Adam Brown

Location: London
Business Unit: Openreach
Joined: September 2005

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My last job was an Apprenticeship too, actually. But the place I was at, people didn't want to hear from us Apprentices very much. On top of that it was a rubbish wage, I was getting into debt, and I had to pay for my training as well.

So I left and came here. Now I'm doing an NVQ, I've just got 100% in my BTEC and I'm studying towards a foundation degree in business management at Buckingham University, all paid for by BT. So things are pretty good.

I'm working as a Narrow Band Copper Planner at the moment. Our team does maintenance and provision, things like: if there's a new business, we organise a network to get out to them. And if there's a major breakdown, we deal with that as well. The good thing is that you're treated like anyone else on the team; the older guys talk to you the same as they do to each other, it doesn't matter that they're not your age and there's not as much in common.

My family tell me I'm quite cocky anyway, I guess, but the stuff I've experienced here has properly built up my confidence. The most difficult thing I've done so far has definitely been the exchange I went on to work at Deutsche Telekom in Munich. As part of the exchange, I had to do a presentation to everyone there, including a little bit in German. I was really nervous. But once you've done a presentation in Germany, to Germans, in German after only 40 hours' language training, you're not going to get scared by much.