First Impression

I attended a very long meeting today. It lasts for only one hour, but somehow it felt very long to me. The usual stuff were being discussed, last meeting's minute, bla bla bla, then today's new agendas.

One of them is about critical performance evaluation on one of my shift members. It's her sixth month being here and it's about time that they confirm her position or extend her probation period. Mind you, this kind of evaluation were never being done in my team eversince I join this company and it was quite a shock for me when I heard it was going to happen to one of my inferiors. The reason for this evalution is because she received quite a lot of complaints from others. Among the reasons that I can remember; she is not competent in doing her job, speaks malay with customers, talking on the phone while handling cases, and couldnt accept her mistakes when she is being reprimanded. I'm not sure if there is more, but these are the ones that I can remember.

Some of the reasons are very ridiculous la. Like speaking malay. If the person at the other end can understand malay, what is so wrong about that? She deals with Streamyx helpdesk, especially when there is network issue, so apa salahnya cakap melayu? Obviously most of the Telekom staffs are malay, melayu ngan melayu, better ckp melayu kan? As long as the message get across, problem can be solved, cukupla kan? And the person who is complaining only heard her speaks malay with the customer once, tapi bole nak file complaint. Come on la. Grow up! I'm not trying to be racist here, but I've heard chinese in here speaking chinese with customers as well.

I think we have this problem because of the first impression that she gave to these so called 'management people'. This girl is very loud, very talkative, very open minded and sometimes she cursed loudly to her friends, but never to any of us in there. As her lead, I found her quite obedient, although with her loud mouth, she actually never disobey any direct orders that I gave her.

At first when I was moved from my old shift to this current shift, I was quite sceptical towards her. Why? Because I also have a bad impression on her. Everybody knows about the escalation being made towards her by the account delivery manager in her first month being here. So I was under the impression that this girl is lousy at her job and has bad attitudes.

About the escalation, maybe it's her own mistake for not being particular with her work, but I also see another reason. When she first started, there were approximately 10 new hires there with her. They were sent to be trained in various accounts, and I think there are 3 other new hires learning the same account with her. When we're not learning one to one, it's quite difficult for us to grasp everything quickly. And I think before she can learn everything, she was already sent to be on shift. Unfortunately, her shift lead at that time is resigning from the post, and they were given another shift lead. Sadly, the new shift lead also is resigning within her first week in that shift. Ehehe... tataula apa bad omen yang ada kat shift tu, but, they were shift-lead-less for more than a month. Tau2 je la.. when you have no lead to monitor your work, semua buat keje cam haram jer. Lagipun, she's new, doesnt know everything, and with no lead, and with unhelpful shift members, camne la tak buat mistake? Camne la tak competent in her job?

Panjangnya... ada lagi nak cakap ni.. tapi dah ngantuk la... sambung esok la ek cite ni. ahahaha... but people, what i wanna say here is, dont be judgemental on people until you really get to know them. Some people may seems to be harsh, but they could be gentle deep down inside. I learned about this quite a lot of time dah, tp sometimes susah nak elak having that first impression on people before I really get to know them. I judge people everyday, and I'm trying to tell myself not to do that all the time. But it's hard, and it's harder to learn that we are making a wrong call about someone, when you have to change your view on that someone from bad... to good.... or in certain cases, from good.. to bad...