What's making you feel bitter-sweet today?

[DanaC]

On Friday I heard through the grapevine, though haven't been officially told yet, that those of us joining the specialist team will be starting 14th May.

I'm really excited - but also going to miss my current team and the role. it sounds a very different way of working. Much more opportunity to go deep into stuff and to take a claim from start to finish, but the flip side of that is a much less team oriented approach to case handling. That is going to make for a different energy and feel.

What we do in Rapid (the first line claims handling) is a bit of a highwire act. You take what comes through on the phone, triage it and either keep it in your team or route it through to different specialisms - everybody in all the teams is working all the stuff if they're the ones answering that call - so you're in and out of each other's cases and team mailboxes, and you're constantly being put on different lines or asked to work someone else's mailbox because it's out of service levels

Within teams you might have 8 people answering calls and 2 people working emails and system tasks and callbacks for the whole team.

That means, if I'm not in, someone else is picking up my stuff. My name may be on a claim and I am supposed to keep an eye on it, but if I am not there it will still get worked.

In the specialist team, you do a little bit of the above, but mostly you are working your own caseload and unless a customer calls and urgently needs someone to work their claim then nobody is working that stuff if you don't.

Which is great, but probably makes for a less energetic and close-knit team - right now, we're all in constant communication - checking in with each other about the claims we're all working.

So - that makes this bitter sweet for me. Because I do love what I am currently doing - more than any job I've ever done.

But - I do like the detailed work. I do like being able to solve the whole puzzle. And I do like the intricacies of policy interpretation and claim assessment.

The thing I am weakest on is buildings - which is what I will mainly be focused on in the new team. It's a really good opportunity to stretch myself.