My Monday to Friday Life

Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Cut to the Chase

Source: type-coach.com

Top Ten Words That Describe Most INTJs:
Tenacious ... Private ... Deep ... Intellectual ... Future-focused
Independent ... Driven ... Intense ... Reserved ... Direct
 

BIG PICTURE PROBLEM SOLVERS

There are two phases of most projects or meetings: 1) the vision and strategy setting stage; and 2) the execution stage. INTJs tend to gravitate towards the former. Highly future focused, out-of-the-box, logic-driven thinkers, few can match the INTJ’s capacity when it comes to doing what they love - developing long-term strategies and solving complex problems that involve a lot of moving pieces. An INTJ’s mind is unconventional and unrestricted by previous approaches or traditional thinking.
 

PERFECTIONIST, FOCUSED

“Good enough” is not typically part of the vocabulary of an INTJ. They have extremely high standards for both themselves and others, and a tremendous stamina for hard work. They constantly push themselves to achieve excellence in all of their endeavors, which often translates into long hours with more focus and fewer breaks in concentration than most other personality types.
 

INTELLECTUALLY CURIOUS

Of all the 16 types, INTJs have perhaps the highest need for continuous learning, and to constantly challenge themselves intellectually. INTJs thrive when they are progressively working towards higher and higher levels of competency and excellence, and are easily bored by assignments or tasks that they have mastered before - or have a straightforward execution.
 

INDEPENDENT, DIRECT

Rather impervious to criticism and highly intrinsically motivated, INTJs are among the most independent of all the types, and thrive working productively alone for long periods of time. They tend to hold themselves to their own high standards, not looking to others for frequent validation. As a type, INTJs are often uncomfortable giving compliments and regular positive feedback. Finesse is also not a natural gift for INTJs, and if not careful, they can be direct to the point of being blunt - and come across as intimidating or offensive.
 

PERCOLATORS

INTJs are often well known for their insightful, thoughtful, and unique perspective. Their best ideas and solutions to complex problems usually come after they’ve mulled the topic over for a while. This “percolating” process can take a couple of days, is not always conscious, and more often than not, leads to a solution that just “pops” into their heads out of nowhere when they are alone, relaxed, and are engaged in or thinking about a completely different topic.
 

DEEP INNER WORLD

Underneath that calm, cool exterior is one of the most rich and well-developed inner worlds of any of the 16 types. The brain of an INTJ is always “on,” processing the complex issues and strategies that INTJs love to tackle (even while they are watching TV). At times, they can be so lost in their thoughts that they walk past people who are saying “hi” in the hallway - and have a hard time quickly switching gears when interrupted at their desk.
 

Top ten: INTJs are the type MOST likely to . . . 

1. Miss what is going on around them because they are lost in thought

2. Push themselves harder than any other type

3. Work for LONG stretches of time without a break

4. Talk over others’ heads without realizing it

5. Do exceptionally well on standardized tests; achieve excellent academic grades

6. Under-compliment and over-criticize

7. Have a top-notch vocabulary and be an avid reader

8. Catch on to a new idea, concept or approach quickly

9. Need significant time alone each day to feel optimally recharged

10. Have solutions just pop into their head out of nowhere

Introducing - Gmail Tap!

Sears Home Services Review

What did it take for me to get my furnace serviced by Sears Home in a no-heat emergency situation?

An email to the Sears Canada CEO, Senior Vice President, and Ellen Roseman @ the Toronto Star.

Scroll down to the first email at the bottom of this page and read the story in chronological order.

--

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 1:29 PM, Peter Kalen wrote:

Thanks for the note, Elaine. I apologize that it took so much effort on your part. It is not reflective of the type of customer service we are striving to provide.

Warm regards,

Peter Kalen
Senior Vice-President
Sears Financial and Home Services
(416) xxx-xxxx
xxxx@sears.ca

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Elaine wrote:
 

Dear Peter and team:

I can confirm my furnace was fixed by 2 service technicians this morning. Heat has been restored in my house.

Peter, my sincerest appreciation for your help in turning this bad customer experience into a positive one. I'm hopeful that my future interactions with Sears Home Services will be smoother the next time around.

With thanks,
Elaine

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 8:59 PM, Elaine wrote:
 

Dear Peter:

I wish to provide you an update on the situation.

Thanks to your intervention and assistance, a gentleman by the name of Lissandro from the Sears Executive Offices called me around 7:30 PM today to offer help. He has made arrangements for a service technician (Adrian) to come to our home tomorrow (28-Jan by 12 noon). I understand that Adrian (the technician) will first have to provision the furnace parts required from local suppliers tomorrow and will be in a position to repair the furnace at the earliest possible time.

I am grateful for your prompt reply as I am able to see the light at the end of the (cold) tunnel. It was not my intention to escalate, although I felt I had no other recourse or option as no one from the Sears Customer Service team (except Adam and Brae (the Sears sub-contractor I mentioned in my original email below)) was willing to help me and my family.

I will provide an update to this distribution list shortly following tomorrow's service appointment. A special thanks to Lissandro for his empathy and taking the time to contact me tonight. I look forward to the forthcoming resolution.

Sincerely,
Elaine

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 6:08 PM, Roseman, Ellen <eroseman@torontostar.ca> wrote:

Thanks, Elaine, sorry about the bad furnace experience. I sent this to my Sears contact to review (xxxxx in communications). Hope he can get you some quick action.

Best wishes,

Ellen

Ellen Roseman

Toronto Star personal finance columnist

www.moneyville.ca/blog/onyourside

www.ellenroseman.com

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 6:09 PM, Peter Kalen wrote:

Elaine, I apologize for your experience and will have this looked into immediately.

Peter Kalen
Senior Vice-President
Sears Financial and Home Services
(416) xxx-xxxx
xxxx@sears.ca
 

---

  From: Elaine   Sent: 01/27/2012 06:05 PM EST
  To: Sears Executives
  Cc: eroseman@thestar.ca

  Subject: Furnace Problem: No heat for 30+ hours and Sears Lack of Customer Service

Dear Sears Executives:

I purchased a furnace with Sears which is still covered by full warranty. On Thursday 26-Jan at approximately 7:00 AM, the furnace shut down after making grinding noises. I promptly called Sears Home Services  http://www.searshomeservices.ca/  at 1-800-4-MY-HOME to book an appointment. 

I understood a no-heat situation constitutes an emergency especially given we are in the middle of winter. I was assured by a Sears CSR that the service appointment will be for the same day. 

I have received very little help from Sears Home Services thus far.

I made 4 calls to the 1-800-4-MY-HOME number on Thurs 26-Jan following my initial call (10 am, 11:34 am, 3:22 pm, 6:00 pm) as no one from Sears had followed-up with me since I first called. I was provided no commitment, no ETA for when a technician would be able to troubleshoot my furnace.

Back in November 2011 I had a my furnace maintained by Sears via a Sears sub-contractor, luckily I kept his phone number and called him directly on 26-Jan to seek help. He immediately contacted Sears Customer Service to investigate, only to find out that no service appointment was booked for me on 26-Jan. Rather, it was for the next day. He was understanding of the no-heat situation and arranged to go to my home on 26-Jan to look at the furnace. In short, the furnace needed parts replacement ordered before it can be fixed. The sub-contractor placed the order on the same day and was kind enough to leave us one of his portable heaters to assist us through the night.

On Friday 27-Jan, I called 1-800-4-MY-HOME again at 8:45 AM to inquire on the status of the parts order. At this point, I expected the Sears CSR to be able to advise me when the replacement parts will be available. I was advised by the CSR that the parts had arrived on Friday 27-Jan, the technician had it, and my furnace will be restored on 27-Jan. This made me feel really good.... until I received a call two hours later that the parts did not arrive, the technician does not have them, and the earliest we could expect our furnace to be restored MAY be Monday 30-Jan, but they are unable to commit whether Monday will be doable.

This is confusing to me as a Sears Call center Team Leader advised me specifically that the parts were shipped from Belleville today 27-Jan and the truck rolls go out at 2pm EST with arrival in GTA by 5 PM on the same day. The Team Lead / Supervisor (Malisha - sp?) - who promised to call me before she leaves work at 5 PM to provide an update on the parts order - has not called me back, not that I am surprised anymore.  

Essentially this means we will be in a no-heat situation for 5 consecutive days. 

I do not know what type of service provider lets their customers go 5 days in the middle of winter without any heat. Perhaps I would have been in a better situation if I called another Furnace Repair Service provider, however, my furnace is still under warranty with Sears and I expect the company to honour our legally binding agreement.

As I am writing this letter at 5:32 PM on 27-Jan, I am again on the phone with one of your 1-800-4-MY-HOME CSRs. 

Another Team Leader (Adam, Toronto Office) is trying to help me, the first Sears employee to actually provide assistance. He has called the Parts Department who advised that the parts will be arriving Monday 30-Jan. Assuming this is the case, my furnace may possibly be restored by Monday.  In the meantime, Adam is trying to make arrangement for Sears Scarborough Town Centre to hold three portable heaters to get us through the weekend, which he advised me to purchase with my Sears Credit Card and Sears will re-imburse me for the cost of the heaters ($90 + HST x 3).

I have been a loyal Sears customer for 5 years and I never thought that I had to beg Sears to provide me with assistance. I am disenchanted by the lack of service, the complete disregard for my well being by at least 5 CSRs. Adam was the only one who even attempted to make an effort to assist.

I am not sure how this story will end, if we will get our furnace restored on Monday 30-Jan, or perhaps we go on without it for another week or so. I will keep you and Ellen Roseman http://www.ellenroseman.com from the Toronto Star (an advocate for the consumer) posted.

--

Elaine

Sears account phone number: 416-xxx-xxxx

Mobile: 416-xxx-xxxx

Microsoft Word, Grammar and Apostrophe Abuse Rants

Nothing enrages me more than improper grammar use and apostrophe abuse, especially in the corporate world.

I mean.... seriously? You will be mocked and ridiculed and not respected if your written communication is anything like the examples below.

Here are the basic rules thanks to the Apostrophe Protection Society:


The rules concerning the use of apostrophes in written English are very simple.


They are used to denote a missing letter or letters, for example:

	I can't instead of I cannot
	I don't instead of I do not
	it's instead of it is

They are used to denote possession, for example:

	the dog's bone
	the company's logo
	Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

... but please note that its, which is usually used as a possessive adjective (like our, his etc), does not take an apostrophe:

the dog ate its bone and we ate our dinner ... however, if there are two or more dogs, companies or Joneses in our example, the apostrophe comes after the 's':

	the dogs' bones
	the companies' logos
	Joneses' bakeries

Apostrophes are NEVER ever used to denote plurals!  Common examples of such abuse (all seen in real life!) are:

	Banana's for sale which of course should read Bananas for sale
	Menu's printed to order which should read Menus printed to order
	MOT's at this garage which should read MOTs at this garage
	1000's of bargains here! which should read 1000s of bargains here!
	New CD's just in! which should read New CDs just in!
	Buy your Xmas tree's here! which should read Buy your Xmas trees here!

Note: Special care must be taken over the use of your and you're as they sound the same but are used quite differently:

your is possessive as in this is your pen
you're is short for you are as in you're coming over to my house


And now, for a hilarious rant regarding Microsoft Word, thanks to a post on Craigslist. I've edited to keep this blog PG-13:


Dear Microsoft Word,

Here are a few tips for you:

1) Don't ask me if I want help when I'm writing a letter TO YOU at 2:48 am.

2) Don't do that stupid auto-format sh*t you just did when I hit enter after I typed "IA-1a." That always messes up my outlines because apparently we don't have the same style. I go "I." then "A." then "1." then "a." OK? I don't want to print my f*****g outline at 5 am after I've worked on it all night and suddenly notice that my sh*t is all f****d up and you literally WON'T let me fix it. I have to have to wrestle you like a psycho b*tch to get you to let me type how I want to. I get As in school, ok? Teachers like my outlines the way I do them. I'm sorry.

3) My teachers want one inch margins. I know, it sucks, but they think I'm a slacker when you slyly auto-f**k with my margins. YOU'RE the slacker, a**hole!!!

4) If I'm writing a ten page paper about, oh, say rhetorical discourse, and I'm on page nine and we (you and I) have been working together for about five hours and I suddenly type "rheotoric," can't you REMEMBER that I have correctly typed "rhetoric" nine thousand times by this point and just f*****g fix it for me? I have a laptop. Right clicks on those are annoying as sh*t.

5) Your dictionary/thesaurus is missing SO MANY f*****g words! What's up with that?

6) When I hit "print preview" you really should let me actually EDIT there, too. Print preview means, ok, I'm gonna look it over one more time and see if it's all good. When I notice something's f****d up, I have to close print preview to go back and search for it to fix it? C'mon.

7) When you say something is spelled wrong but really it's just a word you haven't learned yet, (it's ok) and I fix it for you before I type anything else, you switch it back to being wrong! F**k you is that annoying!

8) Sometimes, I am just right with the grammar and you're not.

9) Is it going to hurt my eyes to see the whole damn menu if I click on File or Edit? What are you ashamed of?

10) I'm sorry I have been such a rude b*tch. We have had great times together, and overall your thesaurus has made me sound much smarter than I am in many, many papers. Also, I love it when you track my changes. That's so sexy. And who can forgot Courier New, to turn a seven page paper into ten! Thank you! 

Practical Career Strategies - There Are No Bad Bosses

I will randomly post gold nuggets of wisdom on practical career strategies. Most of them will be based on personal experience and several books I've read in the past. I appreciated these tips throughout my professional life and I'm certain you will too.

I've long admired the writings, insight and practical advice by the insanely funny and authentic Penelope Trunk.

One of the greatest tips that I have remembered over the years is this: There are no bad bosses.

You can read the chapter in her book, Brazen Careerist, or look at the crib notes here.

The key is knowing how to manage up:

Figure out what matters most to your boss, and what motivates him, then align your own priorities accordingly.

Determine her communication preference - does she like email? Does he prefer in person, 1:1 conversations?  If your boss prefers to communicate by email, don't walk into her office every hour trying to get her attention, or to have a "chat", especially if you know her day is planned at least 24 hours in advance. Save this moment for the really urgent stuff - and you will have to force yourself to prioritize what you need to discuss with your boss.

When explaining something, think of words as the bullet points in a Power Point presentation. Be concise and executive-level appropriate. Do not pull him into the weeds unless truly warranted, or if he does not request details. Your boss likely has only 30 seconds before he starts being distracted by other conflicting priorities. Tell him the bottom line within the first minute of your conversation, and be clear on what you are asking him to help you with. Most importantly, be ready to provide a recommendation or options to resolve the problem, or tell him what you're doing about it and at which point you will need his help.

Know your boundaries (and hers), be clear about it.  For example, if you have to leave early on Wednesdays and Thursdays because you have to pick up your child from day care, then manage her expectations accordingly and propose that you work later during the other weekdays, or come in earlier on the days you have to leave early. If he wants to assign you another project but you are already working 50 hour weeks, then let him know. And ask him to prioritize his requirements for you so you can provide him with recommendations and options - see point #3 above. If her inappropriate jokes or comments make you feel uncomfortable, then for crying out loud don't laugh at them - keep your face neutral, as if she didn't even say it. Silence works wonders.  

Be likeable, dependable, and not-so-needy. Bosses prefer those who are more independent and autonomous. Do not escalate for the sake of escalating, make sure you have done all you can at your level before you punt problems up.

Check your self-entitlement issues at the door. Unless you have proven yourself and have earned the trust and credibility of your organization and peers, nobody cares if you have an MBA.

So there you have it. I'm not saying that there are no bad bosses out there, lord knows I've had my share over the last few years. But if you are struggling with your boss, see if one or all of the above will help.

If all else fails, then maybe it's time you leave.

Joseph Sherren, Ethos Enterprises, York University

I am in training for a week this week.

If your company ever provides you with an opportunity to take the Management 2: Advanced Managers course at York University School of Business, and Joseph Sherren is the facilitator - take it.

Not many (real, live human beings not characters in movies) people inspire me these days, but Joe sure did. And I'm very impressed.

Award Winner

Source:whoanelly-knelson.blogspot.com

I won an award again. This time it's for leading the tactical planning and execution of something that everyone said was impossible to do because of its complexity relative to the amount of time we had.

Anyway, it's one of those things where you win cash, but you can't spend it the way you want.  This bundle of cash is going to have to be spent on an event.

I'm a lone wolf. Antisocial. A bit of a sociopath. Nobody ever believes me when I say this because I am a GREAT leader and I am really good with people.

The reality is that I am surrounded by people ALL DAY and I am constantly bombarded with questions, emails, Blackberry PINs, phone calls, etc etc, and it quite literally drives me bananas. At the end of the business day or when I am not working, I would rather spend time with my core family (husband + *maybe* daughter + MitzyPepperPie). Or I would rather be alone. I rather like being alone actually.

I am a bit like Maximus Decimus Aurelius.

In a perfect world, I would use that bundle of cash to buy clothes from Winners, then food. And books from Chapters. And maybe a plane ticket.

Antidote to Long Work Day

If you need some pep during a particularly long ass work day, listen to Slacker Radio.

Basic service is free, no installation required, listen using your Web Browser of choice (I prefer Mozilla).

My favourite station is 80s alternative. It reminds me of my childhood days back in the Philippines when I was between 4 yrs old to 11 yrs old and really into The Cure, Psychedlic Furs, Tears for Fears, etc.

Finally, direction (sort of)

A few posts ago, I wrote about not having direction for this blog.

I write (wrote) about topics that are of interest to me - I don't need to list those topics out again, because you can tell what interests me just by looking to the right of your screen - see over there ------> where it says "Labels", scroll to just below the ads delivered by Google AdSense.

But Penelope Trunk, who I respect greatly, says that Blogs Without Topics Are A Waste of Time.

Now, I don't know about you, but my time is very precious and I certainly don't want to waste people's time.

So I've decided that I will write about what I'm very good and successful at, which is Project Management.

But not just project management related to my professional work. I will write openly about my experiences in applying project management tools and techniques to my personal life as well.

I'm a big believer that project management can save your life, and maybe even the world, if you:

* Know what you're doing (if you don't know, you can assess and figure it out quickly),

* Are flexible and can adapt your tactics and strategy based on whatever situation you're in,

* Learn from your mistakes,

* Coach and mentor people, and be a catalyst for their success (after all, the success of any Project Manager is dependent on enabling others to be successful).

I'm not really sure where this will go, but having some direction is a start.

I want to sleep

Am very tired and I want to sleep but instead I have a lot of meetings, a phone interview, and an Argos vs. Ticats football game to go to at the Rogers Centre tonight. I told my husband I will probably bring a book to the game because football is so boring (he was not amused), so I said: "ha ha, just joking" (I wasn't).