Yank Works

So I realized that I have never spoken much about my work on my blog. Some of that was the whole if I say too much I might get fired issue, some of it was just being lazy.

So what does Yank do?

I work for a corporate reception management firm.

What does that mean?

Basically the company I work for manages the receptions of a number buildings and companies.
Some are what we call Front of House this is where you walk into a large multi tenanted building and someone signs you in give you directions to where the lifts are and what floor you will need. These building only because there is little variance in your job are my least favourite.
Some are client floor(s) this is where you manage a client floor depending on the contract you will do different things from meet and greet, managing meeting rooms, taking meeting room reservations, switchboard, ordering of taxis, ordering of couriers, mail delivery and many other tasks. I like these sites better.

99.9% of the employees who work for my company are static, this means every day they go to the same place and work for the same client. Their shifts may rotate to cover reception during the open hours but they will always be at the same site. The other .01% percent are what is called the Elite Team. Our role is to cover holidays, sickness both short and long term, training, vacancies that have not been filled, maternity leave, busy periods.

I belong to the Elite Team, it was the role I took when I was hired and have been doing it for the last 15 months. I love my job, I love the company I work for, but I need a change, a new challenge. I really don’t want to change companies as I mentioned I love the company I work for. They are not perfect but you can tell they care and are actively trying to improve on a constant basis. This is the first company I have worked for where the training they say they are so big on in the interviewing stage actually takes place.

One of the downside of being on the Elite Team for the last 15 months is that I have been to almost every site my company manages. Some I have spent long periods at and this has allowed me to know which of these sites for whatever reason would not be the right place for me to take a static position. Some of these reasons are a trivial as the escalator is right next to reception and makes the most mind numbing noise all day every day until you want to scream, or they are in the wrong part of London to make my commute as hassle free as possible. Some of my reasons are a lot less trivial, I don’t mesh with manager’s style of management, I have had issues with another employee, as I mentioned above I prefer client floor to front of house services. So once I have ticked of sites I definitely do NOT want to work at, and sites that I would hesitate to work at I am left with a very short list of about 5 sites that perfectly or almost perfectly meet my criteria.

So now I wait, I wait for a position to come up at one of these sites, I wait for contracts for new sites that might be of interest or worse case scenario I start looking outside of the company I work for. I am not really ready to do this yet but if by next summer nothing has come available or I have not been able to secure a position if it has become available that is where I will be.

So raise your glasses to new challenges and opportunities and watch this space.