The Ultimate Career Enhancing Quiz

THE ULTIMATE

All right all you awesome managers out there in HOA land, it’s time for another Vision magazine cosmo-style quiz! Grab your pencil and get started. And remember, NO cheating!

By Vicki MacHale, CCAM

Career Growth Your company posts a notice that an onsite position will be opening in the next 60 days. You are interested in the position so you:

A. Size up the competition and start nasty rumors about everybody who you believe has a shot.

B. Begin to follow your boss around everywhere and mention how smart and good looking they are; ask for additional assignments and offer to babysit their children.

C. Update your resume, and put together a chronological list of your accomplishments over the past several years. Submit this to the human resources department along with a cover letter explaining why you are the best person for the job.

D. Photo bomb your boss’ Facebook,

LinkedIn and Twitter account with delightful memes and pics (while rolling your eyes because this media is so yesterday!).

You decide to move on to a new company as your current company no longer fulfills your needs for professional growth. During an interview, you are asked, “Why are you looking for a new opportunity?”

A. You roll your eyes, huff out a loud blast of air and launch into a dissertation about how those owners be cray-cray, you have to process your own mailings, you have way too many accounts for the money you are making and the owners just don’t know how to run a business.

B. You lean in and lower your voice, “The company just doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the clients. I’m pretty sure that if you hire me, at least five of my accounts will follow if you know what I mean?” Wink-wink. C. You explain that while you were offered a great opportunity at your current company, and you will always be grateful for their support, you feel it is time to partner with a new company in supporting their mission while furthering your career goals and industry growth.

D. You cock your head to the side while you move that little bar in your tongue in and out of its hole while you try to think of a good response.

Client Relations You are sitting at a meeting when Fred, the board president, for the fifth time, says something that is absolutely ludicrous and will not work. The rest of the board members are ignoring the comment and talking over him.

A. You reach over and furiously tap the board president’s forehead and say, “Helllllooo, McFly?!”

B. You hold up your hand in the international sign of ‘be quiet,’ and state, “Excuse me, but our leader has spoken, and we all need to listen.”

C. You kindly break into the conversation and say, “I’m sorry for interrupting, but Fred has an idea he would like to share. I get the impression that there may not be agreement at this point in time, but perhaps if he is given an opportunity to provide some further insight, we will have a better understanding of what he is trying to relay.

D. Don’t bother me with this one; I’m busy Googling,

“McFly!”

You are on a walkthrough with the board secretary who also happens to be the head of the Enforcement Committee, the Towing Committee, the Landscape Committee, the Social Committee, the Trash Can Committee, the Let’s Re-Write the Rules and Regulations Committee, the Let’s Put Up a Sign Committee, and the Let’s Increase Community Morale Committee. She is furiously pointing out violations and scaling the lattice to look on private balconies. The whole time she is giving interesting and noncomplimentary tidbits about each household.

A. You bide your time until you are near a steep cliff, and then you “accidentally” trip and push her over the side. (Rescuing her

Michael Kors purse as she tumbles over the side, of course)

B. You happily write down all of the violations and give her more dirt about the neighbors. After the walk through you go to lunch and try to come up with additional rules to keep all of the violators in line!

C. You bide your time until you are near a steep cliff, and then you “accidentally” trip and push her over the side…but not before you make sure that you have rubbed some DNA from Manager “B” on her clothing. (Even the best managers crack sometimes.) Oh look, she dropped her Michael Kors purse!

D. You pretend to take pictures of all of the violations, when you are really Snap Chatting.

The board has asked you to prepare a report that will take you hours of research and ultimately will not produce any data that is useful in the governance or decision making process; at least not as far as you can see.

A. You snicker, shake your head and say, “Yeah, there just isn’t enough money in the world to make me consider wasting my time on something that stupid.”

B. You clap your hands and say, “Oh goody, I’ll get right on that! Can

I color code it, too? Please can I color code it?!?!”

C. You kindly inform that board that a project of this magnitude is going to be extensive and take a lot of time. You ask them to explain what information they are hoping to gain from this data and how they feel it will be applicable in their governance process. You explain that once you better understand their goals, perhaps you can all brainstorm an easier and more cost effective way to tackle this project.

D. You grab your phone, type in a few key words, and simultaneously, text, e-mail, e-fax and load the information to the web-portal in both

English and Mandarin.

Service Provider Relations A board member calls you and is very upset because he received a phone call from an upset homeowner about their having weeds all along their wrought iron fence. He went out and checked it out, and sure enough, WEEDS everywhere!

A. You respond with, “Seriously? Do you not understand that it rained twice last week? I mean, I KNOW, this is San Diego, but I at least thought people understood the relationship between water and weeds!”

B. You are outraged and tell the board member how you saw this a few days ago and told the project manager to have his guys pull those weeds. And then you suggest that the board get rid of this landscape company as soon as possible because this is just not acceptable. Then you call the landscape company all sweet and let them know that the board is thinking about terminating them and request additional service for free. Then you call the board president and let them know that you told those landscapers off, and they want to keep the account so you were able to get them free service.

Continued on page 16

C. You remind the board member that it has rained several days this past week and that the landscapers are a little behind. You also remind him that the project is on a 4-week rotation, so sometimes, especially if there is rain, there may be some weeds, but you will get a hold of the project manager ASAP to address the issue.

D. Weed!!!!!

One of your associations is going out to bid for a large project. The specifications are written and it is time to send out the RFPs.

A. You call several service providers to let them know that you have a major project coming up. You let them know that only people who promise not to bother you with any details and agree to contact all of the homeowners are going to get to bid as you don’t have time to oversee this project.

B. You call all of the service providers you know and give each of them “inside” information to help them get the contract and then you take tidbits of those conversations and pass it on to other service providers. You get taken to lunch and for spa days. It’s so fun to be popular!

C. You compile a list of vetted service providers with proven performance and/or excellent references. You send out the RFP along with a cover letter inviting all service providers to a bidder’s conference. At the conference you go through the package and answer questions and outline expectations. You explain that if somebody calls you or e-mails you with a question, you will assume that this is information that everybody wants, and you will send the question and the answer to all bidders. You wish them good luck.

D. You do a Google search for construction companies, and then you look on Yelp for feedback for all the company names that appeared on page one of your search. You then text a link to the service providers for downloading the proposal and request that they text you in lieu of e-mails or phone calls, because those are annoying and take up way too many words.

Customer Service Skills A homeowner calls and is very upset because they received a violation letter and feel it was unfair. They yell, they scream, they give you a list of every other person in a twelve mile radius with the same violation and they threaten to sue you, the board and your current and future children.

A. You put them on speaker and mute your phone while you call all of your coworkers to come in and listen to this person go off!

B. You explain that you personally witnessed and wrote that violation letter and it is absolutely, positively a direct violation of Article 6, Section 5, Use Restrictions, of the

Declaration, as well as page 248 Environmental Control as outlined in the Rules and Regulations, paragraph five and reiterated within the Declaration under Nuisance Provisions.

You explain that there is case law through the Court of

Appeals in Busybody vs. Ijustwanttolivemylife. You invite them to view the video of this heinous violation on the association’s Youtube channel and offer to text them the very pictures that will be used as evidence against them if they don’t fix this problem immediately. After you hang up you call your friend from question #4 and talk for hours.

C. You listen to the owner and let them vent. You then empathize with them and explain that the enforcement process is the most difficult aspect of your job but you are contracted to perform this service and you do not have the authority to ignore this specific violation. You go through the enforcement process and the reasoning behind the rule and hopefully talk them off the ledge.

D. You cry because these people are so mean with all of their macroaggressions. You check to see if your medical plan has counseling services. These rules are all so stupid anyhow!

You receive a voicemail message that a street light that the caller reported two days ago is still out. They explain that it is dark, somebody is going to get hurt – or worse – raped or murdered. They let you know that if they get murdered, they are going to sue you. You know you put a work order in for this the same day the call came in.

A. You tell your assistant to call the vendor and threaten to sue them if they are not out there by the end of the day.

B. You call the homeowner and apologize and tell them that the service provider sucks and you requested this work several days ago. You then call the service provider and sweetly beg them to take care of this right away or the board is going to fire them.

C. This can’t apply to you because you already spoke to the member yesterday and told her the light would be replaced by the end of the week. You listen to the message again, and realize it is actually for Manager A.

D. You upload the voicemail and text it to the vendor and type: WTH??? Followed by a bunch of pictures too small for the human eye to see: HAHOA ???

Industry Relations Your company just brought on a new account and assigned you as the manager. You go to the meeting and the board members are eviscerating the prior management company. You know from experience, that much of what they are saying has nothing to do with the performance of the company; it is simply something that the board didn’t want to hear or doesn’t want to do.

A. You join right in with the bashing and even come up with a few stories of your own. Go Me!

B. You don’t come out and say anything bad about the other company, but you indirectly blame your lack of performance on their poor record keeping. You milk the situation for as long as possible in order to make yourself look good.

C. You take the opportunity to explain to the board that the previous company was actually acting in accordance with the industry standards and/or best business practices.

You do this because you know if you do not assist the board in understanding the “who, what, where and why,” that it is just a matter of time before another company is in the boardroom and they are talking about you.

D. Seriously? Who cares? Hey look, I got 700 likes!!!

Scoring

Mostly A’s – Whoa! I see a padded cell in your future. It’s time for a stress relieving hobby.

Mostly B’s – Nobody. Likes. You. I repeat: Nobody. Likes. You. Well, maybe your cats. Please do not procreate.

Mostly C’s – You are a rockstar and headed for the CID Industry Hall of Fame!

Mostly D’s – You finished this test! That is so good! Please send me an address where I should send your !

Vicki MacHale, CAMEx is the Executive Director/Principal of A.R.K. Management in San Diego.

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