Take the voice tone for example. If a man speaks with a raised tone, at a business meeting or even as the head of a helpdesk, people tend to accept it as the voice of authority or in the case of the latter, he is busy and harried. However, when a woman speaks with a raised tone, especially in technical support services, never mind that she is stressed out because of abusive customers, she is either reprimanded or at times fired.

Is this a double standard or is it failure on the part of women who dont realize why they are being hired?

Know their Expectations
Jia got terminated after working at a job for 2 years due to her "communications problem". She was managing 11 servers, 40 laptops and 100 desktops in her office. She was also the user support person to contact when anyone is having trouble, including the companys remote offices. To cut a long story short, when one of the remote office managers told her he was "rebooting the server" by pushing the power button without doing any kind of software shutdown that Jia had asked him to do, Jia sighed. The manager heard her sighing on the phone and was angry. Jia never used any foul language, wasnt curt and didnt scream at him. She sighed and she was fired.

So, it is important to know that in any job, what exactly they hired you for, which is often not what they tell youtheir expectations. This is what you need to figure out and deliver, even if other things go to the dogs. Most people in tech fail to realise this.

In Jias case, despite doing a superlative job at managing systems and being a support person, she was not hired to be task oriented or for her talent in solving problems. Jia thought she was suppose to solve user problems, while in fact, the expectation of her employers has been for her to keep users "happy". Jia was expected to be a bartender equivalent of a computer engineerlisten and sympathize. She wouldnt have been fired if she had let the manager reboot, or given technically wrong instructions with a cajoling or motherly tone. She may have been reprimanded with the manager supporting her! Maintenance and solving was not expected as much as being "mom over the phone", holding virtual hands. This was the expectation and Jia failed to deliver.

Expectations are similar to going to a movie. Take the example of a horror movie. The audience is there to be scared and go to the movie expecting to be scared, so the movie has to have scenes that scare them. If it doesnt, it will be a flop and the audience would spread word about it.

So know their expectationsa boss, client, board or whoever hires you. You may say you are not a mind reader, but there is a way to find out.

Whenever you are assigned to a special task, new project or even offered a promotion, listen to exactly what is being offered and when it comes to "Do you have any questions?" or "Would you like to ask/add anything to what has been just said?" do the following. Thank them and ask, "Can I ask what is it about me that made you decide I was right for this?" Expect silence for a few moments and then their answer will tell you their expectations.

If the answer is:

We like how you handle people: They are looking for a people person and expect you to approach the task from the users viewpoint

I like your organizational capabilities: They want you to de-clutter it and report to them

We need to get things straightened out: They are expecting you to come up with suggestions about how to go about doing it

I like the way you communicate: Keep customers/clients happy and expect you to do virtual handholding

Page(s)   1  2