Cue the soundtrack of Nine to Five. As the clock strikes, all the employees walk briskly into the bank, dwarfed by the imposing multi-storey buildings.

It's easy to imagine Dolly Parton singing the song as they go in through the rotating doors: "Workin' nine to five, what a way to make a living."

Johanne Murran (20), like the song says, is "workin' nine to five". Dressed in a smart navy trouser suit, she is efficient and pleasant as another day in the bank begins. She arrives at her desk on the fourth floor, where she works as an operations assistant in the human resource department. It's an interesting, challenging job, she says.

Dealing with staff calls, she says, "you get so many queries, you are trying to find sollutions for staff all the time."

Her work involves gathering and collating different types of information on personnel issues such as salary, maternity leave, travel and transfers. She must produce reports on these. Having gathered the information, she says, "I then put it on an Excel spreadsheet, tidy it up a bit so that it's readable and I process it."

Recently it's become more responsible, she says, especially in the last couple of months following the bank's internal restructuring, which was introduced last year. Her department now looks after the whole of the Republic, rather than a segment. "You have to be organised and pick up things fairly quickly. You have to be on the ball. I wouldn't say you have to be good at maths, but you have to know all the packages. There are plenty of people there to train you and support you.

"I get so many things to do each day - I have to map my day out. I have to have a fairly outgoing manner too."

It was a short move from school at the Dominican College on Griffith Avenue to the Bank of Ireland group office on Baggot Street.

"As the baby in my department," she says, "I'd like to see myself here another five to six years, depending on how far I progress. I'd love to stay here because there's so much to learn."

After the Leaving Cert in 1999, "I didn't really know what I wanted," she recalls. "I had an idea I wanted to do business."

She went to a private college in St Stephen's Green to do business. She completed a diploma in software applications, awarded by Pitman's Institute in London. "It's kind of like a secretarial course to get you used to the business environment," she explains.

"It helped improve my confidence. Working part-time (in Arnott's department store) and college matured me a good bit." Following her two-week work experience in the bank, she applied for a job, was interviewed along with a number of other candidates and ten days later, she was notified of her success.

She began immediately. She is currently studying at night for a BA in industrial relations at the National College of Ireland, Ranelagh. It's another advantage of her job, in that it supports and pays for her to study. She's just started second year. She hopes to graduate in 2003.