Management Poem

I'm terrible at writing poetry but here goes my haiku for Management:

Visions are a must
Take action and change your life
Or else keep dreaming!

(based on the video we watched in class "The Power of Vision")

Communication via Blog

As the Fall semester comes to an end I start to wonder: did I really learn something in this class?? (not just MGT) I realize that most of my professors just stand up in front of the class and just talk throughout the whole course. In my opinion reading off slides is not the best way to learn (at least for me it isn’t). The best way for me to learn is to relate any course material to real life situations and this is exactly what Professor Kurpis has done with his in-class activities and blog assignments. The activities in class made learning our course material fun and the blog assignments helped me remember the topics associated with the lesson learned during the activity. The blog assignments were also a great idea because it helped us control 20% of our grade with just a couple of blog entries. One of my other classes this semester is basing our grade on only three tests and I really hate that because we don’t get a chance to boost our grade up. The blog assignments didn’t really help me communicate with people in class but it did help me learn what other people were thinking when we did our in class activities and even though I didn’t communicate with a lot of the people in class it was good to know that a lot of my classmates actually had some interests in common. Overall I think the blog assignments are a great idea. I really enjoyed both of these course components and I think they should definitely be kept as a component of the course. I’m not really sure if I’m going to keep this blog up to date but I’m leaning towards no because it’s not easy to balance classes and take time out of studying to share some thoughts with the world. Maybe after I’m done with school I’ll come back and update on how my future goals have turned out but other than that this will probably be my last post for now (except for the upcoming poem). Farewell fellow classmates and good luck with your plans for the future! =)

The ABC's of DiSC

     After taking the personal profile system test I wasn’t surprised by my results. It turns out that I am a conscientious manager. This type of manager thinks analytically, they weigh pros and cons, concentrate on key details and are diplomatic with people. I do think that this describes me correctly. I think that someone can probably change their manager/leader type if they really wanted to. However I also believe that your manager/ leader type comes from your personality as well. That’s why I say that a person really must WANT to change the type of manager they are if they plan to do so but I wouldn’t want to be any of the other manager/leader types.
     I do believe it is important to know and understand what type of manager or leader someone is because that way an organization can learn how to use this manager or leader’s skills so that tasks are completed efficiently. Knowing this information can also help in other personal interactions. Employees will know how to better interact with their manager/leader in order to keep working relationships as best as possible. I believe the Personal Profile System Test accurately described me and probably most of the class as well. Having this information will help my classmates and I become more effective managers/leaders in the future.
　

Me encanta! (I'm lovin' it)

   When we first received this assignment as our extra credit I thought it was going to be a bit more challenging for me because I’m not the type of person to make a big deal out of a small mistake on my food orders. When I walked into the McDonald’s on Kings Highway (near the Q train in Brooklyn) I was nervous but a little relieved that there weren’t so many people. Every register had a customer and there were about five other people waiting on line but I only waited about two or three minutes before I was placing my special order.
   The girl taking my order looked like she was about my age (around 20), her name was Olga. I began by ordering my hamburger with five pickles. She didn’t make a big deal, she just told the people in the back that she needed exactly five pickles on this order. When she came back I finished telling her the order and ask her to make sure that the receipt showed this order exactly the way I asked for it. She simply nodded her head. Luckily there was a fresh batch of fries coming out of the fryer. She left and came back with a little bag and a small plastic container with my big mac sauce. I was surprised that she had filled my order so quickly and then she gave me my receipt. She had included everything except the five pickles so I told her I needed her to give me another receipt with the five pickles on it. She began to tell me that she couldn’t do it. At this point one of her fellow employees told her that she could do it and told her to hold on, that she would help her once she took care of her customer. I could tell that Olga became a little frustrated because she didn’t know how to fix my receipt and reprint it. So she decided to call the manager (or at least that’s what I think she was) over.
    The manager for this shift was an older Hispanic woman. Olga began to explain her problem with a frustrated tone of voice. She explained to the manager that I wanted a new receipt. The manager asked me what was wrong on the receipt and I told her I needed it to say five pickles. She began talking to me in Spanish tying to explain to me that she couldn’t do it because her register would be short of money at the end of the day. I guess she thought English wasn’t my first language so I went along and spoke Spanish.
     I really didn’t understand how that could be possible but I told her that I would pay again that way she could print the receipt the way I needed it. After all it was only $3. So the manager took the order again and I paid. Once again the order took less than two minutes to bag and everything was perfect (the burger, the fries and big mac sauce), except the receipt. The manager had already left thinking the order was done. When Olga handed me the new receipt it didn’t have the big mac sauce on it. I told her about the error and she started laughing, she was a little more annoyed this time but she didn’t take it out on me. Olga got the manager again and told her she forgot the big mac sauce. The manager was just as annoyed but she still kept a smile on her face. She kept sighing and began to fix the receipt. I guess this time she could fix it because all she had to do was add big mac sauce which was free. She than ran to the back and said (in Spanish) “don’t do that last order, ignore the last order”. When she came back she printed the receipt out and was looking it over and as she was giving it to me she said (once again in Spanish) “you guys came in here before right? I remember this order”. I just smiled trying to hold in my laughter and said no. The manager told me, still in Spanish, that two boys had placed this order sometime before but that they were very rude and they ended up leaving before getting the correct order. She left for a minute and came back with my order and finally everything was perfect! I thanked them with a big smile on my face and surprisingly they both smiled back, even though they probably wanted to kill me at the moment.
    Overall I think this experience wasn’t that bad. It only took about ten minutes to complete my order, but I think this was acceptable because the only error they were making was with the receipt. During the whole process of completing my order I was treated surprisingly well by both the manager and employee. I would have expected a little more attitude but I think because I am Hispanic, like the manager, she felt more comfortable talking to me.
     If I could change one thing in McDonald’s that would effectively help to better accommodate special orders it would have to be the registers. Obviously it is necessary to be able to type numbers onto the receipts. I’ve never seen a McDonald’s register but they must not be that pleasant to use because they had to print my receipt three times in order to get it right. I would also change training policies and make sure that every employee knew how to take care of special orders like the one I placed today.
     The overall communication between the manager and employee was good. Even though they were both frustrated they never caught a bad attitude with me. Although it was great that the manager helped Olga out I also would’ve like to see if her fellow employee would’ve helped her out just as well. As for the communication with me, the
customer, it was better than I expected. The manager did  a good job trying to explain why she couldn’t reprint the receipt.
      In conclusion I think leadership is an important aspect in most workplaces. If the manager hadn’t taken charge of my order there wouldn’t have been anyone else to help Olga with her problem. My experience at McDonald’s was probably better than most of my other classmates but I’m glad to see that there really are people who take their time to satisfy their customers.

Finally setting some goals for myself!

     When I was a child growing up I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Every school year my teachers would ask us what we wanted to do when we grew up and I just said the first thing that came to my head. As I got older my mom encouraged me to think about becoming an accountant. That’s what I settled for. Because I graduated high school a year early I decided to take a year off of school and work. I thought this would give me time to make a plan for myself. When I started school at Baruch I hesitantly decided I would go ahead and become an accountant. I was never very passionate about accounting so eventually I changed my mind. Now I’ve decided that I don’t really want a career where I’m going to be sitting behind a desk. I like working more with my hands, but until this past summer I still had no idea what I really wanted to do.  I’ve always been interested in all the cake decorating shows that I’ve watched on TLC, The Food Network etc. I found it incredible how someone can make something so amazing. So part of my vision of my future is to attend culinary school and become a professional cake decorator. However I do plan on switching my major and finishing up at Baruch before moving on to culinary school. I want to be sure that if I don’t make it as a cake decorator I have something to fall back on. My second goal is to move out of my moms house =) Not just out of my moms house but out of NY. I want to get away from all the noise and commotion of NY. Actually I have been wanting to move away for a while but I’ve decided to wait till after I finish school. After I have finished culinary school and moved away from NY my last goal would be to open my own bakery and of course be successful.

     After being undecided about my future for so long it feels good to know that I have set some goals for myself. I’m just hoping everything works out =)

Decision Making

   Almost two weeks ago we took our first exam in our MGT class. To the classes surprise, half of all the students failed and the highest grade was an 86!! Obviously this wasn’t a good thing. Thankfully I didn’t fail but I didn’t do so good either. Little did we know Prof. K was going to give us all a chance to bring our grades up. During the last thirty minutes of class the entire class had a chance to come up with a way to raise each persons grade. Whether it be through a curve, extra credit, etc. The only catch was that everyone in the class had to agree. Among the chaos we eventually made our decision but not everything went so smooth. As you can imagine, forty students trying to agree on one thing was not easy. Some students wanted to do whatever it took to boost their grade. Others just wanted to make everyone realized that instead of focusing on this test we should focus on how we should study for the next exam. A lot of the students in the class did participate but there were some who sat back and let everyone else decide.
   Personally, I don’t think I used one specific way to handle the chaos in the classroom. I was kind of quiet to begin with because I wanted to here everyone out. I had no problem agreeing with everyone else’s decision about how to raise our grades. I guess you can say I used accommodation to handle the beginning of our task. However, I didn’t act this way because I though the issue wasn’t important to me but because I agreed with what everyone else was saying.
   After this decision had been made we had a chance to decide what our next exam would look like. At this point everyone was arguing about which sections of the test we should eliminate. I voted to eliminate the “multiple multiple” choice section, until one of the students explained how that wouldn’t benefit us. During this part of our task I tried to voice my opinion of making the essay extra credit by raising my hand, like one of my classmates previously stated we should do….but at this point everyone was rushing to decide because we had about five minutes left. I know the guy next to me agreed with me and we both tried to get everyone to listen but no one did. In the end we were successful though. I don’t know if the guy in front had heard us but an extra credit essay was made an option and everyone agreed. Maybe if we were a little louder someone would have paid attention to what we were saying =)
   During this whole process I was noticing how some of my other classmates were acting. I noticed that some of the students on the left were forming their own group. I remember two students in particular that acted in a “compete to win” behavior. They were the loudest in the whole class and voiced their opinions (which was perfectly fine). The two guys who stood in front of the room (I believe Abe and Julian) were the mediators. Their behavior was an example of trying to come to a compromise. Other students were quiet, they either displayed avoidance or accommodation.
   Overall, I think if our class would have worked together a little more and took into consideration EVERYONE’s thoughts maybe we would have reached our decision faster. If one person would have explained all the options clearer the first time than we wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to explain it a million times. I don’t think I would change the way I acted during the decision making process because I’m not the best persuasive person. In the end I do think our decisions were the best ones.

An Eggs-cellent Way to Plan

     Last week I had one of the most memorable classes ever! =) In my Management 3120 class we all took part in an activity that my professor named “An eggs-cellent way to plan”. I had no idea what we were about to do. Well, it turns out we (as groups) had to compete against each other to make an egg contraption. One that would protect our egg after we dropped it from 6+ feet. Sound familiar? It might. I remember watching shows about this a while back. We had 25 minutes to plan and design the contraption. Then we had 10 minutes to actually make it. The class turned into chaos because whichever group succeeded would earn 10 bonus points on our first exam. Unfortunately not one group succeeded!! =/

     The whole point of this activity was to see how well we worked as a team to plan out what we were going to do to successfully drop our egg without breaking it. While we were in the planning process we did work well together and everybody had a little input but when I think back to the 25 minutes we had we definitely could have planned better. First of all we never picked a team leader. Which I think was ok because we didn’t have a lot of time. We didn’t set objectives like the Planning Process says to do but again we had a limited amount of time and we were trying to figure out how we were going to earn these extra 10 points. One thing that we did do was ask each other about what abilities and knowledge we had. Not a lot of us had enough knowledge of architecture or drawing to know that we would be 100% successful. I ended up sketching the design and we all agreed on a plan and an alternative.

     All in all I do think my group could have done much better if we had assigned ourselves specific roles before the 25 minutes were up. I think our main problem was time. We were all just trying to get the contraption done before the 10 minutes were up and if we would have assigned ourselves roles than things would have been done more efficiently. I wish we could’ve had a second chance at this activity with a little more time and maybe one of the groups would have actually succeeded.