One thing that has changed is that Emma & Kyle have developed a slight issue with shopping. They can't stop. Every day they are going to the malls and buying things that they don't need. One example of this stands out more than others though. Kyle is very good at his job and knows our systems and processes inside out, however at times lets himself down somewhat and this time it was simple Maths. The Philippine currency is the Peso and we get 150 for every pound here, surely the maths is quite easy?? Not for Mr Francis, he went out one morning and came back with a rucksack. I will give it to him it is quite a nice rucksack but it cost him just over 5000 Pesos. I will let you work out the maths but it certainly wasnt the cost Kyle thought he was paying. Ever since this moment where it dawned on him how much it cost that bag has not left his side. In fact when he jokes that he uses it as a pillow when he sleeps i'm not so sure this is far from the truth! Worse still i remember seeing a replica of the exact bag in Greenhills market for £5. I try and remind him of this daily.
So the new week allowed us to once again go to Resorts World. The complex that Republiq Nightclub part of. This time JSD managed to get his act together and wear some trousers. It Probably wasn't a good idea for Emma, Kyle, JSD, Jimmit and i to have 4 Jaegerbombs, 2 Sambuccas and a tequila each before going in, thats on top of the San Miguel that by now is the norm whenever we are outside of the working environment. This night will be remembered for many reasons but even though we were in an upmarket area we were still treated like royalty. It was very busy similar to a decent UK club but instead of having to push your way through crowded areas there would always be a local on hand with a torch moving people out of the way of us as we walked. I can't imagine this going well in the UK at all. Other thing to note here is that JSD obviously has different ideas of the normal drinks to buy in a club. He didn't buy rounds of vodka and coke he just bought the whole bottle and although my memory is slightly blurry of this night i understand he bought 3! Bad times!
A Video of Republiq that night
https://fbcdn-video-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash4/433095/341/206500786113916_62811.mp4?oh=5843f9059e7d7b3b2109965da51d43fa&oe=4F43F000&__gda__=1329852416_0e003a657d91879525e771e47f7397ce
Nights like these are needed at times to take us away from the intense working environment that is now developing. In total our numbers have increased to 116 now from Online agents, managers, trainers and quality analysts. All of these individuals require moulding into their roles, expectancies need to be communicated and behaviours implemented and coached. On top of this reporting, systems, testing and auditing is continuously required at this early stage to make sure that we have everything perfectly in place for the 13th February which is was our official go live date.
One aspect of all of this which makes things easier is that when outsourcing work outside of the UK we have an agency which are responsible for all of the background work and fixing problems for us. The First Source workforce that have been implemented into our project have been fantastic. They understand why we are here and fully support what we are trying to do. This is one of the reasons that everything is running as smoothly as can be, lets just hope it stays this way.
When i look back on this blog in years to come this entry will be one that brings bad sad memories. It was time for the trainers to leave us. The BT New Entrant training is award winning and the success of this totally depends on what we teach our advisors from the first day they walk into that classroom. Similar to our floorwalkers the trainers were part of a selection process in the UK so that we made sure we brought our best.... and we certainly did. I want to thank Bev, Emma, Dierdre, Jackie and Judith for the hard work and hours they put in, both night shifts and day shifts. I really hope that our paths cross again. Dierdre will be known as the sneaky photographer. Everyone here is scared to know what pictures are hidden on that memory stick, maybe they will remain hidden and maybe that is a good idea!
It woudnt have been right to allow the guys to leave without a good send off so Sean invited us all to his house (Massive 6 bedroom with a pool) for some good old home cooking. Can't beat a good Chilli in my eyes and it was very good. Everyone had a fantastic evening but we did all realise one big drawback for a lot of people. The creepy crawlies. We ate in Seans garden in front of the pool in the worm weather. Only problem is that we had at least 5 Geckos sat with us having that meal. Mozzies fly around as if we invited them too and also the occasional worm would rock up looking for some left overs. Sean took great pleasure in continually winding the girls up and also shared some of his stories from good old Derry..Anyone would think he was actually Irish!
The second send off was very very touching. As much as the Filipinos love us coming here and look after us whilst we are they are also very sad when we leave. On the trainers last day i was strolling through the Pantry (Canteen) and i could see them setting up a microphone and speakers. We were all called in where all of the advisors were waiting for us, this was the way these guys say goodbye. In turn Honey, Abbie and Princess stood infront of all of us and sang, and boy can they sing. Everyone joined in and suddenly the whole place was singing "Leaving on a jet plane".. The trainers were bawling their eyes out by this stage which got even worse when the guys gave out presents to them. This was mad in a really lovely way. This would never happen in the UK where the culture is actually that we are happy to see the back of people. I was finding that the way i see things is going to be very different when i go home. I took a step back and realised how lucky i am to be here and learn the culture of these guys. If you go to this link you should be able to see the guys singing one of the songs.
https://fbcdn-video-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash4/440187/763/206511009446227_35971.mp4?oh=bb8b1c30bc80e4c36617a5b88c9dda04&oe=4F43F000&__gda__=1329852416_7aac8a321b7054b7cee8c0d015232df0
So the trainers on site who have been buddied with our guys now need to step up and make sure all of our new people receive this same head start as the others.. they are good so lets hope so!
It was very sad to see the guys go so where else to drown our sorrows but la verde bar. The King (Peter King) had arrived by this point as had Don Lemmon (pronounced something like lemoir). He HATES people saying it as "Lemon". There will be more on that later. There must have been at least 20 of us in the bar that night and several people embarrassed themselves once again on the Karaoke. JSD once again silenced everyone with his awful jokes and we all had a very good time. UNTIL - Pete managed to pursuade one of the team leaders here to sing Whitney Houston "i will always love you" whilst staring right at me from about 5CM away. All of you who know me will know that i cant control how red i go when i am embarrassed and it gave everyone a very good laugh! Slightly ironic though that by the time we had all woken the next day Whitney was dead. I blame the singer myself!
So i had to somehow shift the attention away from me so i took the microhone and introduced "Don Lemon" as the next singer.. he obvisouly refused to sing so what better than to start chanting "Lemon, lemon, lemon" soon the whole bar was doing it, thankfully he took it well. Then Jovs our centre manager turned up, he thinks hes a bit of a tough guy so started an arm wrestling competition amongst us. I think its safe to say Kyle won hands down although i have heard rumours of rematches!
The one mistake about this night is that we had the rest of the floorwalkers arriving the next day. Early - and i mean early. 1am UK time so i went to the airport straight from the bar, as we are 8 hours ahead it was actually daylight by this time and very hot. The airport as always was very busy. I was there to meet Sam (Samantha Walsh) Carla (Carla Hoggarth) and Kulli (Kuldeep Johal). These are the next grou of experts coming out to help start the new site. After waiting for 30 minutes or so i saw in the distance Carla and Sam looking for me. Its not the best place to be so i immediately ran towards them. Then disaster. I didn't see the huge chunk of the road that was missing and out of what seemed to be nowhere i felt absolute agony. My ankle had gone right underneath me. Anyone of my friends who plays football will know this feeling, suddenly i could feel my ankle trying to burst out of my trainer but i was too proud to admit how much it hurt. I pretended as if it didn't happen even though the locals were fussing over me. I managed to hop to the guys and greet them. What a great first impression that was to make!
Over the next few days i had hoped my ankle would get better. It wasn't and it was getting worse. In work i was getting teased for going to see the nurses for treatment and pain killers. We have two young pretty nurses, looking at the signing in and out book it certainly seems that boys seem to need more attention that girls in the office... strange that hey?
So i fought on for the time being and took the guys back to the hotel. It was Liverpool VS Manchester United that night... not a great game for me but what was great is that the locals showed us a new bar "The Union Jack" this place is a dream here. Its like a good old English pub with English fatty greasy food, right up my alley. They also sell british pints and have a shop attached to the side where you can buy.... Yes you guess it Heinz! Manila just got that little bit better!
The weekend passed quickly, my ankle was throbbing and painful and i couldn't turn corners without stopping first. Bad as that sounds it didn't stop a fair number of the people here finding it very funny.
Here we were it was day one. Manila was officially being opened. When i got to the office on Monday 13th Feb i was really amazed at the effort that everyone had gone to kick this off. Banners and balloons everywhere, even the staff were all dressed in BT Branded T shirts. All the hard work behind the scenes, all the technology, all the thoughts and discussion were about to be all forgotten and we were about to become a BT site officially. Soppy as it sounds i felt very proud that day. Everyone has done so well to get to this point and i would like to think they felt the same as i did.
I won't bore people with the ins and outs of the work that we did these first few days but what i will say is that imagine giving your job to 60 brand new people and exposing them to the British public, it was hard, very hard, demanding and we have worked a shed load of hours recently to give the best start possible. Some nights we found ourselves still working at 4am to make sure that everything was running as it should be. The team has really come together both the Filipinos and the BT people. I have definately picked the right people to be here. Yes there have been occasional niggles and constructive conversations (put very politically i must say) but this is healthy. We have a hell of a lot of expertise and experience here and the group has gelled better than i could have ever dreamt. Anyway thats enough compliments for them for the time being.
Those who are interested we beat 4 of our 5 targets for week 1, if i was told that would happen 6 weeks ago i would have grabbed it with both hands so i'm very happy.
On the Thursday my ankle was still that bad and o many people had told me to go to the hospital i gave in and went. For peice of mind more than anything. The facilities here are the same if not better than the UK as there are no queues. I was straight in. Jovs was finding it way too entertaining pushing me around in a wheelchair but it was nice of him to take me and it was good of him to wait with me.
The diagnosis is a bad sprain. I got told off for not resting and not elevating, not putting ice on etc etc but i was just happy to know that i was on the mend.
Below is a video of a "Jeepney" ride. Before we came here we were advised not to go near these things. They are the local method of transport but renowned for theft and just general discomfort. Carlo our onsite tech guy offered to come with a group of us to sample it, so off we went. The roads are crazy here at certain time but it was good, to put things into perspective you can get around in these things for 8 Pesos (12p). These vehicles originate from wartime and some of them are decorated very very well. Then again some of them look as though they are going to fall apart at any moment as well! Believe it or not we are very lucky with traffic and transport in the UK. Something i think we are all guilty of.
https://fbcdn-video-a.akamaihd.net/cfs-ak-ash4/434706/994/211513078946020_35343.mp4?oh=8d518424d14660acead86e15de48fe7c&oe=4F43F000&__gda__=1329852416_d2c62b151c0f2e3f29621e80bd49af3d
So week 1 is done and we have a positive start, everyone is getting on well and everyone is healthy. I met Marie Collins this weekend who is with us for 2 weeks, she manages our compliance and quality and makes sure we are doing thing the way we are meant to. After a long flight it is against the rules not to go straight out so we went to resorts world again. After unitialy deciding to go for Chinese and were sat on a 9 seater table with Menus we all looked at each other around the table and collectively changed our minds. How awkward it felt all standing up and leaving without ordering a thing! The real reason was that there was no option for vegetarians of which we have 2 so we decided to walk across the mall to an italian. I left the others to answer the "why why why" from the people in the chinese. Lasagne, potatoes followed by chocolate fudge cake.. what a dream. Kyle decided to embarrass himself by saying the lights in the italian were actually the air conditioning but all in all it was very nice. We then went on to a club, a very expensive club. Rumour has it there were a lot of local celebs in there that night, we were just the rowdy english people blocking the entrance, or thats how it felt.
So the rest of the story i am going to tell in pictures. From what i understand back home its quite cold. Won't make you feel any better that we are creeping into the early 30's every day here. Even i am enjoying it now!
I am sure i will speak to most people very soon.
Lots of Ginger Love
JLB
P.S. We survived the Earthquake as well!!!
Isn't it 66 or 67 pesos to a pound? I hope you haven't been out shopping thinking it's 150!
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