Month: April 2015

Stress Management for IT Professionals

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Stress is a popular topic in news broadcasts and in the blogosphere. We make stress out to be some sort of villain, when stress is simply how our bodies react to change. The change could be good or bad, it doesn’t matter. It’s still stressful. The issue is not with stress, per se, but with […]

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Four Magical Customer Service Phrases (What to Say in Nearly Any Situation)

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Customer service has many definitions. I think of a quote often attributed to the late Dr. Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you do, they’ll forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” As providers of customer service, the feelings our customers have about us show

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How to Deal with an Angry Type A Customer

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You’ve probably heard people talk about Type A personalities and you may have some ideas about what that means. In a landmark 1976 study of some 3000 healthy men, aged 35 to 59, Drs. Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, both cardiologists, looked at stress as a predictor of heart disease. For the purpose of their

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Four Success-Blocking Character Traits (Don’t Do These Things!)

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In recent blog posts and podcasts, I’ve talked about the critical IT career success factors. Just as important as what TO do are the things NOT to do. Here, in no particular order, are four behaviors which are commonly seen in the workplace and which can torpedo your career. Dishonesty This may seem obvious, but if it’s so

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The Mysterious Tattooed Barista (or How to be a Good Listener)

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One of my favorite Seattle coffee shops is in the Capitol Hill district of Seattle. My wife and I stopped there this past weekend for a coffee (this is Seattle, after all) and a pastry. While we were waiting in line, one of the baristas, an attractive and mysterious-looking woman, her shoulders festooned with tattoos, was

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