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tips for coping with information overload

Coping with information overload, especially as an information professional, has long been a favourite topic of mine. Take a look at this post in LiveJournal's blog sociology community.

"NEDS is a type of depression that is brought on by information overload, which leads to an erosion of close personal relationships," Sanders says. "The depression is triggered by a combination of guilt ['I can't absorb all this information'], stress ['I can't withstand all these interrupted demands'], and loneliness ['My life is me and my machine']."

I particularly liked the suggestion that if you and email each other twice in succession, that it's time for us to have a talk, face to face or on the phone. Everybody will have their own ideal point of balance of being sufficiently connected while not being over-exposed to online information or feeling disconnected from the real world or self. Information professionals always have more exposure, so it's important we develop good skills for coping with this.

inside information about being a smart call centre customer

There were two really important things that I have learned while working at Vodafone. I now have a much better idea about what customer service means. I also understand how a call centre works. This is what I’d like to write about today.

Call centres are virtually an inescapable part of modern western life. Having worked in one, I have a better idea of how to act the next time that I need to call one.

- Expect to wait to talk to someone. Be pleasantly surprised if you don’t have to wait for very long. Arrange to do something to keep you busy while you’re waiting, such as surfing the web, browsing a magazine, doing some ironing, or watching some mindless reality TV (no, I don’t hate all reality TV – we all need mindless entertainment sometimes). Anything to keep your mind occupied and to stop yourself from getting annoyed by the long wait and possibly hanging up. Hanging up while waiting in a phone queue really is a pointless waste of time, because you were advancing in the queue but then you gave up all that, and you’ll need to try again some other time.
- If you were waiting for a long time, don’t get mad at the call centre worker about it. That doesn’t achieve anything – when it’s really busy, believe me, we are all very aware of this. On the other hand, there is no harm in saying (without exaggeration) how long you waited for. That is helpful information to know, so we get an idea of just how busy it is. It’s also quite appropriate to ask if there are times of the day when it’s less busy. At Vodafone, this was usually between 12:30 and 4:30 pm on weekdays, and first thing in the morning on weekends.
- If you’re really mad about the long wait at a call centre, ask to complain to a manager about it. You may also ask if you can be compensated for your time and the overall inconvenience. You won’t always get much – or anything – but sometimes you will, depending on who you’re speaking to.
- No matter how angry you may be at the company for causing the problem that you’re calling about, don’t take it out on the call centre worker. It is true that you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If customer is being mean to me, I will try to put them on hold and then do the absolute minimum to get them out of my hair, so I can end the call so that I’ll never need to speak to them again. If another customer is being nice, I will go out of my way to help them.
- Always have a pen and paper with you. Make a note of the name and number of the person you’re talking to. If they’re bad, you need their name to complain about them. If they’re good, this is the key to contacting them again, which can be helpful for some particularly complicated problems.
- If early on in the call, you realize that you have no confidence in the person you’re talking to, do one of two things. Ask to speak to their manager or end the call immediately before they cause any damage. If you call back, chances you’ll get to talk to somebody better next time – of course, this is only a good idea when it’s not too busy.
- If you are very happy with the way that you’ve been treated, consider asking to speak to the worker’s manager so that you can pass on a compliment. The value of these compliments within the call centre cannot be over-estimated. What’s in it for you? Well, that worker will bend over backwards to help you should your paths ever cross again. Also, a worker is more likely to go the extra mile if there is a chance that this will be appreciated and rewarded.
- Don’t assume that all the details of your previous calls are meticulously noted and that the person you’re speaking to will have perfect recall of this information. On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of assuming that your previous calls are never noted, especially if you call again and again about the same issue, are rude, hang-up, or frequently beg or demand freebies.
- At any call centre, the magic words are “churn risk”. If you make it clear that if your problem is not resolved promptly to your satisfaction, you will switch to a competitor, the rules of the game switch and the call centre worker is usually authorized to give you what you want, so long as it’s possible and you’re not being totally unreasonable. Don’t play the churn risk card very often with the same company though, or the response will soon be, “well go then, and good riddance!”
- Don’t choose kinky passwords like 6969. It doesn’t impress anyone, it just marks you as a bit of a dork.

what does "yes, no" mean?

About a month ago, I read an article (or heard something on the radio) about the pervasiveness of the “no, yes” and “yes, no” expression in Australian English, and how in an inversion of what usually happens, this expression has started infecting American English.

I have hardly any recollection of the article, if it was indeed an article. If someone could locate it for me, I would be eternally grateful.

After receiving that information, I started paying attention to these expressions. I realize that I say this, my co-workers at Vodafone say it, even my Dad says it (but not my Mum, but she's hardly ever uses colloquialisms in her speech).

It’s a great new mystery. Logically, “no, yes” and its variants means absolutely nothing, just as the sum of +1 and -1 equals zero. Could it be that saying, “yeah, no” means indecisiveness or only very tentative agreement or disagreement? Maybe but somehow I doubt it.

My thought is that “no … yeah” is like saying “umm” or “uh”. A kind of meaningless padding that’s used in spoken language. It’s not usually used deliberately.

the Australian election result is NOT an endorsement of our involvement in Iraq

There will be pundits in the US who might suggest that the survival of Australia’s conservative John Howard (actually with increased support) amounts to an endorsement by voters of Australia’s involvement in Iraq. I want to make it very clear that this Australian election was fought primarily on domestic issues. Maybe if Mark Latham and the Australian Labor Party had made more of an effort to remind voters of John Howard’s dishonesty over Iraq and the shameful children overboard affair, there would have been a different result. Maybe, but the Australian electorate is very reluctant to vote a party out of office, especially when the economy is doing well. John Howard ran a very effective campaign, side-stepping the truth in government concerns, scaring voters that interest rates would rise under Labor and using lots of negative campaigning about Mark Latham’s experience. I have never seen as many negative ads in an Australian election campaign. Another of Mark Latham’s mistakes is that he didn’t do anything to counter those ads until the last week of the campaign, which was too little, too late.

I plan to write even more about my reaction to the result in ambivalenz.

I'm still here

This is a quick post to let you know what's been happening with me lately. I had a nice short (and cheap - I got a good deal on Hawaiian Airlines which now flies directly to Sydney) trip to Hawai'i recently. I thought that Oahu would be very spoiled, like Australia's Gold Coast, but I found it very easy to get away from Waikiki and see the lovely Windward Coast and North Shore. This trip was primarily about extending my US permanent residency status for another year, "just in case." If I can afford it, I'm thinking of attending the AALL annual meeting in San Antonio next year.

After getting back, I caught a nasty very draining cold. Today I'm having a busy day trip to Melbourne, where I'm going to be having no less than 3 job interviews. One is as a law librarian in a big law firm, the other two are for special librarian positions, doing business research. It's going to be tough, having 3 on in one day, while battling a cold. But this will save me airfares between Hobart and Melbourne. What is the etiquette of shaking hands at a job interview if I have a cold? I would like to warn them about this and give them the option of not shaking my hand. On the other hand, I intend to mask my symptoms as much as possible during these interviews, and I know that a nice firm handshake is important part of making a good first impression. I have no illusions that any of these interviews will result in an offer, but it is still a sign of progress in my job search, and an indicator that it was the right decision for me to widen the geographical scope of my job search.