The Things I'll do for Extra Credit

The things I'll do for extra credit
I'll write a poem so I can get it.
I'll go to McDonalds and act like a fool.
I'll ask for five pickles and play it cool.
I'll break the class down in just a few lines
I'll embarass myself with these corny rhymes.

I thought this class would be a breeze,
I thought that I could pass with ease.
But then I took the first exam,
I got my grade and said OH DAMN!

Passing now I thought, forget it!
Then hope came back through extra credit.
Go to McDonalds and do something dumb,
Be sure to ask for your french fries well done.

Enough of this nonsense I should say something smart,
the subject is management, so where should I start?

Increase creativity for more innovation,
Understand others to improve motivation.
Communicate well to get ahead,
Put it all together and make that bread.

But joking aside I learned a ton,
And for once in my life learning was fun.

So develop these skills and remember this mission-
always maintain the 'Power of Vision'!

To Blog or Not to Blog?

I think the Blogging Project is a very beneficial activity for this class. Both in the sense that we get to give the material taught another look and that we have complete control over a portion of our grade.

Not only does blogging force us to reconsider the purpose of the class activities and lessons, but it also gives us another perspective of how to view those things from the point of many of our classmates. This puts things in a greater perspective and even prepares us for a business setting as we get to see how a variety of individuals react to certain things.

I feel like the best part of blogging was being able to interact with basically the entire class. In class we all tend to sit in the same areas so we only interact with those around us. Through responding to other peoples blogs we increase our interactions and therefore get more out of the class.

Personally, I am not the most active class participant, but being able to blog gave me a chance to express my opinions. Blogging forced those who do not actively participate to get a word in and thus expanded the learning experience.

I think very often we go to class and once we leave we do not take the time to think about the lesson and really let it sink in. This means we are likely to forget the material very soon (that is, until a test comes up and we decide to review). The post-class pondering can be the difference between a B and an A.

The blogs forced us to to be more active in the learning process which ultimately benefited us.

Even though I feel the blogs were helpful, I do no plan on continuing to blog once the class if over. However, I would not be upset if this activity comes up in another class.

The Conscientious Worker

Many businesses are turning to personality tests to determine whether a potential employee is the right fit for a job. The 'Personal Profile System' also known as 'DISC' tests a person dimensions of behavior. This test divides people into four main categories, dominating, influential, conscientious, and steady.

My results determined that I am the conscientious worker. Meaning I am extremely detailed oriented, think analytically, am constantly checking for accuracy, use systematic approaches to problems, and many other things. Honestly, this test could not have been more accurate! This characteristics are true in almost all aspects of my life. The result describe how I think and act in most situations.

As a Finance major, I am quite happy with my results. The results of this test in many ways supports my decision to go into finance. Since many of the characteristics of a conscientious worker are important for a person responsible for hefty amounts of money it shows that I am studying the correct subject. However, I do feel I need to be more 'dominating' in my career if I am to be successful.

This test can be very effective in creating specialized teams. By being able to pair people together based on how the interact with one another can be very useful for human resources and in getting the most efficient team together.

Five Pickles, Fries Well-Done, with a Side of Mac Sauce Please!

Getting a frantic McDonalds manager to satisfy an unusual craving is no simple job. As I expected, when I asked for my special order the main issue was getting the Mac sauce on the side. As I requested my special order all went smoothly until I asked for the side of Mac sauce. The lady at the cashier immediately said, I cannot do that. I proceeded to respond that I have done this at a McDonalds before to which she responded that I should speak to the manager. When I finally got the manager’s attention and told him my request he said without flinching, “I can’t do that for you”.  When I told the manager that I have done this many times at other McDonalds’ he simply told me that those other managers were not supposed to meet my request (a straight-up lie to my face). After a few minutes of making suggestions to no results and feeling fed up with this manager’s unwillingness to help me out, I told them to cancel the order. The manager then asked me to give him one second so that he can go to the back to see what he can do. After about a 40 second wait he came back and told the cashier to ring me up a side of sauce and that he would be able to give it to me on the side. Even though he probably used those 40 seconds to spit in my food, my request was finally satisfied and my cravings subdued!

            The management process required to fulfill my order was horrible. However, this was expected as the McDonalds in my neighborhood is possibly the worst one in the world! On many occasions they have messed up my order and ultimately lost my business. On a rating from 1-10, 10 being the best, I would give this McDonalds team a 4.

Organization was horrible in this establishment. They are not prepared to handle “extra special” orders. I was able to see this because the cashier was completely lost when trying to punch in my order to the register. I feel like the lack of organization in this establishment caused the manager to initially make zero efforts to find a resolution to my requests. The team didn’t have a preset protocol to handle any out of the ordinary orders and thus chose to disregard them completely.

Perhaps the only thing worst than the organization of this establishment are the communications of its employees. Something that I found incredibly shocking and upsetting was that when told to talk to the manager, the cashier simply said “yeah you should talk to him”, and pointed to the manager standing directly behind her while making no efforts to get his attention. Rather than me just shouting “HEY YOU” to the manager, I asked the cashier, “Aren’t you going to get his attention for me?” The fact that the cashier didn’t take it upon herself to get the managers attention for me shows how unorganized and how badly trained these workers really are. It was kind of an awkward position for me because I felt that I shouldn’t be the one to get the manager, the cashier should. Sadly, the manager’s communication skills were not much better than the cashiers’. When talking to me he was very rude and was not really paying attention to me. He was moving back and forth while I was expressing my need to have the Mac sauce on the side making me feel that he really wasn’t listening to me. He kept fighting me telling me that he just couldn’t put the sauce on the side even though I was trying to come up with easy solutions such as giving me a tiny cup and filling it up with some sauce. He just shook his head and disregarded my ideas. There is certainly a lot of room for improvements here. For one, communications between employees and the manager should be stronger. The cashier should not be afraid to get the managers attention, which was the case for me as the cashier had basically told me to get the manager myself. Another thing is obvious, show to the customer that you are making an effort to make them happy. I felt that the manager was making zero effort to help me until I threatened to cancel my entire order.

Training was another thing that was lacking. Organization and communication goals should be taught in training. It was the lack in training that caused the organization and communication to become lacking as well. It is obvious that these employees, including the manager, were not trained to handle special orders. I feel this way because the manager seemed to do all that he could to avoid having to put in a special order. Had he been better trained, a special order wouldn’t be such a difficult task and thus he would be more likely to perform it without any attitude. Standard customer service training needs to be enhanced, particularly at this branch of McDonalds. While the cashier was polite, the fact that she gave me the job of getting the manager is preposterous. As a customer, I am not the one who is who is to “get the manager”. Even on the managers side customer service was upsetting. His actions and demeanor really made me feel unimportant as his initial responses to my requests were lackadaisical, uncaring, and unwilling.

Leadership would have made this task much easier. It was the lack of leadership that made this order that much harder. The leader, who is supposed to be the manager, couldn’t even take a leadership role. When faced with a problem, a leader finds a solution, and at the minimum makes an effort to look for solutions. I felt like I was the one taking the leadership role as I made so many suggestions as to how I could get the sauce on the side. By making a near zero effort to search for solutions, he showed that I’d probably be better off had he not been there at all. He set a bad example for his workers and showed that when faced with an uncertainty, just say “NO CAN DO”.

            It took around 6 minutes just to get my order in, and another 4 to get it out. This is way too long for a “fast food” restaurant. The order is unusual, but should not be so difficult to satisfy. A simple side of sauce was too much for this McDonalds team to handle efficiently. While in class, a classmate told me how easy it was for her to get this “special” order. She said that when her cashier wasn’t sure what to do, another cashier immediately took the lead and got her order out without any hassle. It is clear that at the McDonalds she went to the management, the training, the organization, and the leadership was on a much higher level. 

Vision is Power!

In the video "The Power of Vision" we realize the importance of having a vision for the future. We learn that without a clear and distinct vision, we cannot make any progress. It is from our visions that we get the drive and inspiration to make our dreams into a reality.

As a finance student at Baruch I have many visions and hopes for my future.

Vision 1: Get a internship at a financial firm.
Vision 2: Make a killing in the stock market from the recovering economy.
Vision 3: Start a family.

My first vision is short term and will surely be necessary in order to fulfill my other visions. I need to get a internship in order to prove my capabilities and worth which is critical for my success.

With the economy in it's current state, I feel my generation   can be extremely profitable by investing right now. Slowly, but surely, the economy will turn around and I hope that I can ride the upswing to great profits!

My ultimate goal in life is to be successful enough to support a family and give them a good life. I have built the visions of my future upon this hope and will only visualize that which will help me achieve this goal.

Easy Decisions...Made Difficult...

First of all, I'd like to express how happy I am that this class experiment is going to result in potentially great increases in our originally abysmal grades.

Looking back at all the chaos, I realize that I handled the situation in a variety of ways. I competed to win (in a more passive way), in the sense that when I heard people making proposals that were just too complicated to be enforced I immediately disregarded their proposal, thus ensuring that it would not get a 100% consensus. I think the entire class, including myself participated as compromisers, especially on the 'extra credit writing assignment' agreement. There were many proposals being batted around concerning the essay section and it seems that we all compromised and even accommodated each other by settling for an extra credit assignment. We all also participated as collaborators in that our final agreements were settled upon due to the fact that we collaborated on what we wanted a our needs were and came up with the final arrangements.

In hindsight, I think the best way to have gotten the most out of this opportunity was to break up into groups. Once in groups, each group can come up with 3 or 4 proposals. Once every group comes together I'm sure we would have found that many of our needs and ideas were the same thus saving a  lot of time. Also when in little groups, it would have been easier to explain the arrangements to those who were not sure of what they meant. Not to mention, that if we were able to come to a decision first in smaller groups, in the end it would have been easier to come to a decision because it would be a negotiation between 5 groups rather than 60 individuals. 

An Eggs-cellent Way to Fail!

Planning is critical to success. By planning you prepare yourself for future tasks and by being prepared you put yourself in the position to succeed. However, if you don't plan your objectives and tasks appropriately, you could have failed before you even begin!

There are five critical steps in the planning process. Throughout this activity, my group definitely took all of them into account. However, even though we did take them into account, we did a poor job cooperating with one another which ultimately resulted in FAILURE!

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives...
- This step was easy to follow as the goals, objectives, and constraints were directly presented to us. Nonetheless, we succeeded 100% here.

Step 2: Determine current status compared to objectives
- We all knew our resources however we never took into account our strengths and weaknesses. It certainly would have helped had we delegated a leader because six people presenting their ideas in a free for all was extremely disorienting. However, this was probably tough to do for everyone due to the excitement and time constraints. I think we performed at about 20% in this step.

Step 3: Develop premises and several alternative strategies
- With so many ideas being thrown around, we definitely had at least several strategies. As people shared their ideas, we also discussed the strengths and weaknesses of them which is how we were able to choose a single strategy. I would say we performed 75% in this step because while we performed what is necessary in this step, we did it in a extremely disorganized fashion.

Step 4: Analyze alternatives and make a tactical plan
- We analyzed alternatives and came up with our final strategy. We discussed tactics such as how are we going to get the scissors, how we are going to build the contraption, however we did not allocate jobs and resources. Had we allocated jobs and resources, when it came time to build we would not have ended up fighting for the egg! WHICH WE DID! For this step we performed only 10% because allocating jobs and resources is critical to being organized and without the organization, when it came time to build, my team fell apart.

Step 5: Implement the plan and evaluate results
- Here we performed 100%. We did exactly what we had to do and even made adjustments to our planned strategy. However, because of our failure to meet all the requirements in step 4, our implementation in step 5 suffered. When the time was up, we rushed and panicked and as a result broke our egg before getting a chance at the 10 points extra credit!

This really was an exciting activity. I learned so much regarding planning and working with others. Even though we didn't even get a chance to step up to the plate, at least we had fun!