Column # 61 - Evidence of Sanity after all 3/31/11

You might notice agap between when I wrote these and when they now appear on my blog.
That's because my computer blew up in April and this blog has been far down the list of things to recreate. I was reminded that I actually do have an audience, so here we go, getting this thing caught back up... T

Now, let’s see, where were we...oh yea, the meeting with the VP…well, maybe this needs a bit of background. As I told you, the ‘powers that were’ got so tired of getting beat up by customers and dealers for shutting down the Delta Hotline that they finally decided to create a new one in Jackson.
Since I was from Memphis and used to work very closely with, and support the 800 group, I was heavily involved in passing on some knowledge about how to best set it up. Evidently the new VP was impressed and asked me if I wanted the job of managing the new call center. Early on, my response was “Well sure, I’ll manage that and Tech Service…” but he cut me off at the knees when he said “Oh no, that would be too much for one person to handle. If you take the call center, and I REALLY do want you to, you’d have to leave Tech Service.” After a couple of weeks, he finally cornered me and told me that he needed an answer the next day. Well, after over 20 years of being ‘Mr. Tech Service’…it was not an easy choice…THAT was why I was up all night. But I will testify to this, most of the night was spent praying and asking God, ‘what do I do?’
So dawn comes, as it always does…but during the night, the peace came and I knew what I needed to do. Here we go, meeting about 8:30. I went in and sat down and he asked for my decision and I laid it out on the table… “I just can’t do that…and here’s why. I AM Tech Service, I’ll manage the Tech group AND the call center, but I can’t leave Tech. Everyone who knows Delta, knows Tom and I don’t care if you hid me in a broom closet, if they needed some knowledge that I have, they would find me. So I’d have two jobs any way you look at it and you’d only be paying me for one…you just need to let me take them both’ Well, he didn’t go for that, but he did ask me who would I get to manage it and I told him that I had been talking to Delta’s former 800-line manager and she was interested in coming to talk to them. As time went on, that was exactly what happened. Delta’s former call center manager moved to Jackson and created a new department. I was tasked with getting them enough training that they could handle all but the most Technical calls. The beauty of this is that all I had to do was drag out my old Memphis training files and update them slightly. They were good to go.

Send your questions or comments to:

Toolsmartz@bellsouth.net and we’ll see what we can do to help you.
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