A Manager's Jingle

Hard work and curiosity, that is our team velocity
Let’s challenge ourselves and finish till the end.
The reward is strong, we will sing this song.

I will lead and help, but it’s your skills in the end
That will get you praise, a promotion and a raise
So let’s put our heads together and come up with something better
Not just ordinary work, that will earn you a reward
So let’s see what you can do, I will root for you!

Blogging in the Classroom

Since I never kept a diary or blog, nor was I ever a big fan of writing assignments, my initial impressions upon hearing of the required blog assignment was that it was going to be a tedious chore. In retrospect, I genuinely enjoyed the task as it prompted me to reflect on the in class activities. Without the responsibility of blogging about what we did in class that day, I can’t honestly say I would have thought about the activity much once I stepped foot out of the classroom. However, since I had the time and inclination to reflect on the “mini projects” I became more conscious of their worth and practicality in the real world.
Also, I felt that the class activities, along with the blog reflections, were great ways for the students to collaborate and share ideas. In typical classrooms, especially one as big as ours, student to student interaction is very limited. I rarely know anyone’s name as the structure of the class genuinely follows the traditional point (professor) to multi-point (students) communication style. With the blog’s and the genuine style the class was run (frequent group activities) it felt as though everyone has know each other forever, especially your group members, who became like family towards the end of the semester.
I definitely appreciated that fact that I was in control of 20% of my grade. It was surely refreshing to know that I had straightforward ways of boosting my grades especially since the tests were so demanding. Overall, I am surely an advocate of this blogging system and recommend you stay with it in your future classes.

Personality Assessment

I genuinely enjoyed the class activity on assessing our leadership/management traits. I had no idea that companies go through the trouble of executing personality tests such as these prior to hiring an employee. Subsequent to some research I found out that, surprisingly, 85% of fortune 500 companies actually require future employee’s to undergo similar tests to make sure they have the skills and traits the company is looking for.
Although I think I was properly assessed through the test, I don’t believe that it is an accurate evaluation of people’s actual leadership characteristics. I think that it is difficult to establish a character profile on someone by simply judging their answers to 28 vague questions. The test assessed me as a “D” for dominance profile. I believe that this is an accurate judgment of my management personality as I am constantly looking for a new challenge and I act assertively when confronted with one. I thrive off of achieving difficult results and always look to make people around me more productive. I don’t wish I were another type as I enjoy taking charge and leading my team to success, however, I believe that you can fit another profile if desired. I think one of the ways someone’s management personality can change is by being affected by someone else with a strong personality. Personally, I don’t believe I was always a “D” type. I think that my personality grew stronger and more “dominant” after being influenced by my boss. He constantly urged me to be stronger with people and be more assertive in getting what I need from others. I saw how well that personality worked for him so I strive to change myself in the same way, as it would ultimately help me achieve goals that I would not have been able to with a pacific attitude. I think in today’s competitive business world this aggressiveness will definitely give me a much needed competitive advantage.

Shoot For the Stars

As many kids did growing up, I had fantasies of becoming the next Michael Jordan or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then I got to a certain age where reality smacked me in the face and I started to entertain more realistic aspirations.
Far too often we see young college students go through their first couple years of college with an “undecided” major and no ideas of where they see themselves in five years. Fortunately for me, ever since freshman year of college, I had a “vision” of how I would ideally like to keep myself busy for the rest of my life. Though I knew that I wanted to be an accountant, it is difficult to stay motivated if you don’t produce a plan to keep yourself on the right track.
One goal that I set for myself early on was becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). I knew that since I was aspiring to go into the accountancy profession, becoming certified is a must. Upon certification, my options for work will expand greatly as I can start auditing and even open up my own firm. Becoming certified will surely make me more desirable to future employers and will result in a higher income. I have been doing everything in my power attain this goal; I attend Baruch college for the specific purpose of getting the best possible business education in addition to taking CPA review courses. Another goal I set for myself early on was getting my Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA). Particularly in today’s competitive job market, achieving an esteemed corporate position would prove to be very difficult without at least a master’s level degree. I am very intrigued by the field of business and this degree will give me all the skills I need to succeed in my future endeavors as well as prepare me for when I am ready to start a business of my own one day. Some actions that I am taking to make this vision a reality are attending Zicklan’s school of business, which has a 5 year masters program, enabling me to obtain my masters degree faster than I would have otherwise. My third goal, which is more of a long-term goal compared to the other two, is to travel the world. I am intrigued by foreign cultures and would love to personally experience and engage in as many different societies around the world as I can. I am I firm believer of the saying “knowledge is power” and so I think that learning and experiencing the norm’s of unfamiliar societies will surely add to my intellect. Though this is a long-term goal I have already done a fair share of traveling in my life as I have been to 10 different countries. I will continue to pursue all of my dreams and aspirations and I am confident that I will not let myself down.

Hi, May I Take Your order?

Upon receipt of this extra credit assignment I knew that my “special McDonald’s order” experience would be a memorable one. McDonald’s doesn’t usually employ the brightest employee’s as their job description generally consists of mundane and repetitive tasks. My intuitions were correct as asking an employee to place an order that required some “outside of the box” thinking proved to be complicated and laborious.
Entering my local McDonald’s I was greeted with a smile and the generic “Hi, may I take your order?” The ordering process commenced smoothly as I placed my complex order, which was initially received with compliance as the clerk rang up my meal, passed the order along to the food prep’s in the back and even reminded them to put 4 pickles on my burger. At this point I was shocked, I was almost certain that someone from our class has been to this McDonald’s and that the staff was already familiar with this order. Unfortunately, this feeling of customer satisfaction would be short lived.
Even though I stressed the importance of receipt to encompass the exact order as it was placed, I was presented with a copy that simple stated that I have ordered a burger and a small order of French fries. Since I was already conscious of the fact that something would go wrong with this order sooner or later, I calmly approached the employee and voiced my discrepancy. She acknowledged my concern, while still maintaining a high level of customer service she immediately called for the shift manager’s assistance. The manager came to the counter with genuine intentions to help me, however he said that there was nothing he can do. He stated that his “system does not allow him to put in such an order” and that he cannot write anything on the receipt. I responded in a firm and assertive tone that I am sure it is possible as I have done this before. Subsequent to a few minutes of fiddling with the computer he informed me that the best he could do was note on the receipt that the order had “Extra pickles” and that the fries had “no salt”, however I would have to put in another order (pay again) as the first receipt was already printed as is. This made me furious as I deliberately told the clerk that I needed that exact order to be shown on my receipt when I was placing the order. Upon further deliberation with the manager I had no choice but to comply and pay for an extra order.
To my surprise, when I opened the wrapper of my delicious McDonald’s hamburger and peeled the top bun off of the “meat” to check its contents, I noticed that there was no sign of any pickles! This made me chuckle and instantly rid me of any doubt I had about the educational value of this exercise. I instantly went back into the store and presented my pickle-less hamburger to the same employee with a grin on my face. She proceeded to apologize and said she “grabbed the wrong burger” and subsequently gave me one with exactly four pickles. Finally, after 20 tedious minutes, I left McDonald’s with the accurate order!
Overall, I would rate the staff’s management process in my order as unsatisfactory. Not only did they fail to provide me with the correct order, or issue a receipt per my request, they actually made me pay for a second order because of their mistake. This displays a severe lack of customer service and complete disregard to the commonly accepted business motto of “the customer is always right”. I also do not believe that they were very organized, as the “manager” on duty did not even know that his computer was able to print receipts with order details until I informed him of it. There was an obvious lack of communication as the food prep neglected the clerk’s advisement of putting four pickles on my burger. If I were brought in as a consultant I would fire the whole staff as I think their competency level mimics that of a highly trained chimp. I would make sure that I have a knowledgeable staff behind my counter that would be able to handle a scenario that calls for a little bit of common sense.

It's all up to us !

Overall, I believe our class activity on decision making went well, ultimately producing desirable results for most of the class. I personally used a few of the ideas from the slide labeled “Decision Making Debriefing.” One of my compromises was not raising my hand when we were asked if anyone was against leaving the format of the next exam for the discretion of the professor. I personally like the multiple choice style exams because I feel if you study sufficiently and read the material, you will be able to pick out the right answer when it is staring you in the face. Since it was clear that the class was not going to be able to come to a unanimous decision on the multiple choice idea, I felt it was my duty to conform with the majority as that would bring the most good to the class as a whole. I also used the collaboration technique as I was discussing the best possible options with nearby classmates; listening to their ideas while trying to sell them on some of my own. I think that ultimately our method of weaving out possible choices was much better than say breaking up into groups, for example. If we broke up into groups we would be much more decentralized and coming up with a unanimous decision would be close to impossible. I think we could have improved some on some of the options that were proposed. Some of them were ludicrous ideas that obviously could not have been implemented. I think if we spent our time thinking of more feasible options we could have came to a conclusion on what format to use for the next exam. Nevertheless, I think the class was pleased with the outcome and we now know to study extra hard for exam #2!

Eggs-cellent Planning

My group was very confident that we would be able to construct a safe housing for our egg out of the materials provided. We did a very good job of defining our goals and objectives as we knew exactly how we wanted our egg to fall and we understood what we needed to do to make a successful egg basket, or so we thought. We also did a good job of allocating our given resources and determining our status objectives as we generated a pretty thorough and detailed plan. We knew how we were going to apportion each straw and each piece of tape before we were even given any materials. One of our biggest setback's was our disregard of developing an alternative strategy; we were so confident in our initial strategy that we never even though of what to do if our egg did not look sheltered after construction. We were pretty meticulous in creating our tactical plan as we assigned roles to each group member (i.e scissor grabber, straw cutter, straw taper, dropper). Everyone in the group had a role and contributed to our final product. We did a good job of implementation in the sense of executing exactly what we planned to do. However, I believe our problem lied in the plan and strategy itself rather than the implementation, which ultimately lead to our demise. I think we should have, as a group, came up with a couple different alternatives rather than just "running" with our first option.