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Food for thought.....or thinking of food?

Nothing profound. Nothing philisophical. Just food. Lots and lots of food.

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Location: Singapore

 

Dare to dream, and dare to chase your dreams.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

 

If I were to speculate the origin of the phrase "crash course", I would say it most probably came from the first aircraft pilots who learned to land the hard way, because they didn't have any instructors (since they're the pioneers).

Thus a crash course means a course that people take up to learn something very quickly, sacrificing time for guarantee because of the lack of choices.

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People who have been keeping in touch with me lately would know that I'm still hunting for a job. Today, I started a temporary part-time job, carrying out surveys through phone calls. Carrying out surveys is definitely not my cup of tea. Talking to strangers through telephones is even worse.

Till this point of time, I still haven't figured out why I simply can't speak normally (if you take face-to-face conversation as normal) over the phone, especially to strangers. I'll mostly go quiet and let the other party speak when talking to friends, and I'll stammer when with speaking to strangers.

Don't ask me why. I wish I knew myself.

In that case, why do I still take up this part-time job? That's because my friend (who hired me) needs to fill up a quota of 150 surveys by the end of this month and she couldn't find anyone else to do it. I wouldn't have agreed if she hadn't told me she was urgently in need of help.

After all, I need to overcome my weakness sooner or later.

For my first day of attempting phone survey, I've had my fair share of unfriendly and friendly customers. Of course there were much more unfriendly ones - people who came up with all sorts of excuses not to do surveys, like "having meeting now (at home...must be video conferencing)", "call me back at night/during the weekends (they know we work during office hours too)", etc.

Naturally, my stammering was a complete put-off, let alone the fact that I was doing a SURVEY. Can't blame anyone for not wanting to do a survey for me.

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At the end of the day, I feel that I'm taking a "head-bang-wall" course on improving communication skills, by doing something I don't like to do and don't have to do.

On the other hand, maybe I can learn more effectively in this way.

 

 

Level of response: 7

Blogger HCl started blabbering nonsensically:

can understand why talking over the phone may seems really easy but in fact is a feat. Well, first you have to think of opening lines... opening lines are usually rehearsed!.. then come the harder portions that test ur ability to response to difficult situations like how to handle rejections to taking surveys...

really not as easy as it seems to be. Jia you!

1:32 am  
Anonymous Anonymous started blabbering nonsensically:

sometimes, it might be due to psychological hinderance... Cos you feel that you are doing something not right. Perhaps you can try the following to ease your mindset. Ask yourself how you would react if someone call you up for a survey now. Would you have react differently if the approach is different? Choose the best approach that you like most, then use tat method. The best scenerio is that you get your job done, and the other party won't feel unhappy or complain it is a waste of time. Cheeros! I'm sure you be able to overcome ya problem soon. Ganbatte!

10:55 am  
Blogger Ms Chan started blabbering nonsensically:

Practice makes perfect!

I stammered in front of 40 kids when delivering my first lesson too!! Second lesson, still a bit, slowly it will be gone.

It comes with more practice really.. Gambatte!!

7:25 pm  
Blogger Tengkia started blabbering nonsensically:

Progress report for 2nd day:

Marked improvements, but still nervous. Learnt a very important lesson - don't try to contact Muslims on Fridays.

Thanks for all the encouragements.

10:18 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous started blabbering nonsensically:

mel, overcome! things will get better day by day. i volunteer to do survey for u!

10:10 pm  
Blogger deilea started blabbering nonsensically:

I propose that we help Melvin by calling him more often on his mobile/at home. Kekeke.

1:10 am  
Blogger Tengkia started blabbering nonsensically:

Status update:

The job has been put on hold until mid September, but I won't be continuing.

Thanks ah Ru-Tian, thanks a lot.

9:19 am  

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