If you are like me, life and work are inextricably linked. Work has shaped my thinking, determined where I lived and has provided me with my means of support. In turn, my family has provided me with emotional support and purpose in life. Work and home, each motivates and nourishes the other. Along the way, I have learned to balance the two. Because the two are linked, I will often blog about family events and how they relate to my job. What I have related has varied from near death vehicular mishaps to father and son outings in the middle of winter. I talk about these things because I see corollaries between day-to-day life and my work.
For example, I have told you about camping and how it teaches you to be prepared. The ground is hard, the night is cold, and your clothes are wet… you had best learn what your environment is going to be like and do your best to be prepared. I have found that the same is true in work. Your contact center has SLA’s, costs and people and if your contact center solution cannot provide the services at the level needed, at a cost that you can afford and with a technology that your people can use, then you won’t be in business. Similarly, when I look at NICE, and I consider the design of its network, the architecture of its services, the skill of its staff, the scope of its products and the flexibility of its tools, in my mind I quickly draw comparisons to things like my 4x4 truck, my high tech fleece, my water proof gear, my GPS systems. Each is instrumental in making my experience (work or play) successful and enjoyable.
I also often compare the experiences I have with my children with some aspect of NICE. As a parent, I like to talk about my kids and I see parallels between them and my work all the time. I have a daughter that runs her own art welding business called The Iron Phoenix. She has a great talent for shaping things out of iron and old rusty parts. So far I have had people ask if she can make a monkey, or a fish or some insect. Whatever people have asked, she seems to be able to make it. Same thing happens at NICE. Questions are asked about our ability to interface with CRMs, service at-home agents, provide VOIP services, provide dedicated or internet services, create DR plans, process emails, etc, etc… and the answer is always 'YES'. Our application and our skilled professional services can do just about anything you can imagine.
I think that a lot of us in this industry have similar feelings and experiences. What we do is not just a job. It becomes part of our life. Home and work are joined, each provides support for the other, each inspires the other. This has truly been the case for me at NICE, where I feel that NICE is more than a place where I get paid to come to work. The things I do and the people I associate with have become part of my extended family. We at NICE feel the same way about our customers, each supports and nourishes the other. Just as home and work are inextricably linked for me, so NICE and its customers are inextricably joined in an effort to be successful.
