MY B
“When your dream comes true, the reality may not necessarily make you happy” – Kate J.
The beginning.
It was a long and tough journey from start to end.When i first applied for a Russian Speaking Customer Support Representative (GCUS) position back in February 2014, i knew nothing about B. At the time i worked for Arvato/Zara.Com as a Russian Speaking Customer Support Representative. With my experience I actually had good chances to get that job at B if i knew at least something about the company. I failed my phone interview for literally not doing my home work, which was fair enough and i would have probably left it as it was at that time, if i didn’t start hearing people saying: “wow, you did have an interview with B!”. “Even if you failed, having them noticed you is a big thing and your CV must be good enough”. All these words made me think & believe in that. After some research getting a job at B became my challenge and my dream. Since then I subscribed myself to their job newsletter, started learning about B, watching their TV, listening to their radio, reading their news and kept applying. I still have a pile of preparation prints. To apply to B jobs you have to create a profile on their website, which is obviously linked to your e-mail address. After few months applying with no success, i decided to create a brand new profile to increase my chances, as i thought they probably could track all my applications linked to one and the same e-mail address. By then i also got married, changed my legal name and in the end registered as a brand new person with my new professionally looking e-mail address and my new CV. I was invited for an interview in September 2014. I applied for the same position – Global Customer Support Representative – Russian Speaker. I had my phone interview, which went just great. I had a pile of printed answers to any possible interview questions and B historical events they could have had potentially asked me about. I watched a bunch of interview preparation videos on youtube and read a lot about how to prepare for an interview with the company like B on the internet. I had my in house interview confirmed for 17.09.14 at 9AM. I arrived in advance, even though i got lost on my way from Liverpool Street (so classic for me).
When i entered the building at Finsbury Square i was welcomed at the reception, got my photo taken and temporary paper badge given. I was amazed by huge fish tanks, bright pantry with free drinks, fruits & snacks and screens broadcasting the news. It was just WOW, like in a movie. I grabbed a coffee and sat down in the waiting area. I was then picked up shortly for a chat with one guy. We had about 20 minutes interview in a glass room, which i think went quite well, and then i was sent to shadow one experienced rep in GCUS, so that i could have had an idea about the job and the volume. I looked at her picking up calls, replying to chats and i couldn’t understand anything. I tried asking questions, but answers were pretty much a white noise into my ears. I was motivating myself by saying “they are all human beings, if they can do that, i will be able too. I just need some training”. I believe that I am generally a personality that could do any job literally, if a fairly good training is provided. After that 1st interview i was invited for a 2nd in house interview on the 29th of September 9AM. While i was waiting for the interviewers, someone came down to me and said that my interview was actually scheduled for 10 AM and apologised for HR sending me the wrong information. Well, i didn’t mind, but it affected me in a way still. It was supposed to be a final interview. I was quite nervous and of course waiting for another hour wasn’t great. I was finally picked up and taken to a room with 2 ladies. They weren’t very friendly i thought, especially one of them. I found her quite arrogant and unprofessional. She was openly yawning throughout the whole interview without even covering her mouth, which distracted me a lot. I didn’t get the job in the end and i had to chase HR for a feedback. I was quite curious to know what went wrong. Eventually i received a feedback saying that interviewers didn’t like my answer to a question about a difficult situation with a colleague. My answer was something along the lines that i try to avoid any difficult situations and that i am a friendly person, which obviously was my bad saying. You always have to come up with an example. Regardless you have an interview with B or some other company, structure is always the same. Interviewers want to see your personality and how you behave in different situations and they always want examples, not necessarily a real life ones. I failed on this question. I was defeated, but i wasn’t going to stop. I actually became a bit obsessed with B. I kept on learning about transparency, diversity and inclusion, about philanthropy and this became a part of my DNA. In January 2015 i started working for Debenhams head office. I really liked Warren Street area, the office itself and the fact that we were sharing the space with Facebook London headquarters. The job itself was quite an easy one & pretty interesting, but the salary was just crap. It was 30th of August 2015 when i received a job alert e-mail from B – Contracts Representative – Russian and I immediately applied. I had my phone interview on the 4th of September at 8:30 AM which was followed by an In house Interview on my birthday 9th of September 10 AM. The interview was then re-scheduled for 5:30 PM on the same day, which was ok with me because i had a day off anyway. I had my interview with the local manager and the manager who conferenced in from America. Both were really nice ladies. I tried to look confident, calm and honest, even though i was quite nervous. I thought it went well. And in fact it did. On the 11th of September i received a call from HR asking if i would accept their offer. Salary wise it was almost a double of what i was getting paid at Debenhams. I couldn’t believe i made it and my dream came true.
Background Checks.
*A lot of big companies do 3-5-10 years background check which is a standard procedure. I moved to London in August 2010 and i in fact had an issue with my 1st job at the salad bar called Tossed. Bloody Tossed! In November 2010 our Baker Street bar was refurbished & all employees were sent to other Tossed locations across London. It all happened during my holiday. So as soon as i got back, I was sent to White City Westfield and there was one manager who bullied people. One day when he bullied me, i just couldn’t cope with that and left the bar in tears. I couldn’t and didn’t want to speak or listen to him. I felt so sorry for myself. My line manager from Baker Street tried to transfer me to some other bar, but that bully jerk made everything to dismiss me for leaving the bar on that day and i lost my job. Just a month ago before that all happened i was an employee of the month. So, during the background checks, B had found out that i was dismissed from one job within the last 5 years. I couldn’t believe that was happening to me. I spent some time looking for some evidence & eventually found my line manager from Tossed on Linkedin and asked him to give his feedback to B if that would have become necessary and he was happy to do that for me. After some time i was confirmed all checks went well. What a relief! My first induction day at B was confirmed for the 19th of October 2015. What a day!
Working at B.
I arrived quite early. Stood in front of the building not believing it was happening. Induction was exhausting, too much information. Three things i liked the most were the polaroid photo, that was taken of each of us, free tote bag with the book and the food. I was supposed to be taken to my floor to meet the team on that day, but instead i had 2 team leaders visiting me at the entrance of the training room. Next day i met my team and the nicest and the friendliest person Maiya from Kazakhstan, who became my very good friend. She did an internship in Tech department and was then offered a job in Contracts. She started a couple of weeks before me. In my first weeks I had an impression that everyone in the team looked too serious, they were all young people but i thought that they behaved as grumpy aged people and Maiya was the only person who didn’t look like them at all. It was generally difficult to be accepted by the team. I felt like they tried to be nice during the training just because they had to be, but they didn’t want to. I felt everyone was a bit cold & emotionally neutral. Now I think quite few of them were actually going through some stressful time at B. At the time I also had a feeling that most of the colleagues who offered their help (weren’t many at the beginning btw) did it for a record, not because they wanted to help a new hire. (“for a record” – this job was all around numbers you make, whether it is a number of calls you make, tickets you close or people you help). Every day was difficult, but i believed i could make it. I never cared too much about numbers, i cared about the quality of my work about clients’ satisfaction, about fairness and all these were not really the key for success at B Contracts.
I was coming an hour or 1.5h earlier to work and leaving late, sometimes very late, just like Mike in his book. I always had the book on me like a bible. I don’t remember exactly when i started hiding in a toilet and crying, but it started early. I couldn’t cope with the pressure and stress from my management and the colleagues, it was just too much. There was too much micromanagement, monitoring and too many dirty looks.
By coming early, staying long and trying so hard i was hoping to prove they chose the right person, i was hoping to become a valuable team player, a part of the family. But I think there was neither a family nor a team. There was no soul in that department, i thought. I started thinking about leaving, i got fed up with everything very quickly, but i kept saying to myself that i just need to be patient and at least pass my 6 months probation period for the record & my CV. In few months time ice melted and i made some friends in other departments & improved relationships within my team too. People became more open & friendly to me. I also started hearing from team members that everyone went through a difficult time at the beginning. Some managers were saying that it is just a nature of our job. And i had been hearing it throughout my career at B. The fact is, that only managers were saying & probably thinking that way. Even though customer service isn’t easy in general, I think it wasn’t much about a nature of a Contracts Representative’s job, it was a nature of people with titles not willing to change, motivate or improve the overall atmosphere, which was very toxic from time to time. And this was/is the main issue in that department. When I could finally catch my breath and i did not feel alone on this boat any more, selfishly, but i started feeling a bit better, plus Maiya was supporting me a lot. We became good friends very quickly, more of soulmates. We had & we still have so much in common. And i then met a lot of great other people at B, who i became really close with and I still am. I truly miss them!
I started participating in different competitions & projects. My name was mentioned in the B newsletter for my creative contributions at pantry comics and i had people from other teams and countries reaching out to me. That was the beginning of my success, however i’ll talk about it later, because my definition of success & what our leaders were trying to promote are two completely different things!
At some point we also had a team restructure, which i was really happy about. I was assigned a new team leader & started getting more support, i finally had someone to listen to me. I passed my probation and sometimes even felt happy. I started shadowing other teams, learning about the company, joining communities and participating in different activities. I enjoyed working with customers and was happy to accept any challenging situation with the client as i felt i was able to learn from that and progress. At the same time i saw people cheating the system to make their numbers higher, people leaving B, new people joining. I saw people crying while going through all that hell i went through myself in my first months. I really tried to support the new hires and i hope i did in a way. Since i started in October 2015 and up until i left in June 2019, i had 5 different Team Leaders, 3 different managers and 27 team members in rotation overall. I was the most senior employee in my direct team in EMEA for a while by the time i was leaving, apart from the guy who started a bit earlier than me and then became our department manager. Another girl, who was in our team longer, relocated to the US. All others left. I don’t know what metrics company needs to do something to change that toxic environment and atmosphere in the department, but to me listening to people and hearing how unhappy they were should be a good and valid reason for some changes. However, i guess it’s just easier to close eyes and say, that it’s all normal and natural. Of course it is, when people leave because they just want a change, try something new, learn something new, but not when they leave because they are so unhappy and cannot stand it anymore. In fact i heard that before i joined, our department had a really bad reputation & leaders said they worked hard to change that. I cannot even imagine what was happening there before.
On a positive note, team rotation was bringing some good results too. When I was leaving B and slightly before that we had just an amazing team, the best in my entire career at B. I have so many great memories: our nights out, our hangovers and lots of jokes on the floor. Quite a lot of us have left the team or the company, and it’s a shame that keeping talents was never a goal for the department or generally for B based on my experience.
