Shout out to William Shakespeare!

to manage or not to manage? that is the question.
don't become a mess, posting blogs and studying for tests.
goals, time, and crisis .. and group activities - manage these.

MGT Blogging..

I think having the blog assignments this semester was a good idea. The fact that it is 20% of our grade just gives us an easy way to boost our grade up. Also I think it's better for people like me, who do not really like to voice their opinions in front of the class, but easier when it's written - blogs, letters, notes. (Maybe Prof. K can change the blog to 25% and participation to 5% for future semesters;D) I did enjoy reading my classmates' blogs and seeing the different points of views on things and the different things that went on in other groups when we did activities. Also, I agree with what some people were saying in class, that the blog should be more linked to our actual information that we need to know from the modules. I think it would be a good idea if maybe the students HAVE TO include a certain number of terms, concepts, and theories in each blog from the modules that way they could get a little familiar with them. As much as i enjoyed this blog, I don't think I'm going to continue writing in it after this semester. I used to have other blog sites that I wrote in constantly, but after a while I just felt like I was putting my personal business on the internet, so I stopped lol. And the purpose of this blog was pretty much just for this class.

McDonald's

The cashier said “Next” and I placed my order. I asked for a cheeseburger with 4 pickles and small fries with no salt. Before I paid, I immediately asked the girl if she could put that on the receipt and she said “I’ll ask.” Then I gave her the money. After about a minute or two, my order was ready. One guy grabbed a small fries that was, coincidentally, already ready with no salt and put it in a bag. Then he gave the bag to the girl who took my order. The person in the back handed the burger to her and she said “Is this the burger with 4 pickles?” and he shrugged. She opened the wrapping and gave it back to him and said, “Can you put 4 little pickles on it? Just little pickles.” (I noticed she put extra emphasis on the “little” part.) So he comes back with the burger and she handed it to me. Then she scurried off to put together the order that was placed after mine. So I asked the guy who put the fries in the bag for a receipt. He printed it out, without my specific requests. So I asked him if a manager could write in that I wanted 4 pickles and no salt. He said he doesn’t know where the manager is. So I said, “Can you write it then?” and he said hold on. He went somewhere in the back with the receipt, and came back a moment later with a purple pen. (I thought it was a little funny that out of all colored ink, he had purple.) He told me to ask the girl who took my order to write it in. So I asked her and she just gave me a look that screamed “Are you serious?” So I told her it’s for a class assignment. And she said in an annoyed tone, “Then why don’t you write it in.” And I said because I’m not supposed to. Then she told another girl, who was getting someone else’s order ready, to do it. And she just had a confused look, but did it.

I felt that the staff worked fairly well when it came to manufacturing, communicating, and coordinating the order. However, I felt they were extremely lacking in the customer service area. I don’t understand why the girl who took my order wouldn’t just write it on the receipt and sign it – I felt like she thought I would use her signature against her or something. That was what bothered me the most. If she was willing to play along with my special order up to that point, she could’ve just finished it up and write it on the receipt. I would recommend that they improved the way they treat customers when they have special requests, instead of just making the customer feel uncomfortable for ordering it. If the customer is going to pay for something, they should be getting what that they want! Also, they should have been more like the girl who did sign my receipt. She did it – no questions asked. I’ve never worked in customer service, but I’m pretty sure they are usually taught “the customer is always right.” Therefore, I feel like as long as the request wasn’t anything extremely ridiculous or harmful, the employee should cater to them.

to C or not to C ?

According to the Personal Profile System, my management orientation is C high S. I think that this is a pretty accurate result. I like to have clearly defined expectations and directions. If I'm given a task, I want to be able to get it done the most accurate and efficient way possible. One thing I hate most when working in a group is conflict. I like to be fair with everyone and let everyone have an equal say in our work. When I was the one doing the recording during the Jell-O project, I tried my best to make sure that I wrote down what everyone said and to not miss one person's suggestion. Then during the extra credit group work where we had to pick which items we need, my group picked me to be the leader, having final say in what goes on our list. Instead of just putting down whichever ones I felt we needed, I put down the ones that the majority wanted.

However, I do wish I had a little more 'D' in me. In this test, there was such a big difference between the C and D for me. There are times when I know I should put my foot down, but I choose not to just to avoid confrontation. But, I think people can become other types as they go on. For example, I think with more professional experience, I may be able to learn how to be more dominant when I enter the corporate world.

Vision Of The Future

GOALS:
- Get my MBA
- Become a CPA
- Create my own accounting firm

My goals are the steps I want to take to achieving my vision, which is to be my own boss and have my own accounting firm. Owning my own accounting firm would be a very big deal for me because it is a very risky proposition but also a very gratifying one. Yes, I could have said my vision was just to get a good job in a fortune 500 company and all that good stuff, but I don't think that life is for me. Don't get me wrong I know I would have to work at a firm before I can ever open up my own, but ultimately i would love to have my name as the company on the business card. The risk is that I may not succeed because the truth of the matter is not all business ventures are successful, but if I work hard I know I would have gave it my all.

The immediate and near term action that I can commit to doing while I'm in college is getting an internship. It is never to early to start learning about my career and the faster I start working in the field I wanna be in the more advantage I gain over the rest of the people. Working an internship will also give me inside knowledge that is not written and taught in textbooks, the experience I will gain during working will be invaluable to my future. I will also be able to talk to people who have already started their own firm or also aspire to open their own firm and which will help me gain insight. This is just the beginning!

chaos!

chaos! that is the only way I can describe the class' decision making process. it began with 'compete to win'. if you break up the room into 4 pieces, there was pretty much a leader of each group. each one was trying to persuade everybody in their group to agree with one thing. eventually the 'leaders' stood up to the front and began writing on the board and yelling across the room to get their points across. people who weren't getting their points across began getting upset and aggravated. but then they started to 'collaborate'. they took some suggestions from each other and tried to come up with one solution (which was the whole point!) they 'compromised' when they recalled that there had to be a unanimous agreement.

I personally took the 'accommodation' approach. I didn't do too bad on the exam, therefore anything - just a curve, dropping of the lowest grade, or more specificity on the next exam would be suffice for me. I feel like the people who did worse, were very focused on getting as much out of this as they could, whereas I was satisfied getting anything. knowing what I know now about the pattern of communications, reactions, and results - I still would have handled it the same way, simply for the same reasoning as I had before I knew any of these.

Team Humpty Dumpty!

I think that, in general, my team worked together very well. Everyone shared their own ideas for what to build, and we all gave our opinions about if it could work or not. I felt like one person took the "leader" role and decided on which one he thought would be best and made sure it would be okay with everyone if we used it. Then the person who drew the model for it was delegating to others on what to do ("Hold this," "Hold that," "Rip the tape in half," etc). Everyone worked together and in the end it was a success!

As for the Steps in the Planning Process...
STEP1. DONE! We had a goal and a deadline that was understood. STEP2. I guess we didn't do this one very well, given the fact that we all don't really know much about each other's strengths and weaknesses. Everyone pretty much had their own idea and just laid out what they had on the table. STEP3. I don't think we really did this one much either. I guess the only thing that "hindered progress towards our objective" was time. Towards the end of the 10 mins, we started rushing and putting everything together. STEP4. We didn't really PLAN this part at all! The roles were kind of just given during the building process. STEP5. I think we did this part well. After we finished building, we felt like we weren't sure if it would be strong enough for the egg not to break. So we made a few alterations last minute. (Thank God!)

After that last paragraph I just typed, I realized.. we did not plan as efficiently as we could have. Although we were successful, it was partly due to luck. One thing I didn't like was the pressure when we were doing the building. I guess we should've planned out who was going to do what in the building process, instead of just what the outcome is supposed to be. We should have delegated the roles better, but other than that - we had a good and equal team effort.