Friday, September 14, 2007

Who's Driving Your Bus?


Who's driving the bus? Is it the evil Mr. Ned? Is it the flighty cousin Janet? Is it the focused brother Floyd? Is it the kind-hearted Kara? Is it the irritated Uncle Ira? Is it the selfish sister Sally?

The preacher used the analogy to describe the different personalities that we all have inside of us. Each individual person can be a little testy or get angry. Sometimes we can be focused or kind or easily irritated or selfish. We can be all sorts of things. But what we're feeling inside at any given moment does not necessarily dictate the decisions we make as people. The preacher's point was well made. Each one of us is our own bus. And we decide who drives our bus.


The same situation arises in the world of customer service. As much as we'd like to be proactive our whole life and plan tomorrow knowing that tomorrow will go according to plan, the reality is that customer service in particular demands reaction. It requires us to respond to the customer's changing needs or to the complaint or to the issue or to the red flag or to the unexpected or to the new edict handed down by executive management.


And how we handle that situation is often dictated by the attitude we bring into the situation. We could have an attitude of inflexibility and resisting change. We could have an attitude of pointing figures and talking behind others' backs. We could have an attitude of self-pity and self-doubt.


Or. . .


We could have an attitude of flexibility and welcoming change. We could have an attitude focused on creating solutions and being open. We could have an attitude of trying to help others and the confidence to do so.


Our attitude comes across externally to others, but it's based on an internal decision we make. We decide who drives our bus.


Who's driving your bus today?

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Reggie Grier Promoted to Senior Programmer Analyst


Reggie Grier was recently promoted to a Senior Programmer Analyst on the Quality Assurance Team. Reggie began working at Mecklenburg County in 1996 as a contractor working on the Help Desk. Reggie became a County employee in 2002 as a Information Systems Specialist where he provided technical support to several criminal justice agencies like the District Attorney's and Public Defender's Office.

Reggie joined the Quality Assurance Team 2 1/2 years ago. In his role as a Quality Assurance Analyst he worked on numerous projects including ISS-CW and EJuror. Reggie enjoys the QA environment and is looking forward to furthering his education and experience in this area.



Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Sandra Oliver Accepts IT Project Manager for Applications Development and Support Team Position



Sandra Oliver has accepted the position of IT Manager for the Applications Development and Support Team. Sandra has been with the County for 7 years, most recently as a Project Manager for the PMO team and has over 19 years IT experience. Sandra has a BA in Computer Information Systems and a Masters Degree in Business Administration with emphasis on Management Information Systems. Additionally, Sandra is PMP certified.




Congratulations, Sandra!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Review the IST 2007-2008 Annual Report and Plan









Please check out the new Annual Report by visiting http://tinyurl.com/yq9spl.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Customers Visit Technology Services Center

Many employees visited the newly renovated IST Technology Services Center on Thursday, September 6. The new center is located at the Hal Marshall Annex basement and houses numerous work groups from the IST Desktop Services organization.

Customers were invited to tour the new center, enjoy refreshments and learn more about how the IST Desktop Services organization works to support you, the customer. The celebration also finalized the consolidation of IST Help Desk Services to a fully centralized unit.
In the past, Help Desk East was housed at Kuralt Centre and supported all DSS customers. Help Desk Central was housed at Hal Marshall Center. This group supported all other Mecklenburg County customers.

Even though both groups still exist and support that same customers, they are now centrally located at this new facility. The group is managed by IT Manager Dan Traweek and is part of the IST Desktop Services organization.

The IST Desktop Services organization also includes Desktop Support Services (East and Central), SMS Support Services and the Enterprise Core Process team. The IST Desktop Services organization is managed by Senior IT Manager Jeff Vince.

Three years ago, IST began the process of consolidating departmental IT staff to create an enterprise-wide service. Now, Help Desk East and Central are fully consolidated. "It was a great opportunity for us to meet our customers, introduce them to support staff members and share how we can best serve their needs on a day to day basis," says Senior IT Manager Jeff Vince.