Last week I did something drastic. I cancelled my internet, cable, and phone. Say what now… yes honey. We were already pass the withdrawal stage after having no service for a week and speaking to incompetent customer service people for Comcast. Who nicely tried to explain that I have to talk to someone in the next department? I know everyone is not like me. A student in the school of customer service accepting responsibility even if I am not the direct cause of the issue. So in haste, I cancelled my service. Hoping they would want to woo me for my business, but sadly they did not.
We will be getting uverse this week for internet and phone. I’ve been doing research on Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV. I have a wii and a wii u so we will stick with those tools, before I invest in one of the streaming boxes. We will likely go with Roku.
Today, I stopped by Comcast/Xfinity to drop of my last box. They opened a new service center. It’s similar to the cell phone stores. The service agents were polite, talkative, and almost made me regret that I was leaving them. I say almost because the new little service center is great but until all the employees at Comcast/Xfinity sip the kool-aid and buy into the mission to improve their image I will just have to deal with u-verse and increase my bonding time at my mothers to suck up her internet and cable.
Before the cable melee, I had already committed myself to 14 books in 2014. So the no cable helps me reach my goal. We even went to the library this week. The librarians were like “it’s great to see you, it’s been a while.” Here is a list of upcoming events. It warmed my heart! Customer service and passion for your job goes a long way. It doesn’t matter how much money make, passion can change the outlook.
My first book of 2014 was Soup by Jon Gordon. I like Jon Gordon. I read his book No Complaining Rule with my team last year. It helped plant the seed to adjust my way of thinking and find ways not to complain. So on to Soup.
I don’t want to give away the full book, so I’ll just talk about a few things of what I learned about it.
Culture is everything. The CEO of Soup, Inc changed many things to increase productivity but the ingredient to the soup were not one of them. Often time we think as leaders think that it’s the job, but people don’t typically leave companies or not produce because they hate their job, it’s usually because they hate their managers.
So as a manager do we baby people, and try to get them to like us? Nope. It’s about sharing your vision and implementing it in everything you do. Once the vision is communicated, we have to build people’s trust. Once your employee’s trust you it’s like the pearly gates open up. I have one previous manager that I have so much trust and faith in, that whatever she asked me to do I would figure out a way to get it done. She was a hard worker; she didn’t you to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. She loved on her people, but she would also hold us accountable.
There are other nuggets in the book; hopefully this inspired you to pick it up.
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