05 Jun 08 Good Company Treatment
Hari ini saya menerima telepon dari CS jobstreet.com intinya dia menanyakan apakah saya sedang mencoba memposting iklan lowongan baru, dan dengan tersipu malu saya menjawab iya, kenapa malu…?
Yah pasalnya karena saya lupa quota job posting saya sudah expired dari bulan lalu, tapi saya nekat masih berusaha menggunakannya saja, setelah itu tiba2x dia menawarkan untuk memberikan free extend quota job posting saya untuk draft lowongan yang sudah terlanjur saya buat itu, hmmm this is nice pikir saya dan mereka mempersilahkan saya untuk finalized draft lowongan yang hendak saya buat untuk kemudian mereka tayangkan di website mereka.
Yang saya suka dari service mereka adalah :
- CS yang tanggap terhadap apa yang sedang dilakukan customer mereka didalam account mereka.
- Tanggap menawarkan pemberitahuan walaupun hak saya sendiri untuk mendapatkan service mereka sudah expired.
- Menerapkan system yang tidak kaku, terbukti dengan mudahnya memberikan bonus extend service (walaupun ini sebenanya memang jatah quota yang saya beli dari mereka, tapi toh salah saya juga tidak menggunakany didalam masa servicenya berlaku ).
Hal hal seperti ini buat saya cukup baik dan efektif dalam mempengaruhi customer menentukan penilaian service terhadap vendornya, good work buat jobstreet.com
16 Jan 08 [COPAS Blogwalking....] Three Signs That You Have A Customer Worth Losing
Think about it for a moment. If they are so knowledgeable in the area then why are you sourced to implement the project? The best case scenario would be that they’d like to focus on other business areas. On the other hand, they probably only want you as a safety buffer; if the project goes well, then they’ll take credit for the project… if it goes wrong, just blame the consultant: that’s you!
Fortunately, it’s somewhat easy to spot potentially problematic customers. Listed here are three key identifiers.
1) They Don’t Value Your Time
It is important that you identify this trait before even submitting a proposal. See if they stick to appointments. Some points to note are:
* Do they often postpone meetings?
* If so, do they inform you in advance?
* When they are the initiating party did they provide you with meeting minutes beforehand?
* How often is it that meetings get canceled after you arrived at the location?
* Is a contact person assigned for your project?
* Do they respond to requests for input in a timely manner?
* Do they give you “urgent” demands for changes often?
* Do they often amass a huge inventory of requests and hand it to you on Friday expecting them to be completed by Monday?
If you answered yes to most of the questions above, then I feel very sorry for you. It’s obvious that you have a customer from hell. If you’re doing it for the money, then I hope it’s worth it. However, more often than not, I would personally recommend that you avoid them as soon as they’re identified.
Lost money can be found elsewhere, but lost time is gone for good.
2) They Think They Are Your Only Customers
There’s one important aspect of doing business and it’s called respect. Respect should go both ways. Vendors should respect customers because they provide income for your business. Customers too should respect vendors as they help your business run more smoothly.
That’s the ideal situation, however there are times when you as a vendor are not treated with respect. The most obvious sign of the lack of respect is when a customer thinks that your universe revolves around them.
Everything should be done now and you should do it because you’re at their beck and call. Needless to say, if a client is identified to be in this category, it’s time to execute your exit strategy.
You do have exit strategies, don’t you?
3) They Don’t Honour Agreements
An agreement is a set of mutually accepted terms and conditions. It takes great care and effort to construct an agreement and when it’s done parties are bound by this agreement. Although agreements should have some flexibility in it, the core of the agreement should remain and be respected.
Although I’ve mentioned that agreements should have some form of flexibility built in, one needs to understand the difference between flexibility and downright exploitation.
Flexibility goes both ways. If the client wants additional services to be included in the agreement then you as a vendor have the right to charge for it. Resist the temptation to fold beneath the pressure of your customers pleas and demands for performing additional services out of “goodwill”.
From experience, I’ve discovered that once you accept a few additional requests without amendments in terms of payments, customers tend to take this as part of the agreement scope and will throw in additional requests without being prepared to reciprocate in terms of financial allocations from their side.
Some do it out of naivete, but there are also who are downright milking you for every single ounce of energy that you are “willing” to put in.
So the next time you think you have clinched a major contract make sure you have your bases covered. Otherwise the project might be too big for you to chew down the road, and you’d lose on other profitable ventures.
29 Nov 07 Programmer VS Manager
Ada banyak issue yang berkembang disekitar dua bidang pekerjaan ini, secara umum yg terjadi di dalam dunia proffesional perusahaan selalu memandang jenjang karir yang umum adalah mengarah ke sisi manajerial, tetapi pada kenyataannya tidak semua kasus bisa diperlakukan seoerti itu.
Ada banyak kejadian diperusahaan bila programmer mereka sudah cukup lama membuktikan bahwa dia sudah bekerja dengan baik di job descnya maka perusahaan akan memberikan jenjang karir ke level manajerial, singkat cerita seorang “core programmer” mendapat promosi untuk mengatur kinerja programmer2x lainnya.
Secara teori umum, seorang individu yg mempunya kemampuan belajar yg baik akan dapat menguasia teori2x dasar managerial dengan mudah dan kemudian melakukan pekerjaanya dangan baik, akan tetapi apakah kemudian menjadi barometer kepuasan dia dengan kenaikan posisi kemanagerial, itu lain kasus jadinya
Ini saya kutip dari cerita yang saya baca dr sbuah blog “Wide vs Deep”, Teorinya seorang manager akan melakukan pekerjaannya secara “dangkal tapi luas” artinya manager harus menangani banyak macam pekerjaan dan harus bisa menyelesaikannya tanpa haru mendalami unsur teknisnya secara detail, pemahaman teknisnya cukup untuk memahami situasi masalah saja, sedangkan seorang programmer melakukan pekerjaanya secara “sempit dan dalam”, bahkan programer harus mengusai teknis sampa ke titik koma dari teorinya agar dia dapat menyelesaikan tugasnya dengan baik.
Akhirnya pertanyaanya akan kembali ke individu yang melakukan pekerjaan itu “What type of a guy u are?”, seorang programmer biasanya tipe pekerja yang detail dan sengan merunut semuanya sampai ke titik koma nya, bagaimana jadinya apabila programmer di promosikan majadi manager…?
Ada beberapa macam hasil yang timbul dari kasus ini, dari kasus yang saya baca malah timbul kejadian lucu si manajer minta diturunkan kembali menjadi programmer, bukan karena dia tidak mampu melakukan pekerjaanya sebagai manajer tapi semata mata karena dia tidak menyenagi pekerjaannya, ada kejadian yang saya lihat malah agak merugikan adalah ketika si programmer bisa menyesuaikan dirinya dengan pekerjaan manajerial dia harus kehilangan sebagian kemammpuannya sebagai seorang programmer, tidak maslah bila dia memang memaklumi hal itu tapi apa bila pekerjaanya sebagai programmer adalah kebanggaannya maka akan timbul masalah dari hal itu.
Moral of the story, tidak semua jejang karir adalah beralih ke posisi managerial, menurut saya jenjang dibuat untuk memuaskan pekerja dalam kehidupan berkarirnya tapi bila kenaikan itu menghilangkan “Passion” nya dalam bekerja maka artinya harus ada yg dipikirkan kembali.
27 Nov 07 Programmer are rude…???
Ini gw quote dr bacaan gw di internet….
Programmers are just rude, HA! But at least now I know why.
Why programmers are generally rude:1. Because most other people are stupid!
Wheww, I am glad I got that off my chest. Lets face it, people who try to get coders to do things for them don’t know what the hell they really want to begin with. It is only after many hours of pouring over O’Reilly books, and typing away in a text editor, that you find out what they really want, and usually it is not included, or not at all what you hacked out and packaged.
2. Mountain Dew, Jolt Cola, Pork Rinds and Day-old Pizza!
Seriously, programmers should take better care of themselves. They are generally on call 24-7-365, so they are up all night, then the company demands them to perform during the day. “What?! The coder came in late to work AGAIN!”. Seriously some of you bosses out there need to chill a little bit. Its amazing that programmers can go home, they get on the Internet, and guess what they are doing? Looking up solutions to your friggin business problems. Get off their back, and realize they need the full 8-hours of sleep also. Not that they would actually get it. Oh ya, this goes back to #1 somewhat. If your programmer is on call 24-7 DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT call them at 2:00am and ask them to come back in because you don’t have the friggin sense to configure your own outlook account! Now if the company is going down in flames because your Enterprise System is falling down, that is a different story.
3. Coders are anti-social.
Actually this is a misnomer. Coders aren’t really anti-social, but if they are working on a problem the last thing they want to do is be interrupted for some trivial bullshit. Now, c’mon, as a business person, if you are working on a financial prospectus and you can’t seem to get the numbers to come out right, (I.E. Enron) do you really want your wife/husband/sig. O calling you asking what you would like for dinner, and you have to make the decision ‘RIGHT FRIGGIN NOW!’ ? Of course not! So do not ask your coder to fix a fax machine when he is coding in some new obscure language. Just leave him alone, or send an email stating that ‘whenever he has time…..’ .
4. Coders are under-appreciated!
Now seriously when was the last time you told your programmer that his/her services were appreciated? Now I am not talking about sitting around a campfire holding hands singing ‘Kum-by-Ya’. All I am talking about is just a simple reminder that you realize the coder is a valuable part of the team, and that you understand/empathize/sympathize with his/her time/struggles/problems with bosses/secretaries/mail-room clerks/and other people who ask usual silly/stupid/inane/ questions. A little harsh here but seriously, if you have to ask what a browser is, then you have real problems, don’t expect your coder to be your own private tutor. Go find the answers out for yourself.
26 Nov 07 Respect in a workplace….
The workplace is a very stressful area that we spend a lot of our time in. A lot of the time more than a third of our waking hours are spent working under stressful conditions. Being in the IT department is more stressful than most as it is our job to solve problems and that is what we hear all day and every day. Being constantly bombarded with negative impacts will wear out anyone. No matter how strong they are. That is why there is such a high burnout rate amongst the IT crowd.
This can be alleviated somewhat by the way that people treat each other. The workplace is a place of business and not a family living room. In a family home, ie. your own home, emotions are not hidden. Both good and bad are displayed for all to see. Occasionally, no matter how much we love our closest and dearest to our hearts, we treat them with disrespect, scorn and anger tantrums. These outbursts (usually as a result of work stress) are quickly forgotten, ruffled feathers are smoothed over and bridges rebuilt.
This method of close interaction doesn’t fit well in the workplace. The workplace has a much larger mix of emotional types and a snide comment by one person can and usually is taken as a full blown insult resulting in a state of war that is very hard to resolve peacefully, if at all. It is very important that everyone treat everyone else with respect no matter who is talking to who. In a workplace everyone has a specific job to do and they are all equally as important. From the CEO to the Janitor everyone needs to maintain a certain standard of interpersonal interaction. If this is not maintained then workplace stress rises, moral drops and the fabric of the workplace starts to unravel like Auntie Mays home knitted woolen jumper.
So if you are reading this (and I am a hundred percent sure you are 
be very aware of how you interact with the people around you. It can make all the difference between a meal ticket and the handout line.
10 Feb 07 If you cannot repair your network……
02 Nov 06 “mssql” apostrophe error
30 Nov 99 Good Company Treatment
Hari ini saya menerima telepon dari CS jobstreet.com intinya dia menanyakan apakah saya sedang mencoba memposting iklan lowongan baru, dan dengan tersipu malu saya menjawab iya, kenapa malu…?
Yah pasalnya karena saya lupa quota job posting saya sudah expired dari bulan lalu, tapi saya nekat masih berusaha menggunakannya saja, setelah itu tiba2x dia menawarkan untuk memberikan free extend quota job posting saya untuk draft lowongan yang sudah terlanjur saya buat itu, hmmm this is nice pikir saya dan mereka mempersilahkan saya untuk finalized draft lowongan yang hendak saya buat untuk kemudian mereka tayangkan di website mereka.
Yang saya suka dari service mereka adalah :
- CS yang tanggap terhadap apa yang sedang dilakukan customer mereka didalam account mereka.
- Tanggap menawarkan pemberitahuan walaupun hak saya sendiri untuk mendapatkan service mereka sudah expired.
- Menerapkan system yang tidak kaku, terbukti dengan mudahnya memberikan bonus extend service (walaupun ini sebenanya memang jatah quota yang saya beli dari mereka, tapi toh salah saya juga tidak menggunakany didalam masa servicenya berlaku ).
Hal hal seperti ini buat saya cukup baik dan efektif dalam mempengaruhi customer menentukan penilaian service terhadap vendornya, good work buat jobstreet.com
