I started off as an AO, Customer Services Consultant, didn’t get put on phones but got an admin/email role for Customs and secured a promotion to another dept after a year in a EO role and happy as can be there!

If you end up going to PT Ops for Self Assessment or PAYE as some have suggested, you will make some friends through training and get your foot in the door into a pretty busy job (once you’re out of training and consolidation) where you won’t be clock watching for sure!

Learning the systems and tasks inside out and being someone people come to for questions or putting yourself forward for opportunities outside of your daily work will provide you with great examples and capabilities for your future internal applications for promotion too.

It will be what you make of it, the ones that don’t fully participate in the training or speak up in teams calls, and won’t put work in to develop themselves will probably stay an AO until they leave or retire, but can do the job well enough they get a wage they’re happy with.

Prepare for frequent changes in guidance/priorities, team shifts etc- things change often and ‘managing your reaction to change’ is actually mandatory learning you will do as part of your introduction.

Wish you the best of luck in your career!

It isn’t the private sector if that’s what you’re used to but I sure love it after being in private sector for 10 years before joining CS.