How would YOU answer this question ??
You and your partner have a weekend getaway planned that requires you leave town as soon as you finish work dead on 5pm Friday. 4:55pm Friday a customer comes in with an urgent request. You are working alone. What do you do?
The codacil being: would you ruin your weekend away with your partner/family to answer this query?
This was asked in a library context, but would this apply to your job or other situation? How would you answer it?
I'll give my answer later {grin}
14 comments:
This happens to me on almost a daily basis. The surest way to create a disaster at work is for me to make plans. I do not plan make plans that cannot be cancelled or delayed. I do not know what it means to get off at a certain time. My family and friends frequently will ask "what time do you get off?" My response "When I'm done". So my response to this question is that the customer (in my case patient) comes first. I would make other arrangements. Now the story changes if something is wrong with my family member in which case I would be calling for back-up as I rushed out the door.
Well, I have about three different contexts to answer this in {grin}.
First, as an EMT and a 911 dispatcher.. of course the customer (patient or caller) comes first. If I were to walk away because it was a certain time, no matter WHAT the reason is, there is every chance that someone could die or lose their property. If a matter of that small a timeframe would ruin a weekend away, I think I'd need to re-evaluate my partner or plans...
As a director of billing services, I would listen to the request, and in all likelihood, I am not able to actually resolve the issue in any case, so I would listen to the request and find the right resource to refer the customer to. (Speaking as if this were an actual cable customer, by the way.)
As a director of billing services dealing with an internal "customer"; 4:55 is too late in the day for anything to be fixed on the billing system anyway; cutoff for system changes is 3:00 pm (and that's not my rule, that's an actual rule on the mainframe). We also can't enter changes for the weekend, so it's really not an issue. I'd listen to the customer, understand exactly what the issue is, ask them to summarize in an email and tell them I will handle the actual changes on Monday morning... that's just as easy a choice as the situation when I'm an EMT or dispatcher.
I think I would do my best to answer the patron question. Gently remind them that we close at 5 and suggest that someone will be back at the library at such and such tme and day to help them.
See, it really depends how long the query would take to answer....But the short of it is yes, in an interview situation, I would answer "Yes", even if it were not the absolute truth.
In reality, I'd work out what I could do in the 5mins I had available and probably make notes on what needs to be done and make sure it is dealt with as soon as business next opens.
I actually ran into this problem at work yesterday. The auditors were here - I didn't get a lunch and it was 4:00 (the time I leave) and they came to me with questions....I was here until 5pm :-(
It would depend on the customer's request. If it was life or death, I'd help them. If not, my family is the first priority. I look at it this way. I'd rather be a bad employee than a bad mom.
In my case, it would mean that one of my kiddos didn't get picked up from school. I had this happen last year when Jeff had called and asked me to pick up Brendan from school so I had very limited time before my kiddo would be standing out in front of the school waiting for me. I did stay with the student and Grandma made it in a very timely manner so I was able to get to Bren's school on time. The other frustration for me is that we're on a time clock and cannot go over hours. The particular student I was waiting with refused to go back to the office to wait (remember I deal with Special Ed kiddos so they're unpredictable) so I HAD to stay with the student.
I think most employers want you to say Yes, you will wait. I agree with Claire that they'd rather hear you would be committed to the job in any situation even if it's not the absolute truth.
Can't wait to hear your reply!
In an interview situation, they expect you to say yes, you would tank your plans to serve the customer, blah blah blah... Like Paula said, there are different work scenarios where this can't happen because of life/death circumstances for the one asking for help. When I work in the ER, I can leave at my quitting time so long as my relief is there and it's not super busy - like 4 ambulances came in and we have the police dropping off a screaming psycho all at shift change :)
When I worked retail in the stamp store, we did occasionally run into that right before close. Luckily, we had the backing of the store owner that if it was a large request, or just browsing people to let them know if they showed up within that last 5-10 minutes before closing that we would be closing AT 5:00.
In all honesty, in this situation, I'd find out what the customer wanted, jot down some notes and then remind them that we do close at 5 and could someone call or email them with their answer when we opened on Monday. If they were persistent about getting an answer, I would tell them I was sorry, but I HAVE to leave as soon as we close due to a prior commitment. I probably wouldn't get the job, but I would have given my honest answer...
In real life, if you are working totally alone, and have to leave in 5 minutes, honestly, you have probably already shut down the computers, turned off the lights and are ready to lock the door, so my answer would be, Come back Monday.
I had a situation where my friend was getting married and I had airplane tickets to fly down. I had arranged my vacation time 5 months in advance and had it approved. As one of only 2 people out of 1200 who could operate a certain piece of equipment I was asked to cancel my plans. I said no, and left.
Having worked in the fiduciary realm I can only tell you that you were absolutely asked to answer such requests. Even if you had appointments.
But then - if you were a responsible adult you wouldn't fix a departure in this way and give an hour or two extra. There could always be other things coming in between that were not work related, too!
Any consequences?
Yup, but not to me. They tried to run the line anyway, broke the drive gear in the mchine and had to wait 2 weeks for a replacement part from Germany.
This is one of those situations where you hope to hell that the question comes at the END of the interview, at which point you, hopefully, have at least a scrap of an idea on the ethics & customer focus of the Company.
Ideally, it would be the sort of Company that has relationships with their customers, so you could at least "nicely" gauge whether the matter was really urgent & would they mind if you addressed it first think Monday as it was 5 minutes to closing (and you'd like to ensure you could give their query the time it should take). Otherwise, I'd stay, but again, I'd like to think the Company was ethical enough to realize my sacrifice & compensate my partner & I for the inconvenience (even if that means money).
After all, if I'm willing to give everything for my Customers, I'd like them to give everything for me.
I had a friend who was called back from his honeymoon in The Gold Coast for an emergency. They compensated he & his wife with a new trip, to Fiji 6 months later.....Give & take.
This was asked early in the interview and I honestly didn't know what the "right" way to answer it was, so I was just honest.
I pointed out I would first ascertain the nature of the "emergency" and if I could actually help them then and there (i.e. if they wanted information from the eastern states there's no way I'll get an answer at the equivalent of 7pm Friday night!).
I also pointed out (as Mariann has picked up on) that Stephen and I have been in our respective industries long enough that we do not make plans that rely on us leaving work on time. Stephen is in IT. If our plans require us to leave the city at 5pm then we would have scheduled the whole day off work, or at least arranged to finish at lunch time.
I finally stated that if there was an unusual set of circumstances that held me back long enough to "ruin the weekend" then I would expect to be compensated accordingly. I didn't go into detail as to what that vague statement actually meant :)
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