Tangerine's PoV

A year and a half ago I came back from my maternity leave and I was given a brand new project: to create and manage a new team in Chile in order to give support to our customers: answer the calls from Spain, e-mails, and integrate with our team from here.

It’s been one year and a half working 19 hours a day in order to make this work, doing my best to have time for my son, my family, my studies and for myself also, but now it finally works, and it works really good. I had a lot of positive and negative experiences during the process and I learned a lot from this project. It’s not easy to work with persons from another country, with different culture and different habits, it’s hard for us and hard for them. Here are some tips to make it easier to create and manage a team from a quite important distance.

1. Get familiar with the local labor legislation

You need to know the rights of the employees, the benefits you can offer to them (courses, etc), the sick leaves, the holidays, etc. You have to get full understanding of everything that regulates the rights and responsabilities of the employees in order not to create an environment of confusion and chaos.

2. Know the people and their culture

In most of the cases you have to travel to the country in order to interview at least one person that will bring the other members of the team, to rent a place where the office will be located, etc. Make the most of this trip in order to know the places and the culture of the country, because this way you will have more things in common with the team. Let them know your country also and talk from time to time about cultural differencies and similarities. It helps to bring people together and distroy virtual frontiers.

3. Get personal and keep personal

In order to overcome the difficulties caused by the distance you have to get closer at a personal level: try to know better the people, get closer to them when they need it, when they have a problem, give them a call when they are sick, call to congratulate them on their birthday, etc. You have to be very close and help them when they might need it, in order to keep a good contact and make them feel as part of the organization.

4. Integrate them into the whole

You have to help them know the members of the other teams although they don’t need to interact with them in their day-to-day activities. It is important for them to know the organization in which they work, otherwise they will not understand the mission and values of the company and they will not take it seriosly. In case it is possible invite one of them to visit the HQ periodically, so that they get a better idea of the company.

5. Plan the visits

It is important to have a plan of periodical visits to the new office in order to understand the needs and know the environment in which they work and make sure it is comfortable. These visits must be organized and planned in advance in order to let everybody get prepared for the visit. In order to get the most of it, everything should be prepared in advance; if the visit is a surprise and if it is a short visit (like most of them), people will get very nervous during the first days and you will not be able to understand the real situation.

6. Communicate and reward

Working from a distance is difficult because it is hard to get feedback, this is why it is so important for you to organize regular meetings with the team and also individual meetings in order to communicate the news, know the needs of the team and the individual needs and detect the problems that might appear. It is also important to reward the efforts that are made in order to improve the quality of their work, in order to motivate the staff. It is also convenient to add to the conferences local members in order to improve their integration into the whole.

7. Don’t take anything for granted

This is a rule which is present in all aspects of our life, but in this situation it has a special role. At the distance, when a team works without a local leader it is easy to have issues between the different employees because of different personalities, etc. In most of the cases there will be a few persons that will talk to you about internal problems, and others that won’t. You have to keep in mind that there are two ways to manage this: ignore it and let them solve it internally or get involved. If you want to get involved, first of all you have to give equal credit to every employee and listen to all of them in the same way. In the regular visits you should do some extra-work activities in order to better know the persons and find the way to better communicate with each of them.

Conclusions

In order to better manage a team from a distance you have to really do your best to know every member of the team, know the culture of their country and share with them the culture of your country. You have to make them feel integrated into the company, and you also have to visit the office regularly in order to spend time with the employees and get closer to them. You have to have lots of patience in the beginning but when things start to work fine and you get used to the new routine you will be thankful for being able to know the people and their culture, and it will be a pleasure to work together with them and achieve any objective that you wish together with you new and strong team.

I’ve been tagged by Cris to write 8 random facts about me. So, this is how it works:

• We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

All this being said, let’s start with the 8 facts:

1. I always wanted to be a young mother, but still, when I got pregnant the first thing I thought was: “Oh my God, I’m too young to be mother”. I still think I’m too young, but well…
2. I hate it when people don’t let you get off the metro/bus/train before they go in.
3. I have big issues with living in the present; I use to get lost somewhere in the past now and then.
4. I have problems finding what I really like: I have started three degrees (economisc, English and Spanish philology and finally advertising and public relations), and I still don’t know if what I study now is what I would like to do in the future. Maybe I have to be what they call the “eternal student”.
5. I read boring literature (everytime I lend a book to someone, a book that I enjoyed a lot they are not able to finish it, or if they can they declare it the most boring book they have read in their lives).
6. I like to watch contests like ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ (not exaclty this as here in Spain the host of the show is disgusting).
7. I hate it when the company I work for is not organized and does not establish rules to be followed by everyone.
8. I am scared to death by the thought of giving birth. It’s been two or three weeks now since I dream about it every night.

Now I would tag Sabina, Cornelia and Cris but I would first have to convince them to start a blog. Tough task! So I tag anyone who is interested in sharing with us 8 little random things about theirselves.

We use to say that we are multitasking because we are able to do more than one activity at one time successfully. We can speak with a client by phone, write an e-mail and respond to colleague who is asking if we want coffee or not. But do we really do all these things at the same time and do we really concentrate on each one of these things? Cientists have different opinions and until they make up their minds and come to a conclusion we will not know if we can really be multitasking or not. I always considered myself able to do various tasks at the same time, but still, science might study this and discover if this is really possible and how can it be achieved.

For the moment I have found some very interesting videos which demonstrate that the most important skill that helps us realize more than one task at the same time, aka the short term visual memory, is limited. We can only concentrate on 4 things at the same time. False? See the videos on this page and see how long it takes to find the difference between the two pics in each video.

“So there are these two muffins baking in an oven. One of them yells, “Wow, it’s hot in here!”

And the other muffin replies: “Holy cow! A talking muffin!”

Did that alleged joke make you laugh? I would guess (and hope) not. But under different circumstances, you would be chuckling softly, maybe giggling, possibly guffawing. I know that’s hard to believe, but trust me. The results are just in on a laboratory test of the muffin joke.”

A very interesting article published in New York Times that demonstrates that laughter is not what we think:

“Occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.”

Full article here

Here we have the first photos of the little person to be.

Welcome little bug.

UPDATE:

And more images of our little alien here.

We all hear people talking about spam and more than that, unfortunately, we all receive lots of spam everyday.

In 2003, in the United States a new law that prohibits any form of spam and phishing was published. You can read it here:

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

Yesterday, it was the first time when applying this law a defendant was found guilty of phishing attacks.

“

A California man who defrauded users of AOL by sending e-mail messages requesting credit data became the first defendant found guilty by a jury under a 2003 federal law barring Internet ”spam.”

“

Full story here: Man Convicted Under Antispam Law

Will we receive less spam from the United States starting from yestarday?

Source: New York Times

A few weeks ago we could see in Barcelona a group of people anouncing free hugs. A lot of persons went there, got their pat on the back and went home. Some of them told this to their friends with an enthusiastic tone, other just hid it with an embarrassed look. But, in the end, does this really help? I mean, do you really feel better after hugging a complete stranger?

I always look at the people in the metro and I see their sad faces, their worries written with wrinkles and I always wanted to do something for them, like make them smile at least one. I wanted to found an ONG to help “metro folks” smile, or something. First I though of putting a poster at the metro entry with “Free shoulder to cry on”, but then I thought that maybe no one would come, because they would not trust. Maybe I wouldn’t trust either. So I gave up waiting for brilliant idea, not that risky.

I thought of things that use to piss off the passengers, like the delays of RENFE here in Spain. It seems they never come on time and people are getting really tired of this. I thought of a poster with “Free complaints about the delays of the trains… If they won’t listen to us, at least we’ll laugh together”. It seemed risky to me as I don’t know the laws in this country so I’ll have to wait a bit. Maybe this would have made them smile, at least once.

So, what can be done to make them smile without forcing them to pay the ticket with smiles? I’m sure that they all have issues they are worried about, we all have, but it’s quite sad to travel by train or metro. Let’s not forget that in specific moments, if not every day we’re converting into “metro folks” and we’re all sorry about the other “metro folks”. So, solution? Smile more, so the ticket will cost less

Bruno is out of the office, the one handed man is at home trying to move the fingers from time to time. So, I am here again supporting the customers. It’s nice to rememeber the old times, but it’s not that nice to live the old times again. I still cannot find the way to tell a customer that it’s not the product’s fault, so I keep saying “Ok, you are right, I understand you, Yes, indeed”. It’s been a long time since I last used these expressions, but it’s seems i didn’t lose the skills xD.

And there is one more thing that I don’t understand. How come you buy an antivirus product just to have a good looking product? I can’t understand how these persons are more concerned about how the product looks than about what the product does. What if a virus enters in your computer? How would you react then? Anyway, I’m quite surprised with the customers today .

So I hope Bruno will be ok soon and I hope this week finishes soon and I get to finish all the tasks I have for this week for the university. I still think that Pompeu Fabra su**s big time, but what I study is very interesting. It’s like Romania, so nice if it weren’t for the people…

Who cares that the students have to go to the University the 26th of September? I guess nobody, as it’s been almost one month since I submitted my application for the Student Visa and it’s not here yet. So, here I am, trapped in Romania, classes will begin, and it’s not enough that I don’t understand Catalan and the classes are in Catalan, I have to lose one, maybe two weeks of classes and let’s see how I can retake it without knowing anyone there. I hope my visa will arrive soon as I’m not able to work, not able to study, I cannot do anything here. Maybe I’ll finish my Heroes quest, or maybe not.

So, here it goes, to the Embassy of Spain in Romania: If you need more people, get more people. We don’t have to suffer because you’re understaffed.

Maybe world is too crazy, maybe it’s not crazy enough. What’s true is that every day I see more weird news on TV.

Let’s see… China acts on funeral strippers. It’s true. This is the most outrageous news I have read today. Come on! How can you strip on a funeral? It should be one of those rituals that should take the dead’s soul closer to God, or at least this happens in my religion. Strippers? I wonder what music they listen to on these funerals. Should it be “You can leave your coffin on”? Or maybe some Sentenced songs like: Digging the grave, or Killing me, Killing you? It’s incredible what people can do to increase the audience of a funeral.

“The once-common events are held to boost the number of mourners, as large crowds are seen as a mark of honour.“ Who’s honour? People go there to see the strippers, free show. This is like that news I read some time ago about the discounts the german unemployed got for their night visit to the prostitutes. I use to like traditions, they bring that special something to a country, but this seems a little bit exagerated to me.

And this is not all… Now we seem to have only 8 planets. Pluto loses status as a planet. So, everything we have learned at school is lost, it’s not the same. I wonder how this will affect astrology and all the other sciences. It’s strange to see that what you knew for all your life is wrong. What will be next: Terra is a Caprabo bag and humans are some evaluated hairy worm? What can we expect now? Everything is changing, war is all around and planets are not planets anymore. I support the advance of the science and tecnology but don’t confuse us!

And a very good one, quite impressive. They don’t prohibit games like Counter Strike, they show violence on TV all day long, and more than that they show almost naked poor girls that don’t have enough money for a skirt so they think that a scarf will do it, so they show up on TV with the scarf instead of the skirt. Don’t kids see that? Of course they do, but still, that is not bad. What is really bad, in their opinion, is that Tom smokes so… Smoke’s no joke for Tom and Jerry. And this is a solution to a problem. Congratulations! You’ve done a great job, but not the job you should do.

So, this is the world we live in. Welcome to the jungle. I’m changing vines!