AWAKE & DREAMING

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Counsellor

Ok, please get this right - I am not really a counsellor but sometimes I have to do some sort of counselling to the agents. The session may just be active listening and showing the younger kids that there is someone who is willing to spend sometime with you and lend you his ear. I was always willing to do that and infact have done that on quite a few occassions not just to the kids assigned to me but to whoever felt comfortable enough with me. A couple of guys and a few girls have come to tell me about the tough times they are facing either at work or some family related issues or even a couple of cases of the heart. I have never felt like I was out of place during all these tet-a-tets but rather I was actively involved in the discussions and - in my mind atleast - was giving out good advice; cause they kept coming back to me.

I was, in fact, a sort of big brother figure to quite a lot of the agents in the company and I blossom in that kind of an atmosphere. One of the recent cases was, as stated in a previous entry, of a sweet girl who wouldn't hurt a fly, and who was being unfairly the target of some idoits who felt that hurting her and her family was a substitute for fun. Then the next one happened on Tuesday evening. Ironically I was at the main office earlier that same day to attend a 4 hours trainning session on giving performance feedback to the call centre agents and how to do it constructively and trying to get the maximum from the agents. Part of the session was also on the fact that we also have to act as counsellors to the agents as it had been noticed that several of them have come up with various problems. That same night a former mentee of mine was calling & texting me and I guessed that she had some issue on her mind. I was right and I had a long talk with her and to my pleasure she is feeling a whole lot better. She is even planning to do things positevely and even stand up to her folks, who were the main source of her mental anguish. Anyway, the way she has responded is making me feel very good about myself and especially since this is not something I was expecting to sign on to do when I joined the company. This almost makes everything worthwhile!!



Song for the day - "Closer To Madness" - JESSE COOK