Attitude Adjustment

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 14 December 2007 20:35:24

Today I have been mainly dealing with negativity in the workplace.

They say that as you get older you get more cynical and more set in your ways. This has been brought home to me while working in my new job. Yes, I am cynical and have been for many years but I'm not writing about me here.

I have been brought into my new job to strengthen the branch and as a replacement for a colleague who is unwell and may have to finish work earlier than anticipated. It was therefore decided that it would be best to work towards his retirement now rather than find that he has been forced to retire from ill health.

One of the things that I was told in an interview was that he was very good at his job (and he is) but that his attitude was sometimes challenging. This week I have discovered that this is indeed the case. However I can understand why this is the case.

One of our customers has gone bust 3 timesw but always resurfaced a few days later in another guise. Another customer was let down by us in the past and went elsewhere. Now they have come back with an opportunity for us in the Middle East; unfortunately, instead of being happy, we've had face pulling and warnings of imminent loss of the business.

The other day I had put together a quote to win a new route from a new customer, who promise to be a big source of future business. At the last minute a possible hitch appeared that I started to sort out. I was told to stop wasting my time as it wasn't possible to do what the customer wanted, therefore I had to forego the business.

24 hours later I decided to contact our Canadian agent and found that what I wanted to do could have been done but now it was to late as the business had gone to a competitor. I was really annoyed at this as it had made us look like fools to our customer, who wants to give us all his business.

However I have decided that I'll follow my own gut instincts in future and tell him afterwards. I don't like doing this as he is a very nice bloke; he always thinks of others before himself and always tries to go the extra mile. The problem is that sometimes his attitude gets in the way of his work.

Have written that I can see people in Wib World saying: "Doesn't that sound familiar?"