It's 1:11am on Tuesday morning.
Jun. 7th, 2005 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brinshannaraAnd I am not only awake, but about to get Research Methods work done! GO ME.
(I am trying to encourage myself, here.)
Some cool things to mention:
1) For the next 23 or so hours, you can buy a PERMANENT LJ account (which is like a paid account, but is FOREVER, and you ALSO get 100 icon spaces!) for $150USD. Since I am a lowly Canadian getting paid in lowly Canadian dollars, this is a wee much for me (particularly as I don't get paid until Thursday/Friday). However, some of you may not be so hampered. So that's a PSA for you.
2)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
graspingbeauty is TEH AWESOME. She bought a permanent LJ account and gave me her paid time, which is something like 7 months worth. For she doth rock muchly. <snuggles graspingbeauty>
Some work things to mention:
1) Tonight, I made a 10 year old boy cry. I felt horrible. There I am, doing the kid part of the survey and I ask him if he's very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned or not at all concerned about diabetes. He paused, said "uhhh" a couple of times, then, bless his heart, said "can you hang on for a minute please?" I said sure. He puts the phone down and I actually HEARD him burst into tears. "Mommy! The lady is asking me something I don't underSTAND!" Sobbing! My heart nearly broke. So the mom is like "That's okay, honey, you can tell her you don't understand. It'll be okay!" He was still very reluctant to come to the phone, so she took it and said "I'm sorry, but it looks like he won't be able to finish it."
"Ma'am, that's totally understandable, but if you could manage to get him to come back on the line, even if it's just to say he doesn't know for all the questions, that would be great, otherwise, we can't use the answers you provided us, or any of the answers he managed to give us."
"Oh, all right, just a moment, please, we'll try to calm him down."
I felt so bad! The poor little guy!
He came back to the phone a minute later, sniffling (!) and said "hullo?" in that little kid way and I said "Hey, there. Don't worry if you don't understand something. If that's the case, just tell me you don't know and we'll go on to the next question, okay?"
"Okay," he said, sniffling again.
He answered "I don't know" to maybe five of the 40 or so questions, and he seemed encouraged by being able to give that answer, and I got through the survey with him! Yay!
I thanked him extra much at the end of the call. "Zane," I said to him, "thank you *so much* for your answers and your opinions! I totally appreciated it. You really helped us out! Do you think I could talk to your mom again, please?"
"Sure!" he answered, all happily.
So I thanked his mom again, and that was the end of the FIFTY FIVE MINUTE CALL.
2) As an aside to the above, when taking down the kid's name (yes, it really was Zane! I wonder if the parents were fans of the Incarnations of Immortality??), I said:
"Zane, so that's Zed as in Zebra, A as in Alpha, N as in November and E as in Echo?"
"Actually, that's Zee as in Zebra."
I paused. Seriously, I did a doubletake, and then remembered. I was calling around the US.
"Riiight, Zee. Sorry, I'm Canadian and I tend to say Zed!"
You'd never know I lived in the States for two years by the way I handled that. Really. It's like the last six years of being home have completely wiped the US out of my brain.
3) In my survey, I was required to ask for a parent who has a child between the age of 6 and 17 who lived in the household. In Alabama, I got a young man who said he was a parent AND he was 17 years old. And that there was no one over 18 in his household. A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD FATHER LIVING ALONE WITH HIS KID AND POSSIBLY THE MOTHER? My head, she exploded.
4) One of the calls I had tonight was a callback, meaning they'd already started the survey. They were halfway through the kid section, so I wound up talking to Shanaika. Shanaika is, I'm sure, a perfectly adorable 6 year old girl. That said, she had the THICKEST Southern accent I have EVER HEARD. And I have LIVED in the South (although not the Deep South). I regularly hung out with someone from South Carolina. People all around me said "y'all" enough for me to pick it up. And I could NOT understand three consecutive words coming out of this child's mouth. I had to put "OTHER: Child was incomprehensible. Asked to repeat twice, still was incomprehensible" like, four times. Yeouch.
5) I had my second and third reviews today! My second review was only on my introductions and I got rated "good" (out of "very good", "good" and "needs improvement"), mostly because I didn't stress "no sales" when I was leaving my name/company name for a call blocker machine. Otherwise, check it out:
"good, uses full name, clear, polite, professional, enthusiastic, good verbatim"
"good intro, not a good time for the child, good you tried to call back, she asked for the morning, you explained our hours, but she then refused. Good job!"
"good intro, not everybody is here right now, in the middle of homework. Good, you asked for a better time to call, she said evening, you suggested in 2 hours, excellent! You got the callback. (Don't forget to try for the name, when possible, in this case, it probably would have been a little too much.)"
:D
My third review was on a full survey given, and my "research skills" need improvement, because I didn't properly probe this one respondent, and I made too many "mm hmm" noises.
My technical skills are "very good" (booya! Up from "good"!) which makes me quite happy, and my communication skills have improved, too, from "needs improvement" to "good". I can't really help it that some of the answers the woman gave me actually made us both laugh! I mean, shit, when you have a statement like "My child knows what foods are good for him, but he doesn't like the taste" and the respondent goes "Lord knows that he hates his lima beans" or something, while chuckling, you're going to laugh too! But I can live with that, because the rest of the comments were awesome. Look!
"You read clearly and at a good pace. Your tone of voice is confident, lively, sympathetic and helps keep the respondent interested."
"You don't use any fillers."
"Good job of repeating choices as you wrote them down so as to occupy 'empty space'"
So hey, I'm improving in my job and I am SO KICKING ASS at this survey I worked on during Sunday and Monday. My productivity (as compared to the average) is through the roof. People apparently trust their kids with me. Who knew?!
... I am totally procrastinating. I know. I'm off to work on RM now. :)
(I am trying to encourage myself, here.)
Some cool things to mention:
1) For the next 23 or so hours, you can buy a PERMANENT LJ account (which is like a paid account, but is FOREVER, and you ALSO get 100 icon spaces!) for $150USD. Since I am a lowly Canadian getting paid in lowly Canadian dollars, this is a wee much for me (particularly as I don't get paid until Thursday/Friday). However, some of you may not be so hampered. So that's a PSA for you.
2)
graspingbeauty is TEH AWESOME. She bought a permanent LJ account and gave me her paid time, which is something like 7 months worth. For she doth rock muchly. <snuggles graspingbeauty>Some work things to mention:
1) Tonight, I made a 10 year old boy cry. I felt horrible. There I am, doing the kid part of the survey and I ask him if he's very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned or not at all concerned about diabetes. He paused, said "uhhh" a couple of times, then, bless his heart, said "can you hang on for a minute please?" I said sure. He puts the phone down and I actually HEARD him burst into tears. "Mommy! The lady is asking me something I don't underSTAND!" Sobbing! My heart nearly broke. So the mom is like "That's okay, honey, you can tell her you don't understand. It'll be okay!" He was still very reluctant to come to the phone, so she took it and said "I'm sorry, but it looks like he won't be able to finish it."
"Ma'am, that's totally understandable, but if you could manage to get him to come back on the line, even if it's just to say he doesn't know for all the questions, that would be great, otherwise, we can't use the answers you provided us, or any of the answers he managed to give us."
"Oh, all right, just a moment, please, we'll try to calm him down."
I felt so bad! The poor little guy!
He came back to the phone a minute later, sniffling (!) and said "hullo?" in that little kid way and I said "Hey, there. Don't worry if you don't understand something. If that's the case, just tell me you don't know and we'll go on to the next question, okay?"
"Okay," he said, sniffling again.
He answered "I don't know" to maybe five of the 40 or so questions, and he seemed encouraged by being able to give that answer, and I got through the survey with him! Yay!
I thanked him extra much at the end of the call. "Zane," I said to him, "thank you *so much* for your answers and your opinions! I totally appreciated it. You really helped us out! Do you think I could talk to your mom again, please?"
"Sure!" he answered, all happily.
So I thanked his mom again, and that was the end of the FIFTY FIVE MINUTE CALL.
2) As an aside to the above, when taking down the kid's name (yes, it really was Zane! I wonder if the parents were fans of the Incarnations of Immortality??), I said:
"Zane, so that's Zed as in Zebra, A as in Alpha, N as in November and E as in Echo?"
"Actually, that's Zee as in Zebra."
I paused. Seriously, I did a doubletake, and then remembered. I was calling around the US.
"Riiight, Zee. Sorry, I'm Canadian and I tend to say Zed!"
You'd never know I lived in the States for two years by the way I handled that. Really. It's like the last six years of being home have completely wiped the US out of my brain.
3) In my survey, I was required to ask for a parent who has a child between the age of 6 and 17 who lived in the household. In Alabama, I got a young man who said he was a parent AND he was 17 years old. And that there was no one over 18 in his household. A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD FATHER LIVING ALONE WITH HIS KID AND POSSIBLY THE MOTHER? My head, she exploded.
4) One of the calls I had tonight was a callback, meaning they'd already started the survey. They were halfway through the kid section, so I wound up talking to Shanaika. Shanaika is, I'm sure, a perfectly adorable 6 year old girl. That said, she had the THICKEST Southern accent I have EVER HEARD. And I have LIVED in the South (although not the Deep South). I regularly hung out with someone from South Carolina. People all around me said "y'all" enough for me to pick it up. And I could NOT understand three consecutive words coming out of this child's mouth. I had to put "OTHER: Child was incomprehensible. Asked to repeat twice, still was incomprehensible" like, four times. Yeouch.
5) I had my second and third reviews today! My second review was only on my introductions and I got rated "good" (out of "very good", "good" and "needs improvement"), mostly because I didn't stress "no sales" when I was leaving my name/company name for a call blocker machine. Otherwise, check it out:
"good, uses full name, clear, polite, professional, enthusiastic, good verbatim"
"good intro, not a good time for the child, good you tried to call back, she asked for the morning, you explained our hours, but she then refused. Good job!"
"good intro, not everybody is here right now, in the middle of homework. Good, you asked for a better time to call, she said evening, you suggested in 2 hours, excellent! You got the callback. (Don't forget to try for the name, when possible, in this case, it probably would have been a little too much.)"
:D
My third review was on a full survey given, and my "research skills" need improvement, because I didn't properly probe this one respondent, and I made too many "mm hmm" noises.
My technical skills are "very good" (booya! Up from "good"!) which makes me quite happy, and my communication skills have improved, too, from "needs improvement" to "good". I can't really help it that some of the answers the woman gave me actually made us both laugh! I mean, shit, when you have a statement like "My child knows what foods are good for him, but he doesn't like the taste" and the respondent goes "Lord knows that he hates his lima beans" or something, while chuckling, you're going to laugh too! But I can live with that, because the rest of the comments were awesome. Look!
"You read clearly and at a good pace. Your tone of voice is confident, lively, sympathetic and helps keep the respondent interested."
"You don't use any fillers."
"Good job of repeating choices as you wrote them down so as to occupy 'empty space'"
So hey, I'm improving in my job and I am SO KICKING ASS at this survey I worked on during Sunday and Monday. My productivity (as compared to the average) is through the roof. People apparently trust their kids with me. Who knew?!
... I am totally procrastinating. I know. I'm off to work on RM now. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 02:25 pm (UTC)And yay about the performance reviews!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 03:31 pm (UTC)And you're just MEAN. ;) (Are you awake/at home/etc? You could caaaaall me.)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-07 03:33 pm (UTC)Yay for performance reviews indeed! :D