My Time at Tennis

So we are a few months away before the Australian Open 2011 kicks off, which really brings back a lot of memories, and I guess by now it’s probably a good time to reflect on my time there.

To give a bit of background on the topic, Tennis Australia advertises IT positions at the Open targeted at students, which means that all you need is an IT background, the proper mindset, be eager to learn and good communication skills, which I found to be quite an interesting position, especially for a student.

I applied for the position and after a group assessment, an interview and a short placement; I was one of the lucky ones to get in.

I was positioned on the IT help Desk, which as the name suggests means solving IT issues. It took a while for me to get used to picking up the phone, especially when you feel that your IT skills and knowledge is quite limited and you hesitate every time you pick up the phone, but after a while and with guidance from the experienced crew members you feel more comfortable with the phone ringing, actually you get too comfortable with the phone ringing, so that you start to feel that something is missing when your phone is quiet for a continuous 5 mins and you start checking it every 10 secs.

No doubt that the Australian Open is an extremely fast paced environment, it is expected that you should be calm in a-not-so calm environment, which is a lot easier said than done I must add, another very noticeable thing about the environment there is that it is by far nothing like your typical IT crowd, and this is why :

• The IT people there are quite physically fit, almost everyone had a sport on the side – including management
• They are very sociable and approachable
• They have a great sense of humour
• And -get this right- we had a high female presence, which is one of the rarest things to have in IT.
• IT is quite integrated with the business

As students you are each allocated a responsibility, mine was Laptops, which basically involved configuring, distributing and collecting them, which I found to be both interesting and challenging especially on the final night; those involved with last night mayhem can relate to this.

Now I guess it I didn’t quite grasp the weight of the responsibility till the final night, this is when I apprenticed both excellent management and team work. One of the major tasks which I responsible for was collecting a large amount of laptops after the game, the level of cooperation and support that everyone pulled together was beyond words, not to go in much detail but as the saying goes "nothing goes as planned ..." applied to the situation, as stress was getting the better of me I felt that every single member on the team was there willing to stay back and give everything to ensure that my responsibilities were completed. That was a pretty comforting feeling in such a stressed out situation, to cut a long story short we managed to get home at about 6am.

Another interesting thing about working at the Open is the habits you develop, not good or bad but rather different, such as:

• Answering your personal phone with "Service Desk, Mahmoud Speaking"
• Waking up at 6 am and wearing the Tennis shorts and Polo even on your days off
• Feeling out of place on your days off
• The only thing that reminds you that haven’t had lunch is passing by the players café

I guess something that really stood out for me in the Open was the management, they fully understood that we were students and as students go, our job is rarely perfect to put it nicely, but to feel that – and sorry for the overused term – Management has got your back was quite comforting.

Another thing I found quite interesting about working there is the Reflective Journal they ask you to keep, now you hear a lot about tracking your own progress and how keeping a journal helps in uni, but boy does it make all the difference, and really does help you to realise where things went wrong and keep track of your own progress.

And I guess nothing is complete without listing what happened afterwards, so not only did that job help improve my soft and hard skills, it also helped me in landing a decent IBL position at Bakers Delight.

So yeah... To wrap it all up, I really enjoyed my time there and would not hesitate for a second to go back, and I would highly encourage any student to apply for this amazing opportunity.

A Special Thanks goes to following:

• Chris and Isabelle for amazing management
• Nathan (co-discover of Nathanization), Hayley, Josh and Heath and for their continued guidance, patience and support throughout the Open.
• Jodie, Row, Dom and Michael (the experienced ones) David (co-discoverer of the Cirona factor), Daniel (the non-coffee drinker) for the good chats, and raising the spirit when needed.