, if you ask me, Ms. W), so she worked from home. On the plus side, it meant she got loads done… Planning ahead, as ever, she’s been looking at our resourcing needs for 09/10. At both ends of the HR spectrum, she’s also been reviewing Learning & Development Needs and researching policies on anti-corruption and bribery. She’s also been working on slides for the quarterly Consumer HR meeting. More on L & D, Amanda has been making headway in preparation for the next Management Development and Leadership Module. She also reviewed the monthly KPIs sent over by Barbs… Now, Barbara’s snow story wasn’t so much not being able to get to work. In typical Barbs’ style, and by hook or by crook, she’s skidded in to work in her walking boots this week. Unfortunately, one of her boys was ill yesterday and she couldn’t get him to his grandparents due to…yep, you’ve guessed it…the SNOW. In between this, she managed to do all the HR KPI reports for the month. She’s also been doing all sorts of resourcing stuff, from change forms to requisition forms. All the Learning and Development areas have now been added onto the HR system by Barbs this week, too, to make it easier for us to record employees’ progress. She also put together & drafted the info for the equal opportunities task that I sent through to all employees yesterday while she was snowed in… I pretty much spent most of my time (or so it seems) rearranging meetings that couldn’t go ahead because of the weather. And in some cases, rearranging them again. I’ve also been gathering information for next year’s HR budget. As well as this, I’ve updated various HR best practices, including the recruitment procedure. Oooh, and I’ve started preparing for next month’s Partnership Group meeting so that any employee’s with ideas they want to raise for review by the business have plenty of time to speak to the reps and make sure it gets on the agenda. The other main thing I’ve done is training Laura and she’s now taking on bits of HR work in the afternoons, which is great news for all of us… I’m not sure if Laura had a snow story, except that she couldn’t play netball on Wednesday. But she very definitely has an HR end of week as she’s been sending surveys out to line managers who attended the Performance Review Workshop to review the session, making transport and accommodation bookings and typing up feedback from the last MDLP module. Good start, Laura! Well, I’ve waffled on for long enough. I suppose we should all brace ourselves for more...
Next we have Paul from the Customer Options team..
Good Afternoon from Paul and the rest of the Customer Options team. We've finally made it to the end of the week and a hectic week it's been what with the snow. As with most companies across the country we've had problems with people getting into work on various days (luckily for me I was on holiday for the first three days of the week) It was only yesterday and the perfectly timed morning rush hour snow fall stopping me getting into work (not to mention living on top of one of Sheffield's seven hills and public transport not being able to drive in the snow) But back to today and a full team in work again, we've had a bit of a backlog of work to catch up on but we've all been motoring on to bring us back on an even keel by the start of next week Not much else to add really but we hope everyone has a good weekend and here's to more snow next week
I live on one of those hills too, unfortunately fortunately for me it's the closest hill to the city centre, so a slightly longer walk than usual but no other problems! So on we go, here's Colin from the Web team who actually gave this report in the form of song..
Hmm, this feels strange to be writing this bit of the End of Day instead of editing it... but Andy volunteered, so it means Tommo gets the night offDan's been cracking on with fixing some problems during the day, while Andrew refused to tell me what he's been up to, so I can only assume that means he's been doing nothing all day (the cheek! - ed). I've been working on some problem fixes too, and some small mini projects. I've also got some things to test for Andy before the end of the day too... Everyone else has been working on some project work; apart from James who's been taking a well earned rest. It's been the end of a short, snowy week for me... here's hoping the weather improves next week!
But wait there's more..Nick (also of the Web team) has a special message for all the Plusnet Kiwis..
Happy Waitangi Day!! If you live in New Zealand you'd be on a national holiday today, I found out from my diary. Nice. It's got a rather nice ring to it too, I think. However, us guys and gals have been working away in Sheffield as ever. It's all good though. Not only is it very sunny outside, there's no snow (shock - a double bonus) and there's a Crunchie-tastic Friday feeling in the office air. In a nutshell, this Waitangi Day of mine has been filled up working on helping Dev roll out some email templates.....and working on numerous support page updates.
Points for anyone who can tell me why it's a holiday! Moving on and it's Adam from our Business Support team..
Today marks the end of a very busy week indeed for the business support team. Numbers have been down on the team over the past few days due to a few members who live on the outskirts of the city and just outside it having issues getting to work due to the heavy snow we've had here in Sheffield. However those people have done what they can by working from home and did a great job to help keep response times support tickets as low as possible. Those of us that could make it in managed to fight our way through the icy tundra and trudge our way to work to man the phones. Thankfully the sun is out here today and the snow is thawing, as much fun as it's been some of us are glad to see the back of it! Things are getting back to normal today for most businesses across the country after the weather has improved slightly and as more people get back to work the more queries via calls and tickets we seem to have had. However the business support team is set to expand soon which should help cater for the increased amount of queries we seem to be handling now anyway along with a hopefully increased business user base.
Finally we have James from Comms..
Wow! Crazy week! I normally absolutely love the snow, but coming into work every morning this week has been a bit of a chore and it's actually going to be quite nice being able to get home without worrying about slipping on patches of ice or having Mand throw snowballs at me! Today I've mainly been spending some time in our forums as well as calling a few customers about various bits and bobs (not the angry variety). I've also been doing some random bits for Pete. Prince Parr and Bazzy Bob have been in a fairly cheerful mood, singing away to each other ("It must have been love..") as well as doing their usual tag team network service status and change control work. Matt's been spending some time looking after the newsletter that we hope to send soon, whilst Mand has been bouncing around in her merry way looking after change controls and the like. With that, I shall leave you. We're off to the pub! But let's not forget the b3ta bus!
I think that's it! I hope everyone but the red half of Sheffield has a great weekend 
See y'all next week!