If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career as a customer service representative, It’s that there are always more things I can learn. I vowed long ago to never stop bettering and Improving myself. I assure you that I could work on It a lifetime and still lust end up mediocre. One of the best methods I’ve found for self-improvement Is taking some time each year to assess my weaknesses and come up with a plan to correct them. To help me remember, I do it each year around my birthday. I usually do this exercise the day before.
No one wants to spend time pondering their flaws on their special day. This way, I get it all out of the way and then spend the next day thinking about more positive things like whether or not I’m going to eat ice cream with my birthday cake. It was just a few weeks ago that I examined my current weaknesses. The first is that I don’t deal well with distractions. In my role as a customer service representative, a large part of my day Is consumed by answering the phone and talking, often at length, with our customers.
The unfortunate part of this Is that It takes me entirely too long after the end of the call to remember what I was doing before I took It. As a result, I’ve started using sticky notes to remind myself. If I’m typing an email or document, I quickly stick a note to the screen before answering the phone. That way, even if the screener kicks in before I’m done with my call, I’ll still have the bright pink square to point me to where I left off. The same goes for printed materials. If I’m reading a report when the phone rings, I place a tick note after the last sentence I read so that I can easily pick up where I left off.
The second weakness I identified is my inability to delegate. Being the control freak that I am, I often hesitate to hand off subtasks in a project because I honestly don’t trust others to do the Job as well as I would. What I’ve pointed out to myself is that, because I’m spending so much time on the more routine portions of the assignment, the quality of the entire project itself Is compromised. I simply can’t dedicate an adequate amount of time to the bigger tasks If I’m wasting so much time on the smaller ones.
As a result, Vive been assailing some of them to our department secretary. She’s done a great Job so far, and she’s really enjoying helping me. Not only am I freeing up more of my time, I’m helping with her development as well. Lastly, after all these years in Corporate America, I find that I still have difficulty remembering the names of the people I meet. I introduce myself and shake their hand. When they tell me their own name, I often don’t even hear what they’re saying cause I’m too busy sizing them up or thinking about my next comment.
What I’ve done to combat this is to change the way I introduce myself. I now say, “Hello, I’m Susan Smith. And you are…? ” Then I pause. After they tell me their name, I repeat it back to them Like this. “HI, there, Claude McCarty. It’s a pleasure to meet you. ” I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and haven’t missed a single name yet! In a nutshell, one of the worst flaws a person can have Is to be oblivious to their own weaknesses. However, probably the most Inexcusable Is to be aware of one’s flaws
