Resume Parts & Pieces, Skills, Systems, and Conclusion

While I was still employed at Grainger, a headhunter was discussing my resume with me one morning and asked me, "Wow, is there anything you haven't done?"

My skill set tends to be on the eclectic side, as does my work history, which stems from two drivers:

• A need for challenge;
• Opportunity seized when presented.

Hence, the reason for learning so many different and disparate computer systems and communication venues.  What follows is my competency in each:

• Windows - Experienced. What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet;  
• Excel - Experienced. What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet;
• Word - Experienced. What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet;
• Outlook - Experienced. What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet; 
• PowerPoint - Novice.  What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet;
• Mac equivalents - "Equivalents"referring to programs equivalent to Windows counterparts on the Mac, such as Pages, Numbers, and Keynote...Experienced. What I don't know that may be needed for particular tasks I can teach myself with access to the Internet; 
• Impact 360 - Experienced in both performance of the program and how it applies to importing data to Excel or other spreadsheet applications; 
• Blue Pumpkin - Novice (my experience on this program was limited to agent status only).
• Cisco supervisor and monitoring systems - Experienced in both performance of the program and how it applies to importing data to Excel or other spreadsheet applications;
• AS400 systems - Experienced, but not to the point of programming or designing particular applications;
• SAP - Experienced in both performance of the program and how it applies to importing data to Excel or other spreadsheet applications;
• Forklift - Most experienced in stand-up model, novice in sit-down electric, no experience in gas-powered;
• Man-lift - Most experienced in stand-up model, novice in sit-down electric, no experience in gas-powered;
• WAVe - Experienced to the point of adjusting height limiter and step-off safety controls, with some trouble-shooting experience as well; 
• Symbol operation and trouble-shooting - Experienced in terms of SAP applications; 
• Certified to ship/process HazMat sales and shipments - Experienced in LTL, domestic, UPS/FedEx/USPS, and international Schedule B and documentation applications;  
• CPR certified - Class only, no life experience.

In addition to this list, I also have a pretty comprehensive list of networking tools that I have in constant use, including but not limited to:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Google/Google +
• Three book review networks
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Yelp
• Meetup

And the list goes on and on. My primary passion is in having a dialogue, and if I am most successful at that in one place, I don't stop there--I open up the possibilities, World Wide Web style.

If I learn the systems that my employees need to learn, that my peers need to learn, and that my managers need to learn...and if I learn every way possible to communicate easier or more effective ways to utilize them so these groups of people, than I cannot expect to do anything less than succeed. And the company that I am committed to cannot expect anything less, as well.

Beginning next week I'll look at business issues in the news, and my thoughts on them.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: Alltel Communications

Alltel was my experience in retail and my last work experience in the Midwest. The company was spread out in several call centers at that time in the Midwest and Southeast, with limited coverage in the west, and I worked as a customer service representative for customers who had questions about their contract and pre-paid billing statements. I also assessed cell phone bills from customers and made recommendations on products and services that Alltel offered that might help the customer make better use of their cell phone or getting better value for their usage.

When I started at Alltel I had just resigned from a training instructor position at Bass Pro Shops, and my primary reason for resignation was compensation. I had the opportunity to receive greater compensation at Alltel as a front-line associate on the phones than I had received in a position of leadership at Bass Pro, and I had full potential to move up within Alltel to a similar position of training or leadership that I had exercised at Bass Pro. Indeed, the first few months that I was with Alltel I adapted their company vision and processes so well that I was asked to help train and mentor new associates, even though I was a relatively new associate myself. It was gratifying to me as a trainer of the industry and empowering to me as a new associate to know that my efforts mattered.

It was at Alltel that I honed my skills in a call center setting and truly understood the fundamentals of call center performance in relation to customer satisfaction. Alltel's scheduling process was such that we shared call volume with one or two other centers across the south, but only if something overloaded systemically or if call volume inexplicably went up. We knew when to expect more calls and when to expect less, we learned how to budget our day so that customer plan changes and documentation could be completed within the day without down time and without overtime. And we learned that learning these lessons of efficiency would reward us. For instance, tenured employees with Alltel often received the highest pay and the longest amount of vacation time, but the best performers received vacation WHEN they wanted it and had the opportunity to bid quarterly on vacation requests and schedule preferences. Incentives for better plan correlation and feature usage on a customer's plan would grant employees prizes that they selected from a catalog of products ranging from writing instruments to fine leather products to furniture (I received a Coach wristlet as one of my prizes, and a hammock chair as another). Better performance also gave me more opportunities to coach others and to guide others to better performance in coaching sessions, classes, and filling in as a back-up team lead on occasion for the call center associates.

My reason for leaving Alltel was an opportunity to move to California and live closer to my family. If I hadn't had this opportunity, I would probably still be with Alltel to this day, and, by my best estimate, in a position of leadership. In my next segment I will talk about my favorite job experience that I ever had, with Bass Pro Shops as a swing shift training instructor for their call center.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: Jarden Consumer Solutions

Jarden Consumer Solutions, or, as I commonly knew them when I worked there, Tilia and VillaWare, was my first employer in California. Technically the temp agency that hired me to work at Tilia was my first employer in California, but Tilia was my first job with them.

I was first hired with Tilia to work with the retail services representatives to answer their phones for them. There were between seven and nine representatives at that time, and the bulk of the phone calls were from retailers wanting to order Tilia (FoodSaver) or VillaWare products, or they wanted to speak with their representative in sales or operations. In other words, when I started in September of 2004 I was a receptionist, and by January of the following year I had been offered a job with the company to be a retail services representative myself, specializing in RMAs and certain retailers, such as Kohl's. About one month after I was hired at Tilia the entire company was given word that the operation was moving to Neosho, Missouri for shipping and warehousing, and to Hattiesburg, Mississippi for administrative. We would be assisting in the transition not only in our approach to customer contact, but in the systems that we used to process orders and ship supplies, going from an SAP system to an AS400 system. Most, if not all of us, would be staying through the transition that would be scheduled for completion in August of 2005.

The skills that I honed with Jarden were minimal compared with my past jobs prior to that point, but I did significantly branch out in one specific area: satisfying customers at a corporate level as opposed to a retail situation. Many of the customer service aspects of retail carry over to a business-to-business type of situation, but some do not--my biggest challenge was in taking care of customers who had multiple representatives for their corporations. Mastering this challenge was a simple process of determining the customer's needs AND the representative's needs so that I could equal the two out, not unlike my developed focus of strengthening a business through customer service while improving employee retention. The contacts that I made within our customer base often became friends in the sense that I could offer them solutions to make their ordering process progress more smoothly or that they would have to maintain it less often by trusting me with the replenishment details. And, while I've mentioned that it was a challenging skill to master, it was a pure joy to discover that next level of customer service in myself and my performance.

In the next post, I'll talk about how my last job in Missouri with Alltel Communications helped prepare me for the jobs I was to enter in California.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: Furitechnics

When I first started with Furitechnics (Furi, for short) in the fall of 2005, I was coming in with the experience of having worked in kitchen supply manufacturing and a long line of customer service positions. Furi was based out of Australia, with manufacturing centers in China, and was just starting to branch out in the United States with manufacturing chef's knives, and after Rachel Ray mentioned how much she loved their knives, sales spiked and Rachel got her own line of Furis, replete with orange handles.

The company had a grand total of eight employees at the time that I was there, and my job was to take care of orders, returns, and communication with customers--"customers" being retailers. Many of the retailers that I worked with were on-line and selling on Amazon or eBay, but I also worked with Williams Sonoma, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Kohl's. Most of my work was done via e-mail or by phone, but the back-end of my work involved processing returns from the retailers, sorting out repairs and resells at discount, and sending defective items back to the manufacturer in China. This process involved working closely with the co-owners of the company to make sure that all proper precautions were being taken to assure that a return was a genuine return and not of an overstock nature.

In the second half of that year Furi promoted me to a sales analytical position, and from there I took on not only the customer management but the sales application of the business. I married the best of operations and sales together to create a more targeted audience for our sales team. By the end of my tenure, with goals in place and many of the customers set on quotas that were met, the company decided to streamline operations and sales even more and moved the customer service and analytical duties to the accounting side of the business. At that point I was considered outsourced, and moved on to looking into opportunities with Grainger.

How did my tenure with Furi help to shape my introduction to Grainger? For starters, much of my knowledge with Furi was in international shipment control and sales, and my first interview with Grainger was for an export coordinator position. Possessing the experience of working with businesses, however (as opposed to working directly with a retail customer), also helped me with getting my foot in the door at Grainger. Working in wholesale or business to business takes a certain amount of finesse over transactional, typical retail--you are often working with business owners, accounts payable representatives, and purchasing agents instead of a customer with less corporate potential. I found my experience at Furi invaluable for this reason, but I was hoping for more growth in balancing the customer experience with the employee experience by going to Grainger.

My contacts at Furi were made aware of me, as I mentioned earlier, by my previous experience in manufacturing of kitchen supply materials, and that experience came from Tilia and VillaWare, two joined companies that worked out of an office in the South of Market (SoMA) district of San Francisco. In my next post I'll explore how I obtained that position and how it contributed to my goals of customer service and employee retention balance.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: W.W. Grainger

Last week, I started a series on my resume in prose that was a little more reader-friendly than the average resume, and talked about my profile as a telecommunications and education professional. My goal this week? To factor in my past experience, beginning with my most recent position with W.W. Grainger.

I started with Grainger in January of 2007 with the title of Customer Service Manager, or CSM. My first location was in the San Francisco office (there are a total of fourteen branches in the Bay Area alone, and nearly 600 in North America). My purpose for hire with Grainger was two-fold--I was brought in as part of a market expansion effort for growth in the district, and I was brought in to eventually provide Grainger with a process expert contribution in terms of phone and call center experience. My original branch was to be the Oakland location, but at the last minute I was asked to interview for the San Francisco location and promptly accepted the position when offered it there.

There are no call-taking staff at the San Francisco location, but my experience there gave me a chance to learn the business side first. I assisted with the re-location of that branch from 11th street to Brannan in the South of Market (SoMA) area, and also assisted with the launch of a community involvement initiative within the company called "Ready When the Time Comes." Ready When the Time Comes was a partnership with the local Red Cross to train as many volunteers as possible within the district on personal disaster preparedness and in acting as back-up for Red Cross volunteers already established in the Bay Area. The program involved training in shelter response and in call center response, and a total of 90 Grainger employees were trained through Saturday sessions and during a launch event that allowed the employees from Grainger and additional employees from Oracle a chance to role play an actual disaster. I found this particular project and the market expansion work crucial to my development for several reasons:

• It allowed me to meet Grainger associates from all over the district
• It allowed me to meet Grainger leadership from all over the district, and beyond
• I was able to succeed at something that I had never done before--I had never volunteered for anything prior to that project, let alone spearheading the organization of such a project
• It allowed me to see the needs of other businesses, and therefore strengthen the focus of my own (since Grainger is a business-to-business supplier)

And, obviously, the gratification of contributing to my community.

After I had been with Grainger for 18 months, the opportunity came for me to work in a branch that was working to revitalize the phone channel for the district. Grainger's phone channel at the time of this transition was one where a majority of the branches within the district had at least one (sometimes up to 8) phone-only agents within their facilities. These were associates that were dedicated to answering customer phone calls for orders, tracking of orders, and with general information requests. My job, with the help of an analyst based out of a workforce management headquarters in the Midwest, was to help this "virtual" call center work as one concerted effort, as though all of the agents were in an actual call center. This effort had to be balanced with the least amount of disruption to counter and warehouse operations as possible, since all aspects were important to the success of the business, and often involved cross-training agents to fill in gaps for either the phone channel or the counter staff, as needed. Coaching and follow up were more crucial than I had ever seen before in any position, and probably my most rewarding aspect of my job.

Why, then, would I leave? For the last six months of my time with Grainger, I continued to look for ways to grow, within my development and within the company. I believed my strengths would be best capitalized in the phone channel, and I looked for opportunities within the company to promote them and to continue my education. The company was working on transitions that might have allowed for opportunity, but the timelines were too vague, and I felt that with my growth and my development I wanted to look outside of the box, to borrow the cliche, rather than stay in a confined situation or work with an indeterminate amount of time to realize my potential. I may return to Grainger if such opportunity can be secured, but more than likely I will spread my wings elsewhere, applying my experience with Grainger's Fortune 500 reputation to another company that wants to take advantage of my talents in a job description that Grainger doesn't have yet.

Next time I'll explore my development with the position that I had with Furitechnics that contributed to my skill set and to my time with Grainger.

Resume Parts & Pieces, The Profile

Before I go too deeply into my philosophies on timely events in the workplace, it occurs to me that I should give an in-depth introduction of myself, via posts, and expound a little on my resume. I'm not a big fan of the resume--the color of the writing is usually pretty limited, and, in my view, a little more difficult to read, so what better way to get to know me than by giving you my resume in plain and hopefully more entertaining prose? Today, we'll be looking at my profile.

First and foremost, I'm passionate about making sure that the customer's happiness and the employee's job satisfaction equal out. I train employees and consult leadership to that effect. My mission is to create total buy-in from the employee to create a customer experience that is the most personalized and comprehensive to the customer's needs--which I believe in turn develops a customer service "talent" in the employee that therefore gives them a greater sense of accomplishment.

To do this requires strengths in communications, technology, teaching skills, and a passion for people. It also requires a lot of work in data analysis and documentation--I can't inspect my expectations of my employee or my consultee if I'm not checking and adjusting and marking progress. Attention to detail partners with this strength as well, although my purpose is NOT to micromanage. My purpose is to solve the business challenges, and usually that's done on my feet, "ad hoc" so to speak, with follow-up required to check for understanding and change.

All of these workings are done with the company's objectives in mind, not mine. What usually occurs is a debriefing of what management wants, then an observation of employees, then an observation of customer behavior, and then...the tweaking begins so that the three shall meet. Sometimes that requires compromise on the part of all three parties, but that's rare--my main objective is to make the company's mission statement make applicable sense to its employees in a way that the customer will buy into immediately.

Most of my experience in this practice comes from phone/call center and on-line work with customers and companies, while working face-to-face with the employee and their leadership. I have retail/face-to-face experience with customers, but my expertise with any kind of company lies in phone/internet communications and metrics. I have become adept at social networks and blogging to bring my message to leaders and their employees, and it's a trait that gains and keeps the attention of both groups--not to mention making it a more exciting communication experience for me.

Next time I'll talk about my experience and how it's contributed to the practice and perfection of my skills, beginning with my most current work at WW Grainger.