I have been working in a technical support call center environment for more than six years now. As a technical person myself, this type of work suits me considerably, and I believe myself to be a very good manager, with my impeccable people skills and my top-notch decision making as my strengths. Currently, I am a glorified slave in a multi-million global software company who specializes in anti-virus programs and Internet security. The pay is good, much higher than my previous job, the workload is okay, much bearable than my previous job, and I am in a higher management position.
I started here last September, along with a few other managers, because the company wanted to inject new blood into their operations and that they wanted to adapt a real call center environment when it came to technical support with their Internet security software.
Anyway, during my first few days when I still had some idle time, I came across a site that would let you e-mail your future self on a pre-determined date. You could ask yourself anything, ask yourself how you are doing, tell something to yourself, ponder what happened with you, what you ate today, what the price of gasoline is, how many times you picked your nose. Anything.
Anyway, so at September 18, 2006, I e-mailed this to myself, to be received at March 4, 2007 (the day that I will be regularized):
(The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on Monday, September 18, 2006, and sent via FutureMe.org)
Dear FutureMe,
So was it a good decision? Are you still with the company? Made any friends yet? Making an impact? Personally and professionally?
Just remember, whatever happens, life will get better.
-Filip 9/18/06 5:15pm
So there it was. A question I asked myself that was meant to make me think of how I was doing in this new job. For the past 6 months, I thought I had done pretty well. I had new friends. I was doing my work pretty efficiently. I was able to do all tasks assigned to me in a relatively acceptable manner. Then it happened.
One night, while I was out with my friends, my boss called me to check where I was and see if I was okay. He told me that there was an e-mail sent to everybody at work from an anonymous person.
It had me in it.
It was a complaint letter "apparently" from a disgruntled worker here at the office. The letter complained about the new managers not doing their job, not knowing how to motivate their people, questioned our motives, and just basically said that me along with the other new managers are doing a bad job and that we are not qualified for our management position. This e-mail was sent to everybody. When I say "everybody" I mean everybody: peers, subordinates, upper management, general manager, CEO, president, etc.. Needless to say, I was shocked that someone would question me personally about my work and my work ethic.
Anyway, since the e-mail was badly written, had no real purpose, and did not address anything real, the news died down just about after one or two days.
The thing that got to me is, I didn't expect that the e-mail I wrote to myself six months ago would have so much relevance to what I would be experiencing in a new environment. I've learned a long time ago that you cannot please everyone but as long as you work hard for the people around you, everything will turn out fine.
I guess, the moral of this story is: In hard times and in good times, it is in yourself that you can find strength to overcome whatever hurdle is in front of you. Sometimes, you are your own motivator. And sometimes, you are your own voice.
