I would not consider myself a prime candidate for life coaching. I’m twenty years old, have a stable (though extremely new) job, currently pursuing my BS in Technoledgy, and I’m happy in my romantic and social life. I don’t seem like the right type of person to go in for something of that nature.
I suppose this has a great deal to do with what I percieve life coaching as. I view it as a resource for people aged 35 to 65 whose lives have not gone quite the way they have wanted them to. It is a chance for those people, who have failed at one thing or another, to reach towards a new goal, a new purpose, and redirect their entire lifestyle. This is for people striving to be happy with their lives.
My job, however, is doing some Customer Loyalty Training. The concept is pretty simple. Satisfied customers do not necessarily return. What you have to create is an environment where the customer is not only satisfied with the service they recieve. We have to envision and enable an environment where the customer is completely and entirely enthused about their experience with the company.
Now, normally, I would consider all of this a load of shit. It is good, in theory, to attempt something of this scale. However, in practice, it is rarely ever seen to completion. The employees are normally not empowered to actually put their money where their mouth is. I’ve been threatned with unemployment over assiting a customer when my manager had explicitly given me directions to be somewhere… and just stand.
The awesome thing about this particular training is that me and my other coworker are going to assist in creating the policies that govern the company and the workers involved. We are going to help come up with the scripts (yes, I hate them) and the general rules for interaction between employees, employers, and customers.
One of the off things about this, however, is we’re essentially subjected to the scrutany of a life coach who also happens to be a business coach. This makes sense, in a theoretical way. However, I don’t know how comfortable I am with letting my bosses know my hopes and dreams. To get the most out of this, and to truly work with the company in this, I have to be completely honest.
This creates one small hang up. One of my bosses is extremely Christain. His emails have a Bible verse tagged onto them. I’m worried about what kind of issues this dynamic can cause. I know that I’ve already gotten into the religion discussion with the other boss’s wife… I tried so hard to avoid it, too. I’m going through (heh) hell and high water to not bring it up infront of the other boss.
While I’d like to get the most out of this that I can, I have no intention of opening up that particular can of worms. I don’t know how open to other religions my coworkers, and particularly my bosses, are.
21, August 2008 at 12:14 pm
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. I think you’re (unfortunately) right to be cautious. But perhaps you can find a way to assert your beliefs and life philosophies without actually having to identify your religion?
I am quite cynical about these types of projects, myself. I once went to a day long “team building” workshop, and what I shared during one of the exercises was later used against me as a reason to get rid of me. Really felt betrayed.
24, August 2008 at 8:33 pm
You are not required under any law to discuss religous matters at work and they have no right to ask you. If it comes up…
My coworker used to say she believed in deity, that there is a god or gods but reserved judgement otherwise and focussed on teh person not teh religion they followed.
Literally. It pretty much amounts to your beliefs are yours and mine are mine and you don’t need to know because they are unimportant…
Let us know how it pans out.
24, August 2008 at 8:59 pm
I know that. And I try to essentially avoid specifics. Certain other choices I make make things more difficult. I wear a pentagram, and it’s difficult to avoid when people directly comment on it.
Thanks. I know that it does. And I’m not going to deal with something so stupid if it becomes an issue.
Thank you, again.
25, August 2008 at 12:03 am
Off topic here… Hope you don’t mind, I nominated you for a blog award as I enjoy reading your posts. Visit my blog to see it…
26, August 2008 at 7:15 am
Wow…. thanks. That’s awesome. I’ll have to get a list together, then.