management lessons

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Today’s a bad day. 🙁

I had to handle 2 problematic calls which of course, I pick the calls, MY ass is on the line. To kena twice in a day makes me feel like I’m going to be suay for 3 years.

I cannot understand why people refuse to accept the alternative and want to persist in forcing you into a corner. Just as you want me to understand your position, please try to understand mine. I am not in the position where I can make decisions and promise you anything. We try to give you the best we can offer at the moment while we rectify the problem but that does not mean the change can be made instantaneously. I don’t have magic. I can’t just wave a wand now and make everything ok. So stop trying to make me feel damn small. Stop thinking you can insult my intelligence just coz I can’t argue back. Bottomline: don’t think that just coz you’re the customer, you’re ALWAYS right. It’s not true ok.

The first call made me so frustrated and pissed off that I just wrote “FUCK” on my rough paper. I was even ready to break my pencil in two. Anyway, I wrote some angry words next to her name on my call log sheet. She’s condemned by me. :angry: :angry: :angry:

I need some management lessons. Tell me how to be empathise and yet stay firm. I realise when I empathise with the customer, they somehow get bolder and continue on and on. Oh well, in other words, they finally succeed in making me feel small and I end up having to escalate the call to my team leader. It’s so frustrating. The normal me would have just argued back and even put down the phone if I feel like it. But here, I have to (pretend) to be patient and understanding when I’m bursting inside to tell the person on the line to just fuck off.

shoot

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First time in 2-3 months I enter Binan no Nikki and what do I see?

Masuda Tattata (63)

63 entries?! Shit. Major reading to do.

I’m thinking of changing Kuro-chan’s wallpaper to Mike. But I feel like I’m betraying Massu. And when the hell am I THAT crazy over Mike?! *shakes myself* Bloop bloop bloop…

your name in my notebook

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Sudden thoughts.

I didn’t blog about watching Death Note on Saturday!!! How could I have forgotten something so important?! :glare: Heh, so Sis, Jie Min and I caught the movie on Saturday. It was good.

Sis and I agree that Light (藤原竜也) reminds us of Ohno from Arashi. That’s coz his face is round, just like Ohno. Sis was kinda disappointed when she saw who was acting as L. That woman lahz…didn’t believe me when I told her the guy is the one acting as Aya’s senior in 1リットルの涙. Haha, she said he looked so cool on the poster.

L is a pretty weird but cool person. Somehow he eats nothing but sweet food. Doughnuts speared on a BBQ skewer. Sugar cubes stacked up tall and later dropped into his cup of tea. Tea stirred with a lollipop. Who would have thought of all these?

Anyway, after watching the movie, it makes one want to threaten anyone who irritates you with “You had better not annoy me or I’ll write your name in the notebook.” Death of an unknown cause. No previous medical history but a sudden heart attack. Sweet.

The God of Death loves eating apples. Do you?

Random thought #1: I shall add this under my wishlist… Dining in 小老板’s shop in Osaka with Per. I hope Per can save up enough money by next year so my wish can be fulfilled before I go off to study for 4 years (another ‘hopefully’ case). *cross fingers and toes*

Random thought #2: Seishun de FEVARrrrr! Mucha kucha na FUCHAaaaa ga ii ne~~~ Mike is cuter than Golf!!! :rofl: Since yesterday, DBSK’s “Rising Sun” and GYM’s “フィーバーとフューチャー” has been on my mind.

Help! It’s the attack of the little ants! A lot of ants appearing in my study room. Wonder where they come from. PK, can you tell your friends to stay away?

how i wish

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Selamat Hari Raya to all my malay friends.

Today is coming to an end. The long-awaited holiday. *really? raises eyebrow* Tomorrow will be back to work. How I wish everyday could be a holiday and that I am loaded so I can go all around the world.

Yesterday in the office, everyone was in the holiday mood. Then the holiday came. And now it’s going to end. 😥

Went to Sof’s house for lunch. Yea yea…I was late again. Sof, why do you have to live so far?

I need to stop spending so much. But I’m dying to go shopping for clothes… Blah ah.

Olivia’s new song as Reira, “Wish” sounds more rockish. I much prefer “A Little Pain”. But Olivia looks pretty as ever, just like a doll.

I finally caught GYM’s PV for “フィーバーとフューチャー” on youtube. Yea…Mike is cuter lahz.

moving along fine

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I think I’m coming along fine. I just completed a week of my no-life shift. Each team is taking turns to work late each week from now till Dec.

Next week I’ll be going for motor insurance training. Good luck to me. Moving forward from the comfort of working on the easiest type of insurance – travel insurance.

Quite interesting. I get to learn/experience some very interesting things. Like yesterday, I got a call from a lady saying that Finnair cabin crew are on strike, she has to cancel her trip and wants to know whether she can claim for the her prepaid hotel expenses.

Our department also got warned of a very interesting lady. I tell you, this woman is DA BEST. She has always been getting extra 5% discount from her agent. So she expects the whole department to know about it. Best part, she will call up to TEST people. And she will scold you if you don’t know about it. Poor Elly got scolded by her. This is being totally unreasonable. How can the whole department know? There will always be new staff coming in, can’t expect them to know everything right? WTF. So suay to kena scolded by this kinda people. Imagine being suay for 3 years for NOTHING lahz. :angry: :angry: :angry:

Pffffft.

Happy Deepavali to all my indian friends.

And Happy 21st birthday to 7ners’ dear Pwen. We miss you.

ne, Nana

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Once again, I’m on a NANA high. That’s coz I just found out there’s a second part to the movie! WOOHOO! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it’ll be too abrupt to end with Hachi (Komatsu Nana) crying coz Takumi is standing right in front of her.

The actors/actress for the characters Komatsu Nana, Ren and Shin have changed for the second part. Hongo Kanata is the new Shin. WHATTTTTTTTT?! That small boy in Hinokio? But I think he’s a good replacement. At least he looks younger to fit the role. Only thing is I can’t imagine how the innocent looking boy is going to look not-so-innocent, having more of a bad boy look. As for the role of Hachi, I can’t understand why they chose to replace Miyazaki Aoi. Her replacement, Ichikawa Yui looks cute but somehow Aoi has this irresistable sweetness to her.

The theme song will be sung by Nakashima Mika (Oozaki Nana). This time, the song is written by Takuro of Glay with the lyrics by Ai Yazawa. Haha…Sis was saying how come it’s not Hyde again but once she heard it’s going to be Takuro, she was appeased. Of course the other song featured will be sung by Yuna Ito (Reira).

OMG! It’s not even showing in Japan yet but I can’t wait for the dvd to be out!!! *bounces around* My wallpaper has been changed. My start page has been changed. All to do with NANA. Woot! :woot:

And I have to thank Ling for influencing me. *bows*

the A of KAT-TUN

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KAT-TUN fans are probably damn upset now coz the A of KAT-TUN has announced he will be on hiatus for some time. I know how it pierces your heart that your Jin Jin will not be around. I was equally crushed when NewS announced their hiatus. So the bottom-line is…deal with it.

I’m not trying to be mean but at least we all know that Akanishi Jin will be on hiatus for studies. Look at Uchi. Gawd knows when he will be back. KAT-TUN will always be KAT-TUN with or without Jin’s physical presence. Just like Kanjani8 continued on without Uchi’s presence.

So wipe off your tears and give the man some good luck.

the irony at work

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Almost 2 weeks in the new job. Seriously speaking, I wasn’t too sure of it when I started out. I hadn’t expected to be working in a call centre. When I was told I would be answering calls, I didn’t expect like 24/7. I tried very hard to convince myself to not give up. The words of the lady at the career centre in UIUC imprinted in my mind. “If you haven’t tried (a job), how can you say you don’t like it?” Thus, I promised to give myself one month.

By the second day of answering calls, I was really toying with the idea of giving up. I talked to Mum. She told me I could quit if I want to. That maybe this isn’t the job cut out for me. But she warned me to think whether I was using this as an excuse or I truly felt that way. I weighed my options and decided to stick it out coz that meant I would have some sort of income. Besides, Mum said that if Sis and I wanted to go to Japan next year, we’ll have to pay for our own trip expenses. *sigh*

Inwardly, I told myself I could do it. That I always managed to survive everything I got thrown into. I may not emerge tops but at least I will learn to float. True enough, I’m starting to feel a little more confident. Thank goodness for my nice colleagues. I think they really put up with my many calls to clarify certain things, however small the doubt is.

I’ve met with some pretty nice customers. One very nice Mrs Tan said she’ll ask her agent to buy me a drink and that I was very patient. I thought she was the one being very patient with me. I had to call her back twice coz I wasn’t too sure of the terms and conditions. I’ve had another customer say “God bless you”. God bless you too. 🙂

I’ve had not so nice customers too. Like today. Some insurance agents are pretty obnoxious. They think just coz they are in more or less the same line as us, that they know most of the rules, then they are higher up. They are so impatient. One called in to activate a policy for his client. It is by standard procedures that we have to confirm the policy holder’s address and phone numbers. Common sense. Wrong address = don’t receive policy. Simple logic right? While I was repeating the address, the agent kept cutting me off with his impatient “ya…ya…YA”. Think you are so damn smart right? Wait till the address is wrong and your client doesn’t receive the policy. What are you going to do then? Call back to scold us right?

Then came the next agent. Called in to check on 2 of his clients’ policies. One was fine. The other was supposed to have been amended with one more insured. Checked the notes history to see if someone had already alerted the officer-in-charge. Sure, there was one but strange thing was that it was marked inactive but the changes have not been reflected. I told the agent that and wanted to offer to check it out. That was when he insisted (rudely) that he wanted the policy to be cancelled. That he would create another policy with all the correct details. I got so confused, I didn’t even take down his number.

Was getting alarmed. Cancelling a policy would mean that the customer would not get a full refund. There would be a $15 cancellation fee. I didn’t take down the agent’s number so I couldn’t call him back. Decided to call the policy holder instead. She picked up the phone on my second call but before I could explain everything, she cut me off saying she was in a meeting. So, we’re back to square one and I was running out of time. Had to get to the agent before he created a new policy.

Getting my mind to do things step by step, I called one of my colleagues to help me with the note. Why it was marked inactive by the officer but the changes have not been made. She explained that they need time to get to that. I told her of what happened and she helped me get the agent’s number via the directory. Every agent has a rep code so we can use that to find out their contact details.

I called the guy, explaining that I already checked out the problem and that time was needed to see the changes being reflected. So no worries coz the officer did see the note and will make the changes. He insisted he wanted it to be cancelled. I told him that he couldn’t do that coz there would be a $15 charge. The guy decided to get all rude on me. Said that I was wasting his time and why couldn’t I just cancel the policy like he said. That we have an online application form to make things faster for us right? I didn’t dare promise him anything more coz I wouldn’t want to be held responsible if I promised the wrong things so I offered to let him talk to my (higher up) colleague so she could explain things to him.

Anyway, the minute I put down the phone, I muttered “fuckin’ asshole” under my breath. That asshole managed to spoil my day. I was like ready to scold every vulgarity under the sun. Shamala’s right. There will always be one customer to spoil your day. I HATE UNREASONABLE PEOPLE LIKE HIM! :angry: :angry: :angry: To appease my anger and frustration at not being able to scold out loud, I decided to draw an angry face beside his name on the call log sheet. Yes, he’s condemned by me now.

It’s quite ironic that we have to talk to people so sweetly though we really want to reach over and stab them. Just one call to make you so angry and the next call comes in and you have to pretend like nothing’s wrong. “Good morning/afternoon. NTUC Income. This is Elisia speaking. How may I assist you?”

it cuts deep

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As she shared with us that very little bit on what was going on and how she felt, I couldn’t help but feel sorry and angry at the same time. No one should have to go through this sort of thing.

Thinking back about the past. I’m sorry, I cannot erase it from my mind totally. Simply coz of the hurt and disappointment I felt. I cannot understand why people choose to believe a one-sided story and then ostracise someone else. It’s really disappointing to find out that the same people you call friends would do this kinda thing to you. When I say ostracise here, it doesn’t have to mean to totally keep clear from someone. But simply the strange feeling they give you when you’re with them. Like on the surface they talk to you, but probably deep down they think otherwise. It’s like mental vibes to tell you your presence is not wanted.

She is going through exactly the same thing now.

It’s shocking. It really teaches you not to trust people that easily. But is it wrong to try to believe that everyone has that bit of goodness in them? Is it wrong to show the real, genuine you only to become vulnerable to such attacks that you never saw coming? You may think it’s nothing coz as time passes, we may talk again like as if it’s forgotten. But let me tell you, it cuts deep.