It’s been a week of two references this week – a bit of a strange week as we have been having some “out of our control” issues. I’ve long since given up trying to explain why a general failure of a phone line or Internet connection is beyond my control, I get the distinct impression that many people don’t believe it anyway – watch for the knowing sideways look – that look that says “I hear what you’re saying but I just don’t know”
So in terms of outages it’s all about keeping the details sparse. Phone line/Internet goes down – that’s the information that gets handed out – all reports of issues go on the company intranet and are followed up when resolutions reached. It’s tidy, might not be what everyone wants but it’s manageable with the resource I have.
Moving on to the references of the title, I recently found out that in at least one instance where I’d provided a glowing reference for an ex-employee the amount of mutual respect was uneven to say the least – this is the sort of thing that I don’t really allow to live with me anymore these days, if you take every bit of criticism to heart you’d fold quickly.
Here’s a couple of timely quotes on the subject.
“If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it”
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”
Moving swiftly on, we have been approached by our supplier and asked if we would be prepared to act as a reference site for a potential customer of theirs – this is with our VoIP system, this is one of the systems I was pleasantly surprised to note we had installed when I arrived at the Group in 2009. Our VoIP system represented a significant investment by the business and one that is, to date, still under-utilised, but one that provides flexibility and an immense amount of power.
It is a long-standing task of mine to really get on top of what our VoIP system can provide – this opportunity is an ideal time to do this. It’s very flattering to be asked to act as a reference, and I do enjoy getting in touch with other companies especially when there’s a link to technology, you very often find out useful information and sometimes new ideas.
Meanwhile the quest to forge an effective and acceptable IT strategy continues.