A day in the life...

Mornings

My typical day normally starts at 9am unless it is Tuesday and I’m in at 8:30 for the weekly team meeting. The earlier start doesn’t bother me at all as we get that half hour back on Friday evening.

My normal morning routine would be to log on to my computer and open up all the software applications so that I’m prepared for the first call of the day, whatever that may be. I’ll then have a review of my own emails and then the support emails that may have come in overnight and respond to some of the customer queries.

Lunch

With the morning behind us, I might pop into Ashbourne at lunchtime if I have something I need to do. If not, I’ll generally make a bite to eat in the fully stocked kitchen here. There are usually a few people doing the same so we’ll make and eat lunch together. Friday is the exception, everyone is too full for lunch because they have had the "Friday Fry" earlier in the morning!

Afternoon

Back to my desk for 2pm and for some reason it’s always a busy time on the phones right after lunch so the afternoon generally passes really quickly and it is no time before the phones are switched off at 5pm. The extra half hour before we leave is really useful to wrap up your calls and finish off any issues that you didn’t get to earlier. It also means that we get out the door on time at 5:30 – nobody gets caught on a call after hours.

The busier times of the year fall around year end where we have a lot of calls from customers about finishing out their tax year. Because we release new software every tax year, we spend a lot of time testing the new products before they are ever released for customer use. This can be very interesting particularly if you discover an issue that would impede the software had it been released that way! You have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped the development of the software in some way.

At quieter times we are encouraged to write blogs that the marketing team can publish on our websites or spend the time brushing up on our product knowledge.

The busy times can be quite pressurized but the office is a very comfortable environment where nobody is afraid to speak out and ask questions or look for help whenever its needed. Overall it is a great place to work and was a great move for me two years ago.

I would say to anyone thinking of taking a position here to go for it. The skills you will need to bring would be a basic level of computer literacy, competency in English (both written and spoken), a good telephone manner and being comfortable working in a team environment.