Resolving Interpersonal Conflict (Blog Post #2)

This incident happened to me during my secondary school holidays that i took on a part time job selling men’s business pants in a major shopping centre along Orchard Road. On my first day at work, i got to know a few nice co-workers and there was a girl, Esta (not her real name), who was particularly friendly and outgoing. We often had lunch together and we were able to communicate with each other very easily. We became closer, not in romance sense, but more of closer friends.

On work, i began to observe some phenomenon. While i was a promoter of a certain brand of business pants, there were other promoters selling other brands. In that sense, we were working under different companies but we were in the same department. The promoters of other brands were really aggressive in their sales tactics as i realized that they were working under a commission-based scheme. So their salaries were based on how many business pants they were able to sell. But as i was only working part time, my pay was on an hourly basis, which might explain why i was much laid back in my sales. Esta was a promoter of another brand and also works on the commission basis. There was also some “rules” in sales that all of us must abide by. To avoid conflicts among the promoters, customers are free to walk around and when they stop to see a particular brand, other promoters of other brands are not supposed to “snatch” their customers.

There was this time when this customer decided that he wanted to try on Esta’s brand of pants and, while waiting for her to come back with the right size, that customer came over to my counter and said he wanted to try on some of the pants i was promoting too. In the end, that customer bought the pants that i was selling. Now, as all of you might have guessed, Esta became very angry with me. Her attitude towards me has completely changed since that incident. She refused to talk to me and i even heard from other co-workers that she has been telling everyone that i stole her customers. I have tried explaining the situation to her but it was of no use. It was then my school holidays ended and i have to go back to studying again. I have never contacted her since then and, looking back at it, it was such a pity that this friendship has to end just like that. What would you have done if you are in my shoes?

Effective Communication Skills (Blog Post #1)

Communication involves every aspect of our interactions with the people around us. Thus, communication and relationships are closely intertwined. Relationships with our family, friends or colleagues, can’t be forged and strengthened without communicating with them. Therefore, to be able to communicate effectively allows healthy relationships to be fostered and maintained. This is why I feel that developing effective communication skills is paramount in order to have good relationships to the people around us. More importantly, by establishing good and healthy relationships, we are exposing ourselves to more opportunities, either socially or professionally. Socially, i mean, by having good relationships with friends, they would be more than happy to introduce you to his/her friends. This enables us to widen our circle of friends and networks. The same goes for our professional relationships. Having such relationships not only allows you to have more opportunities to employment, it also opens up a lot of business possibilities. All this, however, is based on the assumption that one is able to communication efficiently.

Communication also involves the way in which we express our thoughts, feelings and ideas to people. No matter what we actually say to other people in words, we send out other kinds of information such as what we think of them, what we think of ourselves, and whether we are being sincere and genuine in what we say. It is our nonverbal communication, our gestures, body language, facial expressions and attitude, which speak volumes about us. This directly shapes how other people experience us and how they communicate in return. Therefore, to effectively communicate, one must be skilled in this regard. This aspect of communication, in my opinion, is not as easy to master as we need to pay a lot of attention to detail. But, like they always say, practice makes perfect.

Post #0!

Welcome! I'm Chong Guan, as you can pretty much tell from my site address. This is my first ever blog/post! It has been quite a while since most of my friends started their own blogs and i have always wanted to have one. I'll always say i don't have the time but i think i'm just plain lazy. Anyway, ES2007S has given me the opportunity (actually, there wasn't much of a choice) to set up this blog! So here it is, my own blog! It's a new way to get graded on a module and it really seems like fun. I was quite psyched up for this module after the first session with our tutor, Miss Grace Kim, as all of my classmates were actively participating in the discussions. This is great for a module like this, as it requires a whole lot of interaction otherwise it would be very boring. But i can't figure out why they pay quite a bit of attention to gender issues! Very interesting! Oh! Perhaps i should introduce myself more. I'm a Year 4 Mechanical Engineering student, the Science students are asking me and my fellow engineering friend what are we doing in this course. Apparently, it's mostly for Science students. Oops! Anyway, I don't feel like a 24 year old but i am. Going on 25 in a few months time. Sigh. I come from a family of 5, me being the middle child and i stay in the north east part of Singapore. This post feels more and more informal. Maybe i should stop here. So that's it! My first post for my first blog! See ya!