When you work in Operations and you tell your internal clients that you work as a network engineer, they often think that you are “Mr All-computer-stuff”. That is often the case regardless of where the client is in the company hierarchy. They expect you to fix any computer issue they have at hand. Onsite interventions feel like you were dropped in a tribal region in a forest while equipped with a Swiss-army knife.

Something that I noticed over the years, after countless phone calls I’ve had with co-workers, managers, service providers and clients, is that people react best to your message if you talk to them as if they were physically in front of you. It’s not because your voice sounds different on the phone that you treat people in a mediocre fashion. It’s not because the other person is far away that you can afford to downsize him or her. I even find myself gesturing like I was giving a speech in front of deaf people! Does that mean that I should pay attention to my facial expressions? To some extent yes. But, the universal emotions of joy, sadness, anger and deception can definitely be wonderfully encoded in your voice while on the phone. That is the reason why the smile of a caring customer service agent can not be mistaken. And that makes the other person comfortable and very receptive to you.