Blog post #2 Interpersonal Conflicts

B has a friend, A and they had been good friends since B's secondary school days. Coming from a complicated family, A had always felt insecure about herself. She was also irresponsible in her work.

Once, B and A were working part time together at a retail shop. A was irresponsible and would always go for long toilet breaks, leaving B to tend the shop. As one of them had to be inside the shop to tend it, they had to have staggered lunch breaks separately. Usually, A would fight to go first and then come back late (in an hour when they were only supposed to have half an hour lunch breaks). Moreover, there was once when she came back late, but still telling B that she wanted to shop at the other shops as there was a dress she wanted to buy.

A also had a habit of showing-off her branded belongings to my sister, claiming that they were gifts from her many suitors and boyfriend. A had expensive sweaters that costed a few hundred dollars, handbags that costed a few thousand dollars, and even keychains of a few hundred dollars. She also always claimed that her 20 year old boyfriend is extremely rich and often sponsors her travel trips with him to places like whole of Europe, for 3 months. B, however, was certain that she was lying as whenever her group of friends asked for a picture of the boyfriend, she would reject, claiming that "my computer just crashed, all data gone". No one in the group of friends ever saw "her boyfriend" even though they had been close friends for more than 7 years. Everyone asserts that A was lying but did not confront her. B is worried that A spends all the money she work on branded products.

B is afraid that confronting A would definitely sour their friendship since A is extremely defensive and has strong pride that would crumble if her lie of 7 years had been contradicted. What do you think B should do in this case?

Blog post #1 Explain the ways developing effective communication skills are important for you

All of us have started communicating with our friends, families and people we met since infancy. However, the process of communication and sharing information is often not error free. Communication is the lifeline in any relationship. It may talking to my ever-nagging mum or the boss that I am eager to impress in future, communication plays an utmost important part in getting my message across.

Most importantly for me, having effective communication skills prevent misunderstandings; not only with family members but also with people I meet in university or the job market in future. In almost any job available, we spent a large time communicating with our clients and colleagues. Effective communication will come in and prevent any misunderstandings in my messages, which can lead to bad impressions with the boss or bad feelings with my colleagues.

Besides the usual verbal communication, another aspect of effective communication that is important to me would be writing. From filling out the job application form to emailing your colleagues to writing an impressive job report, we all need to deal with some form of writing everyday during work or at home. Brushing up my writing skills allow me to cope my work effective and efficiently.

Also, having effective communication skills would make me more professional in my job. If I wrote an email full of grammatical errors to the client, he may in fact have a bad impression of my abilities or even doubt my abilities in completing the task. Having both effective writing and verbal skills are hence important in portraying a professional image at work.

In this course, I aspire to further develop my communication skills so that I can call them “effective communication skills” proudly.