Was I Just Baffled by the Bullshit?
May. 23rd, 2002 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljIt's a beautiful sunny cloudless spring day. A rarity round here. It's bad enough to be stuck in the office on such a glorious day, but they herded the whole department to a remote location for an afternoon of touchy feely motivation. Do i sound cynical? Well i've heard it all before, many times. People are enthusiastic, plans are made, and things are good for awhile. then ..... it goes back to the way it was. So excuse me if i walk into this reluctantly.
To begin with, I should say, that i am a computer programmer for an IT department, our "customers" or "clients" are the other departments in the corporation. We aren't trying to sell a product, we are providing a service.
It started out the usual way, we are going to find out how to provide better customer service... oh... excuse me, create a new "Service Culture". Oh yeah. That's the other thing. Acronyms, psychobabble, "wordsmithing" .. "teachable point of view"... oy! They went around the room and we all had to say what we wanted to get out of the afternoon. I really wanted to say "Tell me something i haven't heard before" but i said "I want to know how to sustain the momentum"...
The theme was "get out of the box". Group activities, presentations, reactions. You probably know the routine. And you do participate, you do get caught up in it all. And not even reluctantly because you don't want to be seen as not a team player. I really did enjoy making suggestions for the various lists we had to concoct. One of my friends suggested that even though things do end up going back to the way they were, perhaps we still end up a little bit further ahead than before. Maybe that's true, and it's so slow you don't notice it.
Anyway, i was surprised to find out that i really did hear some new things. A lot of the material, yes, had to do with providing better service but we were asked at times to make lists of expectations or negative things,,, from the customer's point of view. The facilitator was very good and mentioned a book that espouses four "agreements" and they can be applied to anything, your personal life or work.
1. It's what your mother always told you, If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
2. Don't make assumptions
3. Don't take things personally
4. Do your best
We got the "you are responsible TO others, but not FOR them. You are only responsible for yourself"... Talk about working on your own confidence before you can commit to your plan of action, again, be it personal or work. If you improve your own confidence, you end up improving your job and service levels which effects the department and spills over into the corporation etc. But you have to change your thinking first.
Yeah, i know, i sound like i was sucked in by it all. But maybe that's a good thing. I'm not peeing my pants with motivation but it does give me something to think about which is the main point of it all.
It ended with a slide of four heads encased in a box. (moving towards "Get out of the box" theme, remember?) We were asked, what does this picture tell you.... One joker piped up with the line of the day "We need bigger cubicles!"
And the final slide had a slogan that really struck me as very true
Keep your mind open to everything and attached to nothing!
Words to live by.
To begin with, I should say, that i am a computer programmer for an IT department, our "customers" or "clients" are the other departments in the corporation. We aren't trying to sell a product, we are providing a service.
It started out the usual way, we are going to find out how to provide better customer service... oh... excuse me, create a new "Service Culture". Oh yeah. That's the other thing. Acronyms, psychobabble, "wordsmithing" .. "teachable point of view"... oy! They went around the room and we all had to say what we wanted to get out of the afternoon. I really wanted to say "Tell me something i haven't heard before" but i said "I want to know how to sustain the momentum"...
The theme was "get out of the box". Group activities, presentations, reactions. You probably know the routine. And you do participate, you do get caught up in it all. And not even reluctantly because you don't want to be seen as not a team player. I really did enjoy making suggestions for the various lists we had to concoct. One of my friends suggested that even though things do end up going back to the way they were, perhaps we still end up a little bit further ahead than before. Maybe that's true, and it's so slow you don't notice it.
Anyway, i was surprised to find out that i really did hear some new things. A lot of the material, yes, had to do with providing better service but we were asked at times to make lists of expectations or negative things,,, from the customer's point of view. The facilitator was very good and mentioned a book that espouses four "agreements" and they can be applied to anything, your personal life or work.
1. It's what your mother always told you, If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
2. Don't make assumptions
3. Don't take things personally
4. Do your best
We got the "you are responsible TO others, but not FOR them. You are only responsible for yourself"... Talk about working on your own confidence before you can commit to your plan of action, again, be it personal or work. If you improve your own confidence, you end up improving your job and service levels which effects the department and spills over into the corporation etc. But you have to change your thinking first.
Yeah, i know, i sound like i was sucked in by it all. But maybe that's a good thing. I'm not peeing my pants with motivation but it does give me something to think about which is the main point of it all.
It ended with a slide of four heads encased in a box. (moving towards "Get out of the box" theme, remember?) We were asked, what does this picture tell you.... One joker piped up with the line of the day "We need bigger cubicles!"
And the final slide had a slogan that really struck me as very true
Keep your mind open to everything and attached to nothing!
Words to live by.
