Abtran (Sky) Cork - what is it like to work there?

whatsup28 · 03-11-2010 11:17PM #1

Anyone know anything about working for Abtran or SKY in Cork?
Is it good or bad? I am thinking more about Support Roles (eg Training, Manager) rather than Customer Service ?

Thanks if you know anything

babo9 · 04-11-2010 10:48AM

whatsup28 wrote: »

Anyone know anything about working for Abtran or SKY in Cork?
Is it good or bad? I am thinking more about Support Roles (eg Training, Manager) rather than Customer Service ?

Thanks if you know anything

Dunno about what roles, but I know people who have worked in the Call center and absolutely despised it, don't think they lasted long either! Think their job was to ring up customers and offer additional packages, not sure though tbh! Sorry I'm not more informative!

lisao80 · 04-11-2010 05:42PM

i know plenty who do and have worked there... its defo a place that you will either love or totally hate, they get paid monthly on the 10th of each month, the hours for sky are different shifts between 8.30am and 11pm. if you have any questions feel free to pm me, dont wanna be sayin much on an open forum seein as i used to work for abtran myself.

Tazzle · 04-11-2010 06:28PM

Desperate times. I wouldn't work there unless out of necessity. (speaking as an ex-employee)

MRBEAVER · 11-11-2010 12:59AM

Desperate times indeed. They work you really hard for minimum wage. Most people burn out pretty quickly. Those that stay hate their jobs.

Pembily · 11-11-2010 12:02PM

I worked there for a summer and it was grand, yes minimum wage but its a job and my fellow colleagues were lovely!!! IMO and IME you could be in a way worse job...

worthkill · 11-11-2010 04:11PM

I know things are tough, but Abtran is hell on earth. I worked there for almost one year. In sky and other accounts. They give you 7 minutes a day for toilet breaks and if you go over god help you. I did meet some nice people there however i would not wish it on my worse enemy!

MRBEAVER · 12-11-2010 03:31AM

You can probably do almost any job if you are a young student and you know that it is only going to be for two or three months. However having to work in a place like Abtran as an adult trying to make a living and trying to keep some self respect is much harder. Trying to maintain some dignity is difficult. You are pushed and demeaned as much as you would be in the worse Bangelore call centres. I won't say treated like a child as the kind of abuse they get away with would be tolerated. I too found the monitering and timing of the time I was in the toilet to be demeaning. As well as the ever present monitering and the stress. It says something that in this recession Abtran is always hiring and the turnover is extremely high.

As an example the ESB have a call centre in Wilton. The staff are generally content. Some have been there 20 or 30 years. Staff are knowledgeable, competent and have pride in their work. A few years ago the ESB began outsourcing calls to Abtran and reducing staff levels in Wilton. A false economy. Callers won't know who answers as Abtran staff have to lie and say that they work for the ESB but callers are much more likely to get someone who is unknowlegable, stressed and unhelpful. The focus is on keeping the call as short as possible rather than customer service.

theglobe · 12-11-2010 04:09PM

Are abtran similarly bad all across the board? I'm looking at some position in morgan mckinley and they seem to have links with abtran on their website. Anyone have any experience with this?

poker2k9 · 11-05-2011 12:24PM

While i know this is an old thread, I would like to ask if this place 'Abtran' has gotten any better than what it's currently being described as so far? I got offered a position there (sky).

thehunter · 11-05-2011 01:53PM

theglobe wrote: »

Are abtran similarly bad all across the board? I'm looking at some position in morgan mckinley and they seem to have links with abtran on their website. Anyone have any experience with this?

Think Morgan McKinley were premier recruitment?

If so owners are brothers as far as i know.

neveah · 11-05-2011 07:18PM

WTF! I am shocked that the time you spend in the toilet is monitored!:eek::eek:

How is that allowed?? Surely that is breaking some human rights or employment law?! I have never heard the likes of that in my life! Genuinely flabbergasted to read that :eek:

pow wow · 11-05-2011 10:53PM

It's common practice in call centres and it's not in contravention of the law - they're not saying you can't use the toilet, just that you're expected to do so quickly and they'll be keeping an eye on it. I've experienced it more than once and it's not usually rigidly enforced (i.e. no-one is hammering on the door if you're 5 seconds over) :rolleyes:

Don't know about Abtran now, anyone I knew in there left a couple of years ago.

poker2k9 · 12-05-2011 01:46PM

Anyone else know hows it like now? =x desperate

Nonoperational · 12-05-2011 04:42PM

I'd say go for it. You can always leave if you can't hack it. I know a few people that worked there and they found it fine.

exabtran · 13-05-2011 09:36PM

poker2k9 wrote: »

Anyone else know hows it like now? =x desperate

I worked there for almost 2 years across a number of accounts. I was moved to the Sky account but only lasted about 6 weeks before i requested to be moved (I was a perm employee so I had that option). I just wasnt cut out for outbound sales. You will mainly be dealing with UK customers, they are well used to getting calls from call-centres so they tend to be fairly hard to sell to (well thats what i found anyway) People have already talked about the timing issues, but to be fair, they have to keep a tab on it so there is enough cover on the lines.

The money is ****e, and I think the company is riding the whole recession thing. The hours in Sky arent great, think it was mentioned already that they work shift hours and are open over the weekend.

It was the people there that made me stay as long as I did. I have made friends for life.....honestly

My advice would be to try it out, if you are there 6 months you can apply internally for other jobs on different accounts. But it may take you awhile to get used to the way things work there...but stick it out! Best of luck

poker2k9 · 13-05-2011 10:12PM

exabtran wrote: »

I worked there for almost 2 years across a number of accounts. I was moved to the Sky account but only lasted about 6 weeks before i requested to be moved (I was a perm employee so I had that option). I just wasnt cut out for outbound sales. You will mainly be dealing with UK customers, they are well used to getting calls from call-centres so they tend to be fairly hard to sell to (well thats what i found anyway) People have already talked about the timing issues, but to be fair, they have to keep a tab on it so there is enough cover on the lines.

The money is ****e, and I think the company is riding the whole recession thing. The hours in Sky arent great, think it was mentioned already that they work shift hours and are open over the weekend.

It was the people there that made me stay as long as I did. I have made friends for life.....honestly

My advice would be to try it out, if you are there 6 months you can apply internally for other jobs on different accounts. But it may take you awhile to get used to the way things work there...but stick it out! Best of luck

Thanks for that info, I initially applied for customer support so i'm hoping they don't throw anything sales in it as i'm not too good with sales ahah

exabtran · 13-05-2011 11:01PM

poker2k9 wrote: »

Thanks for that info, I initially applied for customer support so i'm hoping they don't throw anything sales in it as i'm not too good with sales ahah

Just to warn ya all the entry level roles are put down as customer service, even if they do involve sales

Tony Sopranoe · 22-05-2011 02:03PM

Sky department is a very rough crowd working there, I've a mate working there, he says the abuse they get off customers giving out about this and that is phenomenal.

LiamN86 · 30-05-2011 11:23AM

got my degree in UCC and like a lot of people I found it hard to get a decent job in Ireland.. after a few months on d dole i got a job at abtran and worked in the sky department... to say i hated it would be an under statement.. ive never worked in such a demeaning place.. all the monitoring, timing you in the toilet, working hours etc etc. An awful lot of people there were in the same position as I was.. working there just to get by until a better opportunity arose. After 6 months a new role within abtran opened up in the IT department.. it was a grad role which suited me as my degree was in IT so naturally I jumped at the opportunity and sent my CV over to human resources.. had the interview and felt it went well.. I was very eager to get this job and made no secret of how interested and eager I was... about a week later human reources EMAILED me to say I didnt get it.. no explanation as to why I was unsuccessful.. not even a call from them.. i had worked there for 6 months and they couldnt even give me the time of day.. it was pretty much "thanks but no thanks". I later found out that they recruited someone externally which made me so angry, not so much because i personally didnt get it but because they have so many talented and well educated people working there yet they dont realise it and from that moment I realised they dont give a f*** about there employees and there are little to no future prospects in this god forsaken place.. from that moment my attitude towards abtran changed dramatically! I despised the place and got to work on gettin myself outa der!... that was 6 months ago and now im living and working in London.. I have a good, secure job in the city centre with an IT company in a graduate role and so far I absolutely love it and I see myself working there for the forseeable future... shirt & tie, tube to work, just like all the other hob nobs and lovin it! As far as im concerned its Abtrans loss and im glad things didnt work out there for me... what Im trying to get at is; working at abtran REALLY gave me the hunger and desire to get up off my arse and make something of myself and now as far as im concerned, I have.. if you do decide to take a job there, dont stay there longer than a year... and dont take it seriously because lets face it, its a f****** s*** job.. they dont care about you and would have u replaced in 2 minutes (seriuously, they would).. dont be afraid to go out in Cork on a work night and come in hungover.. if your sick, call in sick! do it on your terms...

Kenny Logins · 30-05-2011 03:09PM

..and breathe.

fionny · 30-05-2011 05:32PM

LiamN86 wrote: »

got my degree in UCC and like a lot of people I found it hard to get a decent job in Ireland.. after a few months on d dole i got a job at abtran and worked in the sky department... to say i hated it would be an under statement.. ive never worked in such a demeaning place.. all the monitoring, timing you in the toilet, working hours etc etc. An awful lot of people there were in the same position as I was.. working there just to get by until a better opportunity arose. After 6 months a new role within abtran opened up in the IT department.. it was a grad role which suited me as my degree was in IT so naturally I jumped at the opportunity and sent my CV over to human resources.. had the interview and felt it went well.. I was very eager to get this job and made no secret of how interested and eager I was... about a week later human reources EMAILED me to say I didnt get it.. no explanation as to why I was unsuccessful.. not even a call from them.. i had worked there for 6 months and they couldnt even give me the time of day.. it was pretty much "thanks but no thanks". I later found out that they recruited someone externally which made me so angry, not so much because i personally didnt get it but because they have so many talented and well educated people working there yet they dont realise it and from that moment I realised they dont give a f*** about there employees and there are little to no future prospects in this god forsaken place.. from that moment my attitude towards abtran changed dramatically! I despised the place and got to work on gettin myself outa der!... that was 6 months ago and now im living and working in London.. I have a good, secure job in the city centre with an IT company in a graduate role and so far I absolutely love it and I see myself working there for the forseeable future... shirt & tie, tube to work, just like all the other hob nobs and lovin it! As far as im concerned its Abtrans loss and im glad things didnt work out there for me... what Im trying to get at is; working at abtran REALLY gave me the hunger and desire to get up off my arse and make something of myself and now as far as im concerned, I have.. if you do decide to take a job there, dont stay there longer than a year... and dont take it seriously because lets face it, its a f****** s*** job.. they dont care about you and would have u replaced in 2 minutes (seriuously, they would).. dont be afraid to go out in Cork on a work night and come in hungover.. if your sick, call in sick! do it on your terms...

Good rant! Not working for Netroot are you? :P

xzara61 · 21-07-2011 03:16AM

I was working there a month ago to say the place was depressing is a huge understatement pretty much all my team has dissolved we all realised what a hole it was, like one of my friends who worked in eflow its like lambs to the slaughter house i was sick 3 times in 6 months for an underlying medical problem and got booted out i was on the esb account they seriously push direct debits and payments its sickening how they treat there employees sky probably isnt as bad i hear aviva is the worst. I recommend looking else where

booboo88 · 22-07-2011 08:59PM

xzara61 wrote: »

I was working there a month ago to say the place was depressing is a huge understatement pretty much all my team has dissolved we all realised what a hole it was, like one of my friends who worked in eflow its like lambs to the slaughter house i was sick 3 times in 6 months for an underlying medical problem and got booted out i was on the esb account they seriously push direct debits and payments its sickening how they treat there employees sky probably isnt as bad i hear aviva is the worst. I recommend looking else where

my fav line from those "back to workk meetings" is...if your sick your sick....but.....

lead ops sent me home once and i was still pulled up on it....i had vertigo

kub · 24-07-2011 05:13PM

I worked in both of their buildings,Curraheen and Model Farm Road, as a contractor fixing electrical type stuff. Always found a strange atmosphere there and reading this thread really now makes me see why this was so.

In fairness though, I would not brand all the call centres like that, did some work in Siemens and RCI, both seemed like nice places. Especially RCI and some best place to work award they received a few years ago.

regress · 31-01-2012 07:38PM

Big headlines today about the creation of " new" Sky jobs in Dublin. However are these merely the call centre jobs that are currently being done at Abtran in Cork.

H8GHOTI · 31-01-2012 08:59PM

I wonder.
I was watching The Daily Show & they were talking about it. They mentioned a couple of times, that at the moment all call centre jobs (for Sky) were based in Scotland and that any Irish customer had to ring Scotland with any problems. I was thinking to myself, did they not know about Abtran?

opus · 31-01-2012 10:12PM

I was a bit suspicious of that as well but hopefully if it's spread out over two years like they said then Abtran will be able to shuffle people around to other accounts.

regress · 31-01-2012 10:25PM

But should the media be called to task for trumpeting new jobs for Ireland if all they really are, are existing jobs being transferred from Cork to Dublin. Although the treatment of staff by Abtran is shocking with extremely high turnover. If they stopped hiring most staff would be gone because of conditions within a few months anyway.

gimmick · 31-01-2012 10:29PM

It was said this morning that the Cork call centre is safe. These are additional jobs. They are not replacing the Cork jobs.

/Hysteria quashed.

regress · 01-02-2012 03:30AM

That makes no sense. Announcement said new Dublin jobs would be dealing with Irish customers. Abtran currently deals with Irish Sky customers and it is being said that they have lost the contract. Although if it is phased in natural burnout and attrition from Abtran sweatshop and transfer of jobs to other contracts there will mean no redundancies required. Still just a transfer of jobs from Cork to Dublin rather than the creation of new jobs.

Abtran (Sky) Cork - what is it like to work there?

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