Decision Making

The decision that the class had to make was a very difficult one; however, it was very realistic as well. The hardest part was that every single classmate had to agree on the issue. Getting 100% votes is always a task but we did it. I believe that we followed the decision making process step by step. As a group, we knew what the dilemma was. We all had to agree on a single solution. The task was not only hard because we were a pretty large group, but also we all had different grades on the test. Since we all had different grades, each of us looked at the problem in their own unique way, benefiting their own self interests. So the way we went about solving the problem was through generating and quickly evaluating all kinds of solutions. We continuously voted on different approaches and one by one brought our alternatives down to only a few. We decided to take the highest of the two midterm grades (drop the lower one) as well as having an extra credit.

The part where we got into a little trouble was when the second decision was being made. The topic got a little heated, but at least we all decided on something. Our decision was to let the professor structure the next test as he sees fair. This is the most optimal solution because every suggestion had an objection by at least one person. I think, overall we did a great job considering the situation at hand. Each student handled the conflict differently. I handled it in the accommodation approach. I knew that there was no way a decision was being made unless there was understanding and organization within the group. So when the young lady went up to the front of the room and started patiently asking questions, i wanted it to be organized and comprehensive to everyone. That was my personal goal. If she said something that was not understood I would explain it to the individual. If one asked her a question and she would not understand, I would tell her what that individual was trying to say. I was in the very front, so not many people heard me, but I was trying to get involved enough to make sure that everyone was on the same page, which I think helped. I believe accommodation is the best class to go about solving a problem within a large group with a limited amount of time. Avoidance is the least efficient class because people should say how they feel in order to get a sense of the group’s different alternatives. With too many people withdrawing from the situation, the class of people that compete just to win will take advantage of the group, which could end up in a crisis. I think collaborating and compromising are the most beneficial approaches but they require more time to convince and negotiate one another. So if we had more time I would probably pick collaborating, but in our case I think I made the right choice as an accommodator.

Sonnet of Class Experiences

When I look back at these last few weeks

We learned about controlling and decision making

It was interesting planning with all you freaks

Especially to prevent our eggs from breaking

The video we saw in class about vision

Encouraged us to be positive and optimistic

When the class argued and couldn’t make a decision

We just needed to be realistic

Even if our leader was supporting

Building with legos was so exhaustive

The Jell-O assignment taught us brainstorming

Resulting in Jell-O sex toys, how creative!

It was great being in your class

Lets just hope we all pass!

The ABC's of DISC

The test did a good job describing my management orientation. I scored a C-D dimension which is pretty much on target. I scored high both on D and on C, but my C was slightly above my D. The high C is an accurate score for me because i like things done right the first time with high quality performance. I mostly follow the rules and regulations. I am a D as well because i am demanding, strong willed, and ambitioius. It is part of my nature to be that way. I scored a very low I because i am always suspicous of everything. Even though i am an optimistic person i always think: "what is the worst possible thing that can happen and how can i be prepared for it." I believe i scored low S because i am always impatient and unpredictable. I believe that in some cases i am a C and in other cases i tend to shift to a D. It all depends on the situation and my environment. I think it is very possible for me to change from a C to a D because i scored high on both of them. When the situation arises where i must be dominant and controlling i am a D. This reminds me of an example: When i worked at my fathers store last summer as an ordinary employee i acted more towards a C because i saw myself as part of a team working to increase sales. However when i worked there more recently as a floor manager my perspective changed and i saw myself as a different entity that needed to control the team under me. Because of this i was forced to change to a D in order to accomodate my role change.

Communicating Via Blog

Professor, I think that the blog assignment was not only motivating but also intriguing. It was a great addition to the class because of its value and innovative thinking that we acquired. I never had a class that included a consistent blog throughout the semester with this intensity, however, the blog was too time consuming. The blog assignment also gave me an interesting insight of how others viewed different class activities. The blog was a powerful learning tool that showed different perspectives of the same in-class assignments. I think that it originated conversations in and out of class which never would have happened without the blog. I found it a little difficult to benefit from meeting others online because I was too busy focusing on getting the blog assignments done as one of the class goals. The blog assignments made me think analytically about what we were doing in class and overall improved my thinking and analytical skills. Now that I look back at the class activities I clearly remember them and their significance. I can also take what I have learned and apply it in the future, out of class. That credit is owed to the blog assignments, because without them I would not have understood the significance of the class activities. In addition, I thought that the professor blog entries were interesting because it made us think outside the box.

American culture is dependent on time. The blog assignments made up 20% of our grade and gave the class the opportunity to do well by just participating. However, for students that are from abroad, I can imagine difficulty with the time constraint on the blog assignments because most countries in the world have a lax time frame which expects everyone to be late. It is part of their culture not to be on time. I know because I have family abroad and timeliness is just something one must get used to when the come to the U.S. If I have time in the future I will try to continue posting my ideas through the blog. It all depends on how high it is on my list of priorities next semester. If I could improve the blog assignments I would make more assignments but require very short responses to each of them.

Extra Credit

First of all I would like to say that this was one of the most fun, extra credit assignments I was ever a part of. That being said, I was extremely shocked by the way I was treated as a customer. It was definitely astounding to see four McDonalds staff involved in a very simple specialized order. The communication pattern was much more complicated than it needed to be. When I ordered the small hamburger with four extra pickles, the lady said no problem. However, when I reiterated my order, she said “ four extra pickles?” and I said yes. She then went to the back of the store and told the person that was in charge of the burgers that I wanted four extra pickles on my burger.

Next, I ordered the French fries well done with no salt. Usually, in a fast food restaurant, the lady at the cashier simply takes the order and presses a button and the food comes out. In this case the cashier lady had to go to the staff member in charge of fries and tell him that I requested an order of fries well done with no salt. Since all of the fries that were done, had salt on them, the cashier lady that was helping me told the staff member that was frying the raw potatoes into fries not to put salt on my order. This took extra time because my special order required a new batch of fries to be made with no salt. This special order from beginning to end took 7 minutes and 32 seconds. This is unacceptable for a fast food restaurant.

Once I received my order, I had to explain to the cashier that I needed a receipt showing exactly one small hamburger with exactly four pickles on it and a small order of fries well done with no salt. She told me that it was not possible. I urged that I really needed it. She was persistent and did not understand what the purpose of it was. Honestly, she thought that I was a little crazy because I was so insisting on that receipt. Ever since I requested my special order she looked at me like I was crazy. But even more so, when I was persistent on receiving the receipt she started getting agitated and it made me feel like I was wasting her time. I requested to speak to a manager. Victor Martinez, the supervisor, came to the rescue. Victor ensured me that in all his years as a supervisor, he never learned how to make a receipt, that specific. Indicating fries that are well done or any indication of more than one EXTRA portion of an item on a receipt was foreign language to him.

The staff’s anger reached a new threshold when I opened my order with five pickles and not four as I requested. I went up to the same cashier lady and told her that she I had one extra pickle on my burger. She was furious! She started raising her voice and said, “You asked for four pickles! We gave you five! Just take one off!” I gave her the burger and she took it to the back. For two minutes and 16 seconds it took her to take off a pickle. Frankly, I don’t want to know what really happened to that burger back there.

In the end, I learned that fast food restaurants rely on simple orders and the management process becomes complex when an order is not so simple. Fast food restaurants such as Mcdonalds create a system that is very efficient when it comes to orders that are on the menu such as a “Number 2 order.” However, when it comes to a special order with an addition or deduction of an order that is on the menu things get complicated.

The Power of Vision

1. My first serious visional goal that i hope to achieve in the future is successfully taking over the family business and developing it, by applying both technology skills and operational management skills that i have learned in school. When i graduate, i plan on working extensively on using computer information technology by adapting inventory and bar code programs to upgrade our retail stores. Also, i would like to help develop and manage my family-owned real estate in the bronx. Using technology to improve efficiency is one of my main goals. When i achieve that goal i know that it will be much easier and practical to expand our retail stores from the bronx to other areas in the ny metropolitan region.
2.Another one of my goals is to develop my ebay business to the next level. I currently sell sneakers, shoes, and boots on ebay using the connections i have through our retail stores. I just started this business, however, it seems to be growing at a constant pace. Hopefully, when i graduate i will have enough time to allocate in favor of growth in sales and listing effeciency. I am also very hopeful that ebay will take off the listing limit as time passes, so that i can use this unlimited listing capability to sell a whole range of clothing, footwear, and accessories to a broad market all over the globe.
3. One of my long-term goals is to use the profits i earned from the retail, real estate, and ebay, to invest in creating and developing a brand name company that produces sneakers, boots and shoes. We will hopefully produce in China where manufacturing is least expensive. I already have a salesman in mind that agreed to work for us at a fixed salary. He knows of all the factories in which we can produce our products. He also has a great relationship with retail store chains throughout the east coast which will be our target market to begin with. This is not an easy task, however i believe that with great effort and hard work it is possible to succeed in such a business using my familys long history and experience in the shoe business.
4. One day in the near future, when i can comfortably afford to raise a family, i hope to find the right women for me. I havent thought too much about this vision, but god willing i will have the power, strength, and money to raise a healthy family

The Plan That Should Have Worked

My group planning process was pretty efficient. From the start we knew the direction we wanted to take. We were well aware that our time to think of a successful plan was limited (25 min.) Two feet of tape and 8 straws were very difficult supplies to make a strong outer protected layer without covering 50% of the egg. As a group, we believed the best approach was to make a cubic outer layer with a reinforced inner layer with the egg in the absolute middle. The tough part was figuring out how to get a hold of the only scissors in the class. One of us came up with the idea to send someone out of the classroom to look for a pair of scissors. This saved us a significant amount of time and effort. One negative part of our planning that we had was that we did not account for the weakness in the tape. This made the process much harder to formulate. We cut pieces of paper to visualize the straws. We also, used those straw length pieces of paper as a guide to see how we would build the protected cube. One of our biggest dilemmas was the lack of time. We knew that we only had 10 minutes to build the object once we received the supplies, however, it was quit a procedure to handle the speed of the development. Each person in our team had a different job. Two people were making the straws into cube-like figures. One person was in charge of the egg and keeping it stable so that it would not break. Another person was in charge of the scissors, so that no one steals it. During the building process, we realized the tape that we were using was not strong, so it caused us to use up more time to reinforce the structure with extra tape. I believe that our planning was done pretty well, however, our group did not account for physics. When an object falls the most dense area will hit the bottom first especially when thrown from 10 feet high. Because, we did not have time to tape a straw cushion both on top of the egg and under the egg we decided to spend the rest of our time supporting the area under the egg. When the time was up, the area under the egg was well cushioned, but the area that was more dense was not protected. When our team member dropped the figure, even though she dropped the figure with the unprotected side facing up, the more densed area hit the ground first and broke the egg. Therefore, it is safe to say that if we had another minute or two to secure the top part of the object we would be successful in fully protecting the egg from breaking.