Meet the Team: Mandy Lloyd, TLS Bookings

Every month, we introduce you to one of our team. This month, meet Mandy Lloyd, one of our bookings team.

Tell us about the role you do for TLS

My role for TLS is to answer incoming calls from professionals who need interpreters to carry out their appointments. I take all the callers’ details and have a phone around to find an interpreter for any given language. Once the interpreter is connected to the professional I will dial in the service user if required and then when I’m confident everyone is in the call I hang up and get ready for the next call.

What’s been your favourite project at TLS?

My favourite project without doubt was the switching over to our new phone system – such a user friendly and easy platform to navigate.

What has been your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge was handling calls with our previous call system, it was very manual and not as user friendly as what we have now.

If you didn’t do your current job, what would you like to do?

If I didn’t do this job and I had my time again I would definitely go into forensic science and criminology, both of which fascinate me.

Tell us something interesting about you.

Some interesting things about me:

• I ate cucumber sandwiches and drank iced coffee at one of the Queen’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace. Given that our wonderful Queen has just died, I see this as even more of a privilege than it was at the time.
• I swam in the Weeki Wachee River in Florida with a family of manatee, quite by chance as we were snorkelling! A 6 week old baby manatee swam over to us for a chin scratch, just like a puppy would. This was one of those WOW moments in my life!
• I went to Ascot Ladies Day in a 4 in hand horse drawn carriage, we stopped on the long walk in the grounds of Windsor Castle to drink champagne and take in the moment before joining guests in the Royal Enclosure.
• I was rescued by the RNLI and brought back to shore in a lifeboat after the engine on our power boat failed. Not one of my finer moments but exciting to say the least and since that day I’m an avid supporter of the RNLI. Getting back to shore was a little embarrassing as quite a crowd had gathered to watch… thank you RNLI!

If you could meet someone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Without doubt it would be Sir David Attenborough. He has become one of the country’s national treasures for the work he has done for wildlife conservation and the planet and I would love to hear some of his stories.

What are your ambitions for the next 12 months?

In the next 12 months I would like to turn a strip of land my son has given me into an allotment. Now is the time to start digging and preparing for next year and I hope to grow enough food and flowers for the family. I’ve grown plenty in the garden this year but I’m looking forward to doing this on a much bigger scale.

If you would like to be profiled, or know someone else who would, please get in touch by emailing zainub.patel@newham.gov.uk