Making a Difference for Residents

Meet Vincent Donohue

NYCHA is celebrating National Customer Service Week 2021 during the week of October 18-22. This year’s theme, “Power of Service,” reaffirms and celebrates our commitment to excellent customer service. As part of the celebrations, we are highlighting NYCHA Changemakers – employees who use our core values to create meaningful, sustainable change in every aspect of their work. In this installment, meet NYCHA Changemaker Vincent Donohue, Clerical Associate in the Queens-Staten Island Property Management Department.

Vincent Donohue has at least two occasions to celebrate this October: October 19 marks his two-year work anniversary at NYCHA, and he was recently recognized as a NYCHA Changemaker (one of five NYCHA employees who provides excellent customer service and embodies the Authority’s core values).

Mr. Donohue said he is humbled to be a NYCHA Changemaker. He has friends who are NYCHA residents, and every time he answers a phone call from a resident, he tries to help as much as he would for any friend.

“I want to get the job done and solve urgent matters,” Mr. Donohue said. “I want the residents to feel comfortable with me knowing that I can get the job done. I want them to feel like they can rely on me. This is like a second home to me.”

As a clerical associate, over the past two years Mr. Donohue has answered thousands of phone calls from residents, assisted with work orders, reported important matters to superintendents, and completed and organized thousands of pages of clerical paperwork.  He said he comes to work every day with a smile on his face.

“There is a quote that I made my life moto: ‘Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.’ That quote always got me through,” Mr. Donohue noted.  

Mr. Donohue has been in customer service for more than a decade. After assisting retail customers in different capacities for years, he decided to transition to helping NYCHA residents.

“I love it,” he explained. “This is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I was waiting for this position to open: I took the City exam for clerical associate several years ago to be able to apply. I always felt I am a person who likes to help people, and NYCHA is the perfect place to do that. You have to be a people person, you have to want to care. Working at NYCHA is all about residents. If you’re not here to accomplish the daily goal – which is to make the residents happy and get the work done – then you’re not succeeding in your job.

“I have always been a good listener. I’ve been in customer service in retail more than 10 years and I’m used to dealing with problems. I love to overcome obstacles. I know how to deal with the situation: I like to put myself in others’ shoes.”

“Residents sometimes send me cards, thanking me for being nice. It makes me feel appreciated and happy, just knowing that the resident who was upset and frustrated left smiling and thanking me for getting the job done.”