Back to Blogger - Meyers Briggs

My original intent was to try another blogging mechanism, edublogs.org, as it was recommended by a co worker intent on completing his masters in organizational development. Unfortunately, it appears that the site cannot handle the number of participants, and I have switched back to the Google version.
So I now have to catch up from previous posts.

It will be interesting to view my Meyers Briggs profile this time as the last time I completed the profile it was not on line and I certainly do not remember as many questions that related to whether or not I preferred planning or going with the flow, and as of this posting, I haven't yet received the results but my planning preference was sorely tested last week at the beginning of a trip to Alaska. The plane left Richmond too late and we missed the connection to Seattle in Philadelphia. A trip to the Customer Service counter left much to be desired after a conversation with one reservation agent who said it was not her responsibility to get us to the ship. I said I realized that but was asking for help in that direction as I wasn't in a position to search for the information myself. The next question was how much of a refund would we get should we just turn around and go back to Richmond, and the answer was none as the tickets was non refundable. The conversation deteriorated from there, until a second agent came along, and wonder of wonders, set us up on a flight out of Philadelphia in a first class seat, and another flight the next morning to Ketchikan, Alaska, where we could board the ship. A trip to a UPS store to use their computer allowed me to find accommodation in Ketchikan for Sunday night. So we reached the first port of call before the ship. There was such a vast difference in the attitude of the two agents it made me wonder about the leadership of the airline and what legacy any airline leader will leave. I truly try and have sympathy for issues when traveling as many of the problems are out of control of the airline, however, the attitude of the agents is in their control.

I purposely didn't take too many novels on the trip so I could finish at least the first book reading. What struck me was how really simple the premise of leadership is as outlined in the in the book, and how basic are some of the ideas. The idea of creating honesty and trust with the constituents was revealed to me by a friend who was in Richmond from Memphis to attend the wedding of a new recruit. My friend is an employment attorney in Memphis and she was adamant about making sure the new recruit was going to be comfortable relocating, and my friend was also able to put the parents' mind at rest and show that the recruit would be in good and caring hands when she moved to her new position in a new town.

Customer service was also evident during my trip (which was on a cruise ship). Despite the fact the employees obviously travel the same route over and over, deal with sometimes irate customers day after day, all the staff were more than pleasant during the whole trip, had constant smiles on their faces, and went out of their way to be helpful. We were informed that as we had boarded the ship in a port that was different from the originating port, we could be subject to a $300 fine per person as evidenced in the Jones Act, which is some obscure act from the 1920's. We tried to argue the point with the desk clerk, however, she wasn't the one who became a little irate.

If you are interested, you can search for it and see for yourself how legitimate the claim might be. I will have to wait for my American Express card statement to determine if I will try and fight the charge!