Booking Blue Vol.1 Issue. 10 | Page 8

THE TL UPCOMING IN OUR CS CENTER THE ANNUAL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY WHO AM I? revealed This is your chance to share your feelings about working at Booking.com. Your honest feedback is very important. PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS NICHOLAS WHITAKER I was born in Salt Lake City Utah, and lived there until I was 4, at which point we moved to Tacoma Washington. My parents insisted that we learn the value of work as early as possible. To give us incentive, we were required to “pull our own weight” and contribute 50% of our income starting at 12. If we were old enough to shoot a gun, we were old enough to have a job. My first job was a paper route at the age of twelve. It had to be done by 5:30, so I would always go back to sleep afterwards. It became so routine that on some days I would wake up in a panic at 7:00 thinking that I had forgotten, and run out to check and see that I had done it in my sleep. My next two jobs were also paper routes, the second one being in Omak Washington, a cowboy town in a high desert valley with a population of around three thousand. I also had a summer job as a janitorial assistant at the local university satellite when I was 15, and by 16 I started attending college courses, and ran and got elected as the Freshman Representative in the student government, which I received a salary for each quarter. At 18, living back in Tacoma on my own, I got a job as an accounts payable clerk. I got into customer service after moving back to Utah, working for Microsoft Technical Support. After training my replacements in India over the phone, we were laid off, then hired back 9 months later. After another few months, we started training replacements in Nova Scotia, so I let and got a job at in2m, helping people budget their money. I became the customer service manager there after a short time. By the time I left for Germany in 2007, right as the financial crisis really started to hit. I taught English after learning German, and then decided it was time to change and applied at Booking.com. booking blue: the berlin cs magazine An annual assessment of how you have been performing in 2013. Just think of it as a PEP Talk in XXL format. Due to the overwhelming positive feedback, the evening catering company will be taking over the day time catering as well. In October, they will provide food on Thursday and Fridays, and in Nov. they will take over both the THE LOUNGE IS COMING… The Berlin Lounge will included a staffed Espresso Bar, chill-out area, and a kicker table. Smoking on the terrace is open to discussion but no decision has been made. Tentative Completion Date: Dec. 2013/ Jan. 2014 october 2013 p.8