Category: Ashes of Time

How can I help you with ?

The above sentence may sound a bit weird, funny, awkward to most of you. In fact, many of you have never said it before to your internal customers, external customers. But to many, it’s a sign of good service, and a sign that the problems will be taken care of. On the other hands, time to time I heard the following two sentences from some of you:

I don’t know, it’s none of my business …

I believe most of you (if not all) did not mean what you said, but to the one who get your answers – it’s a sign of poor service, poor attitude and down right poor job being done. Obviously, you shall tell your customers – “I will check and get back to you as soon as possible”. Don’t bother to tell the customer that another staff can handle it – you shall simply take up the job, ask the colleague(s) who’s expert in the problem area to fix it and then revert to your customer. That’s a one-stop shop.

I am not an English teacher per se, but I want to let you know that it’s time to further improve our working attitude and be more customer-focus. As a matter of fact, I believe most of you (again, if not all) are providing top-notch services to many others. But again, there is no limit in quality improvement – you all can do it better.

In that poor economic environment, we have to improve ourselves just to stay afloat and we cannot afford any poor service, poor attitude and anti-professionalism.

Be alert. Life is not easy anymore.

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Understand that you all won’t have the time and desire to buy new books week after week. But recently there is a very readable article – i.e. the President Bush’s address to the Congress on 20th September. As you may aware, the speech may be one of the most important one in recent years and surprisingly, it is very comprehensible.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

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Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated. ~ Lou Holtz ~

To those of you soccer fans, last weekend was an unbelievable one. First of all, Holland’s chances of world cup qualifying died in Dublin. And then England won the game against Germany in one of the finest moments ever in soccer history.

According to the newswire, “The result that shocked the world also stunned the team which achieved it. Minutes after leaving the field in Munich’s Olympic Stadium, the England players sat in almost perfect silence around the dressing room, their eyes glued to a large TV monitor in the corner.”

I actually have the same experience before, right after 8:00 am of 8th August – the day we launched …

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I know how good you are and now perhaps you can believe how good you are.

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For those book bugs, my suggestions this month are:

• The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches by Brian MacArthur
• The Tipping Point (How little things can make a big difference) by Malcom Gladwell
• Scaling for eBusiness (Technologies, Models, Performance and Capacity Planning) by Daniel Menasce

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“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going, when you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this… you haven’t”

“When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.”

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“The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

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I am pretty sure none of you have the time to read the books I recommended last month. But still, if you’re interested in those but not preferred to buy one, let me know and borrow one from me.

And this month, I suggest :

• The Power of Six Sigma – an easy-to-read book about the hottest quality and management methodology.
• Thinking in Java – The book about why, not how to use Java

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Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. ~ Henry Ford ~

Time flies and all a sudden we are going to launch this service Friday this week. I would like to thank all of you for all the hard-work. It’s not an easy project for all of us, as failure is not an option. However, you did a wonderful job and I am sure we will have a great success. After all, failure is an event, never a person. And I promise I will not blame you, or lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune. I will only blame myself, the management 😎

You win only if you aren’t afraid to lose.

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Books of the month are “Shackleton’s Way“, and “Who moved my cheese?“. Read it and you will find that what we are going through are really easy stuff. For those who like technical books – try “Nudist on the night shift“.

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“There is some place where your specialties can shine. Somewhere that difference can be expressed. It’s up to you to find it, and you can.” ~ David Viscott ~