Conflict! Conflict! Conflict! (edited)

The following events were experienced while I was working at the local office of a famous Multinational corporation (MNC).

Crystale is a member of the customer service department in the local office of the MNC. Her team comprises of 4 other members and a team leader. She is well liked by her team members and is very efficient in her work. Crystale is viewed as being very friendly, loud and outspoken, often speaking whatever is on her mind even if it may comprise her working relationship. As a result, she is often viewed by her superiors as a very antagonistic person, who clashes frequently with her team leader Jana.

Jana is the team leader of the customer service team. Jana is known to be lazy and inefficient in her work, and is disliked by her own team members. She is known to be a very soft spoken person and often carries a sad docile face. She relies heavily on Crystale to help her finish her own work. However, Jana never checks the work that Crystale completes. She often takes credit for the work done by her own team members. Whenever a major mistake occurs, Jana would push the blame to her team members especially Crystale, often making her look like a villain in the team.

During a particular busy month, Jana made a serious error, which resulted in the company suffering losses. Jana had forgotten to transmit the orders processed to the warehouse, which would deliver the goods to the customers. To make matters worse, it was in the middle of the Great Singapore Sales, and many of the MNC’s customers were running low on stocks. In order to save herself, Jana pushed the blame to Crystale, accusing her of not transmitting the orders to the warehouse. As a result, Crystale received a warning letter from the MNC. Crystale was furious and wanted to confront Jana in a sort of “final showdown”. Her proposed method included sending out a mass “poison pen” email to all the staff of the local office, accusing Jana of all her wrong doings. Crystale planned to tender her resignation after sending out her email.

As a close friend of Crystale, I was at a loss. I supported her decision to fight for justice; however her methods were highly unorthodox and would only "burn more bridges" in her life. What could I have done to salvage the situation?

P.S
Just to clarify, Crystale’s intended course of action was to confront Jana in a final “show down”. Her proposed course of action was to send out a mass “poison pen” email detailing all of Jana’s misdeeds before resigning from the company. Crystale confided in me her proposed course of action and was seeking my advice on what was the best way to proceed.

Chemisty, Biology or Art??

This post has nothing to do with ES2007s. Rather this is just a small experiment I am conducting at the moment.

I am sure many of you have seen the picture at the top of my blog. My question is what do you see? Do you see a molecule or an animal.

Why effective communication skills? (edited)

Looking back, I have realised that many of the arguments I encountered at home or messes I encountered at the workplace were the result of me either being an ineffective communicator or an ineffective listener. This brings me to why am I interested in learning effective communication skills.

Well, for one I would like to minimise the number of arguments I encounter. Having effective communication skills not only encompass being an effective listener or speaker, it also involves the building of interpersonal communication skills. In short, not only would I learn how to communicate properly so that people would not get the wrong message, I would also learn how to try and avoid getting myself into conversations which might antagonise a person leading to less hostile confrontations.

Secondly, effective communication skills also include skills which are useful in one’s working life. These range from the art of effective business letter writing to how to perform during a job interview. These are skills which I find to be extremely valuable as they would give me an edge when I start hunting for my first permanent job after I graduate. Most modules in NUS tend to prepare one for the IQ problems one might encounter in their job, but not the EQ problems.

Finally effective communication skills is more of a “life skill” than a “job skill”. I have taken numerous modules which are meant to educate one in a specific field of study which would be of importance in their job later on. But I have never taken a module which teaches one a skill which is useful outside their career. I guess if I have to pay NUS $3000 per semester, I might as well make the most of it and take a module which would remain useful to me even after I retire. ES2007 is one such module which would allow me to learn a very useful life skill.