This bar is top shelf and high tech

I’ve worked at ANZ for a decade now. The Tech Bar has been around for five or six years. In my role as an engineer, I provide face-to-face technical support for staff at the ANZ Centre in Melbourne’s Docklands.

We have eight team members and assist staff with a huge variety of technology issues to do with hardware, software or their phone.

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Ghost town

I never expected to see nearly an entire office building cleared out for people to work from home. It all happened in what felt like the click of the fingers and was both nerve racking and surprising.

When COVID-19 first hit, the average number of people in the office dropped from around 5,000 to 100 in a matter of days. It felt like a ghost town. My team had no idea whether people would be visiting the Tech Bar at all in person.

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We have four Tech Bars spanning the major ANZ buildings in Melbourne. When everyone went into lockdown, they were consolidated into one at Docklands. Anyone who needed our help was only allowed to visit us if they had a permit which allowed them to come in and have their issue fixed face-to-face.

The number of people visiting the Tech Bar in one day dropped from more than 100 to about 20.

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All the cafes in the building were suddenly closed and the only people I saw - apart from my team mates on a daily basis – were security and mailroom staff.  Standing in the atrium, I could hear my own voice echo through the building. All the main doors and turnstiles were locked and because the floors were empty, they were shrouded in darkness. 

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We’re located in an office precinct area so finding a car park was easy. And there wasn’t a problem buying items in high demand (toilet paper, hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes).

Measures to stop the spread

To reduce potential and unnecessary movement and interactions from people travelling in lifts or wandering around the building, the Tech bar moved to an accessible location on the ground floor, through the thermal scanners in the foyer.

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New starters seeking our help getting their computers set-up could easily find us and potential touch points along the way were reduced.

In our roles, it’s very difficult to maintain the social distancing requirements so when wearing a mask became mandatory I felt much more comfortable about being in the office. From the beginning though, we were well looked after with plenty of hand sanitiser, anti-bacterial wipes and extra cleaning in the office.

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Technical issues working from home

The number of tech issues seemed to increase as more and more people worked from home. There were all kinds of issues like connection to the ANZ network, phone issues and broken keyboards - I never thought I’d hear the words ‘the dog ate my keyboard’ but it happened!

Issues connecting to the network were challenging. If the helpdesk wasn’t able to fix the problem remotely, the staff member had to obtain a permit to come into the office.

Looking forward

As more people return to the office, I’m most excited about seeing my team in real life. We have our virtual meetings every week but I’ve really missed being able to tap someone on the shoulder or yell out if you need help and vice versa.

I’ve also really missed seeing familiar faces over the past year – you build relationships with people when they visit the Tech Bar - although I bet they hope they don’t need to visit too often. This is something I’m really looking forward to in the coming months.