Monzo Staff Weekly Q&A - Brenda Wong (Call & The Gang Cop)

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Note : All Monzo Q&As to date can be found here :grinning:

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Helloooo :wave:

Why am I posting this and not the ever-present @simonb? He’s on holiday! :palm_tree:

The seasons are changing and cats are having fun.

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Before we get into this week’s Q&A… you know what time it is!

*Click here to see all previous Q&As*

Week 1 : Chris MacLean, Customer Operations & Vulnerable Customers :santa:t2:

Week 2 : James Nicholson, iOS Engineer :green_apple:

Week 3 : Tara Mansfield, People Operations Manager :woman_technologist:t5::man_technologist:t3:

Week 4 : James Routley, Backend Engineer :hammer_and_wrench:

Week 5 : Hugh Wells, Customer Operations :man_police_officer:t3:

Week 6 : Naz Malik, Technical Specialist :computer:

Week 7 : Fred Morgan, COps Squad Captain (Calls & Social Media) :telephone_receiver:

Week 8 : Emma Northcott, COps Scaling Team :balance_scale:

Week 9 : Jarno Wolf, COps Financial Crime Specialist & Squad Captain :wolf:

Week 10 : Maria Campbell, Head of People :woman_office_worker:t2::man_office_worker:t4:

Week 11 : Jim Amey, Night COps Captain :bat: :crescent_moon:

Week 12 : Richard Cook, Online Community Manager :man_cook:

Week 13 : Beatrice Borbon, Content & Press Manager :newspaper:

Week 14 : Tom Blomfield, CEO :crown:

Week 15 : Ella Johanny, COps/Hiring :handshake:

Week 16 : Harry Ashbridge, Writer :writing_hand:t3:

Week 17 : Beth Scott, Overnight COps :cat2:

Week 18 : Georgie Parmenter, Executive Assistant to the Founders :blonde_woman:

Week 19 : Vulnerable Customers Team :sunflower:

Week 20 : Leah Templeman, Interim VP People :sun_with_face:

Week 21 : Daniel Chatfield, Backend Engineer, Fincrime & Security :closed_lock_with_key:

Week 22 : Valerio Magliulo, Product Manager - Revenue Team :money_with_wings:

Week 23 : Sam Watkin, Operations Analyst :thinking:

Week 24 : Kieran McHugh, Backend Engineer :desktop_computer:

Week 25 : Jonas Huckestein, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer :computer_mouse:

Week 26 : Annual Report Edition with Tristan Thomas and Julie Oey :calendar:

Week 27 : Zander Brade, Lead Product Designer :pencil2:

Week 28 : Richard Dingwall, Payments Engineer :moneybag: :wrench:

Week 29 : Oliver Beattie, Head of Engineering (Reliability Report Special) :watch:

Week 30 : Bruno Vaz Moço, Product Manager (Scalers) :balance_scale:

Week 31 : Dillon Van Auken, Remote COps Team Lead and Vegas Project Team Lead :first_quarter_moon_with_face: 🂡

Week 32 : Rhys Davies, COps Cardiff Office :dragon:

Week 33 : Emily Parrett, COps Call & The Gang :phone:

Week 34 : Liam Houghton, Ops Fixer :hammer_and_wrench:

Week 35 : Frances Coyle, Legal Team :scroll:

Week 36 : Shak Welch, COps Fincrime Specialist :police_car:

Week 37 : Sarah Allen, People Operations :woman: :man:

Week 38 : Simon B, COps Community Specialist :globe_with_meridians:

Week 39 : Natalie Price, Visual Designer :paintbrush:

Week 40 : George Webster, Night Cop :crescent_moon:

This week in the Hot Coral Hot Seat™️ we have the the wonderful Call and the Gang Cop Brenda Wong.

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Brenda has been here since November 2017 and her current focus at Monzo is:

Getting better at my phone voice, and figuring out the sweet spot number of emojis we can include in a tweet!

What’s too many? :thinking::scream::nerd_face:

An interesting fact about Brenda is that:

I once attended a meeting at No. 10 Downing Street as part of an emergency get-together to figure out how to get young people to vote in the EU Referendum. David Cameron was the most important person there, and I was the least.

You’re the most important person to us Brenda :orange_heart:

Her favorite thing about working at Monzo?

My squad is the absolute best people I've ever met in my career :two_hearts:

The Call and the Gang squad are pretty stellar, to be fair!

Get those questions in, my friends! :muscle:

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What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever eaten?

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What’s your favourite tube line? And why?

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Do you think you could plan the perfect crime and get away with it?

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What lead up to working for Monzo, and what made you want to work there? :sparkles:

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Brendaaaaa!!! :heart_eyes::heartbeat:

What’s on your reading list recently and why?

You tell excellent job stories. Regale us with another hilarious moment in your working life (or about a co-worker).

To date, which Monzo tweet has had the most amount of emojis and how many were there?

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Did you steal anything as a keepsake from Downing Street?

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My housemates used to take home pint glasses and sneak them out in their bags. They called the act “aquiring”.

We don’t want MI5 on her tail. Monzo would lose an excellent employee.

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What career your parents would have chosen for you if they had a total control on that? :joy:

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What is your favourite takeaway around the new office?

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Woo! So excited to be in the hot seat this week :fire: keep 'em questions coming! I’m surprised no one has mentioned :pineapple:on :pizza: or whether I like :smiley_cat::smiley_cat::smiley_cat: yet :joy:

I’ll answer these in a couple o’ days :+1:

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Would you rather have legs for arms or arms for legs?

When not saving the world from poor customer service one call at a time, what’s your favourite thing to do in your spare time?

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Okay so I’ve been away from the community for a short while so to celebrate by return I’ll present the two most important questions: what’s your opinion on cats? And pineapple on pizza?

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Why are they the best…? (They are, but I want your reasons…):heart:

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Missed the first ‘?’, and wondered what kind of absolute monster would put cats and pineapple on pizza. :scream:

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'Afternoon, all! Delighted to see all of these questions☺️ Gonna make myself a cuppa and get to 'em shortly.

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Here… we… go…!

As in, the biggest meal I’ve ever eaten, or just the biggest thing? I’m a big fan of an all-you-can-eat buffet, but I’m not super adventurous when it comes to size-of-thing-to-eat so it was probably some sort of turkey leg at some point.

Metropolitan! Those wide carriages and air conditioning :heart_eyes: The Northern line, although my most used line, can get in the sea. shakes fist at those branches

I’m a great planner, but am quite squeamish and not physically very strong! So if I can mastermind it without getting my hands dirty… probably. :smiling_imp:

As a side note, one of my favourite podcasts of all time is My Favorite Murder (American spelling as it’s an American podcast). It’s hilarious and covers a lot of true crime, so theoretically I have a lot of source material if I ever decided to come up with a nefarious scheme.

I’d been a fan of Monzo since the beta days (User #33253, yo!) so when I left my old job it was basically no. 1 on my list of companies to apply to. (I’m a spreadsheet kinda girl, so I made a list of all the companies I admired and scoured their jobs pages for any opportunities that caught my eye.) :blush:

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Eveeeeeeeee! :sparkles::two_hearts:

Some books: :books:
Recently: Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig, The Multi-Hyphen Method by Emma Gannon, and delightfully, The Gift (Book #1 of the Pellinor series by Alison Croggon). So, a real big mix! Also, delightfully, I’ve taken to reading cookbooks from cover to cover, so The Roasting Tin and The Green Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer and Smitten Kitchen: Every Day by Deb Perelman. I love to cook :yum:

A story: :face_with_monocle:
She is absolutely going to kill me for this, but since this is @EmilyP’s last day at Monzo, I thought to share this with you all :joy:

As members of Call and the Gang, we respond to tweets @monzo with as much delight as we can muster. Bless her, she responded to a tweet by someone with the Twitter display name ‘Areola Granola’ (best Twitter display name ever) in the most earnest way: by calling them ‘Areola’ in the reply. Best day at work ever.

Tweet❓:
I must admit, I have no idea!

If I told you, I would have to kill you.

(Nahhhhhh, they wouldn’t even let me take my phone in.)

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This is amazing :joy: I’m sure the person found it hilarious too hahaha

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I actually did a law degree, so I think in a perfect world that’s what they would have wanted me to do! But they’ve always been super supportive of everything I do, and they’re always telling me they’re proud of me :sob: living 6,000 miles away from them can sometimes be really hard, but we talk every day! (Whatsapp is a wonderful thing.)

Ooh, for lunch? My fave thing ever is the rice congee they do at HOP Vietnamese for breakfast. It is chef kiss :yum::rice:

Arms for legs! (I wouldn’t be able to do anything with double legs.)

And a requiem to my waistline, but I love, love, love to cook. I’m still learning but there’s nothing more satisfying than making something delicious to share!

I really like cats :smiley_cat:! I take care of my neighbour’s cats all the time (two Maine coons, one called Jasmine and one called Mellow) but plot twist… I also like dogs :joy: Why you gotta limit my love like that?

I wouldn’t choose to eat pineapple on pizza, but if it’s there, and I’m hungry, I wouldn’t be mad. :woman_shrugging:

I’ve never worked with a more understanding, empathetic, and driven team! It inspires me every single day.

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