Kasia Holsting
Education
- Hugo Treffner Gymnasium, Tartu, Estonia
- Applied Architecture, Tallinn University of Applied Sciences (unfinished), Estonia
- Graphic Design, Estonian Academy of Arts (unfinished), Estonia
Previous Employers
- Elion Enterprises Ltd
- Salonshop Baltic AS
What do I do at Skype?
I work for the customer support department as the customer support training specialist, specializing in billing and payments topics.
Basically anything related to Skype products, from purchase onwards, goes through me.
I turn the logic of engineers and architects and website magicians into what is understandable for our customer support - trying to map the problems that might occur once the customer has tried using our products.
I've also had the opportunity to help set up the initial training team for customer support, to create training materials content and the very first internal information center.
My job allows me to travel to many different locations in Europe and Asia - and it's also given me great insight into the workings of different payment providers, banks and credit card issuers.
I've learnt so much about money and how it relates to Skype.
Why did I move to Skype?
To be honest, in the beginning it was mainly for the new challenge, and because I wanted to practice my English.
Plus, a young and creative kindergarten-type startup company felt exactly right for me at the time.
I was also very curious about the work environment here - I'd heard there were dogs in the office and I wanted to know if they really existed!
Once I joined I liked it so much that I stayed - now I'm in my sixth year.
What do I love about working here?
Most of all Skype, is about the people who work here.
All those multi-talented, passionate, fun-loving people - young and old.
They share one true and honest goal, to make the most out of Skype.
If you see people sticking together at tough times for days, trying to fix things that have gone wrong, supporting each other at hours when other people sleep, then you can't help being passionate about something as fascinating as Skype.
What makes it all even more interesting is the fact that the people who work in Skype are not your average IT guys.
People are very talented in their work, but they have many interesting hobbies outside the office.
I can't name the amount of times I've been surprised to discover a colleague is a disk jockey, a cartoon artist, or a wind surfer.
Or that the guy sitting next to me in customer support plays the guitar or sings in a band that's quite well known in Estonia.
It's an interesting place to be.
Sometimes coming to work feels like being reunited with my little extended family.
We share our lives, and don't need to feel restrained by the formalities of a normal corporate company.
In fact, don't be surprised if you're trying to tackle a complicated programming challenge, only to be interrupted by a three year old toddler, a grey husky and an orange kitten running past you.
And yes, that's actually happened here!
Life outside of Skype?
My two great passions are arts - graphic design, drawing, painting - and music.
I sing, write lyrics, play the piano and do some acting in a local university musical theatre.
Occasionally, even after hours of writing training materials, I still take the time to write some poems or update my blog.
I can't forget to mention the fact that there's hardly a person in Skype that changes their hair as often as I do :P
