Show some enthusiasm. Yes, you’re nervous, I can see that however when it looks like nothing gets you excited, I’m not going to invite you to come and work with me.

And if your CV or Resume claims that you are excellent at communication, make sure you present that at your interview.

I’m watching you from the time you arrive in the car park and if I’m not my colleagues are.

You’re shy? So was I years ago and you can still let your passion, common sense, good manners and all those other good things shine through.

I allow for the the fact that it is intimidating going to a strange place for an interview.

I allow for the fact that you likely won’t have a great answer for all my questions however how you react to those same questions tells me a lot.

The answers aren’t always the most important thing, it is the reaction, the how you deal with the question that is really important.

Go forth and shine.

A Clerk kindly typed me a letter, placed it in an envelope and mailed it to me. i made a 60 second phone call, received the information, scanned and emailed it in as they had kindly provided an email address this time.

What’s my point?

True customer service would have been the clerk picking up the phone and collecting the information his or herself in under 60 seconds and saving their company money at the same time.

If you are in Customer service (we all are), do you go the extra millimetre? Yes millimetre, not inch, it doesn’t take much to give that excellent service.

What can you do?

It allows you to print only what you want to print, you can delete all the other bits and pieces. Nice.

http://www.printwhatyoulike.com/

I installed the Bookmarklet on my browser and it works like a charm.

Enjoy.

It’s interesting and I see it mainly as an attitude and a belief.

I can go find work if I need to – I likely won’t like the wage but I can find work because I will do what I have to (has to be legal) (clean toilets, whatever) to put food on the family table and yet I hear from people I know who can’t find work – they can, in my opinion, they won’t broaden their horizon though. They can’t find work in their chosen field is what it comes down to.

If I was struggling to get a job, I would go door to door selling, offering to cut the grass or just asking if they had work, for example.

How committed are you, what’s your motivation? Sounds simplistic and it is, yet I have never come across someone who is motivated (by whatever) who hasn’t succeeded in getting somewhere. (might take a while) Perhaps this comes from arriving in Canada with no friends, no contacts and no job or perhaps it comes from a belief that there is work there and you just have to find it. The best jobs usually don’t get in the papers anyway.

And all I am talking about is working for someone else. What about working for your toughest boss? You.

Of course, I have reached a position where I have a network of friends, colleagues and customers I can call on and ask for help, and because I look after these people, I know I would get some good help or leads in return.

I’m sure you have thoughts on this emotive subject. Care to share your opinion?

Confucius says:

Forget about the past, you can’t change it.
Forget about the future, you can’t predict it
Forget about the present, I didn’t get you one!

The light at the end of the tunnel has arrived in full glorious sunshine!

It’s been a crazily busy ride getting here and in the last two days I have quoted one potential job worth approximately $250,000 for the company – last minute, vague information initially and with the potential to go wrong in many areas.

It wasn’t an easy job to quote. It’s done, I’m comfortable with the price now, if it goes adrift in any area I have some leeway built in.

The customer only gets billed for the hours we work, however in my experience Customers are happy to pay less than the quoted price and never want to pay more; your estimate has to be close or either you don’t get the job or if you underestimate, they won’t pay for the extra work even if they acknowledge the work was required and completed to their satisfaction – Customer service a topic all to itself.

I know my wife has a to do list for me, of course I have my own which includes catching up on a lot of reading, a lot of year end paperwork and of course lots of fun and visiting.

The visiting starts this morning with a trip out to see a friend at 0900 at a local coffee shop.

Free time is a wonderful thing!

I hope you also get to enjoy some freedom this holiday season.

Enjoy.

Are they men?

For many years now I have been very happy with the simple things in life, like a snack or two as a gift, or a packet of seeds for the garden, a book gift certificate – little things, homemade things or even nothing at all and I remember it being the same for my Dad too.

Is it a guy thing? I guess not as my brother in law loves the whole Christmas gift thing and I am sure there are women out there who also feel the same way about gifts as I do.

Gifts are nice don’t get me wrong, though being a practical sort of guy I like them to be useful (now define useful, a very subjective term indeed!).

I think the biggest gift (at Christmas) is the coming together of families and friends, the sharing of abundance and the goodwill that people display towards others that (perhaps) they don’t usually.

Now there’s a gift you can give to anyone; the cost? A little time and a few kind words. My kind of gift!

What ever you do, how ever you celebrate this time of year, I wish you a wonderful and joyful time.

Appreciate your blessings; there are many.

Sometimes the customer leaves it so late that I don’t get to visit, I have to do the quote based on the answers I get to questions. Risky!

I have quoted several moves recently based on both scenarios, and we completed two such moves this last week. The team who did the move scared me with the time it took on both occasions saying it took longer than I had allowed.
Satisfying or scary, I’m not sure which, I estimated my hours required exactly on both occasions. Depending on the size of the move and the time frame that we are allowed, it requires a well organised team to make if all happen smoothly.

This is actually unusual, typically I aim to be higher so that there is room when the hidden issues arise to slow everything down however I can’t be too high or I won’t get the job. It is always better if I can give the customer a discount at the end of a job, even if just a hundred dollars.

Over time it begins to feel like an art – a number will pop into my head and later this turns out to be pretty close.

Still it’s a relief when a job is over and I can see I worked another one out okay.