Ode to Management

Ode to Management

Were it not for the fun- loving professor
Or the ever so clever class activity
What would be left?
Lectures and powerpoints, not so fun
thankfully, that isn’t all.

From dropping eggs to licking jello powder,
From building legos to steel wool saving lives,
Can you see what I see?
Maybe not exactly, but extra credit is in sight.
5 points, 10 points, it’s up for grabs.

7 blog assignments, none too painful.
3 exams, not too shabby.
4 pickles, no salt: an easy meal, 7 extra points.
All in all, a super fun class.

To blog or not to blog..

I did like the blog assignments, they were fairly easy and gave the students an opportunity to score easy points. It may have been annoying to do and to remember but it was beneficial and offered the students an easy 20%. I'm not too sure that it allowed students to really communicate because I'm pretty sure that we only read others because we HAD to post comments to their entries. We did it just for the points, not really to soak in what they had to say. These blogs didn't help improve communication because again, we weren't really reading, we were just reading enough until we could formulate a comment.
Doing our own blogs, I felt like it made the students apply what they learned in the lecture with the class activity. I felt that was a real plus. One of my favorite is still "egg-cellent" way to plan. So I do feel like the blogs were beneficial in that way instead of having the students just do the activity and then not really have them analyze that. I'm just not too sure that making it mandatory to comment others had any real effect on anything.

I think you should keep the blogs as part of the class. Your tests can be tricky and some students don't like to speak out in class, so the blogs would definitely help boost their grade a little bit.

Honestly, I pretty sure that I'm not going to keep posting on this blog. I don't have much to really ramble about if there is no topic or if there is no reason for why I'm doing it. If people would like to communicate with me, Facebook me. :P

I figured it would be better if I went later on at night to the McDonald’s to order this odd dinner, so I went one day after work at around 9:30pm. I was the only person there waiting on line and there were 2 workers so they took my order right away. When I ordered the hamburger with 4 pickles and fries with no salt, the manager looked at me like I was weird. She must have thought she heard me wrong because she asked me twice, “Did you say 4 pickles?.” I said yes and then she screamed to the cook “That burger needs 4 pickles.” I asked to make sure that the receipt would indicate there were were 4 pickles and no salt for the fries. I’m pretty sure there was a dirty look there because she had to reprint the receipt. She told me that I had to wait 3 minutes for the next batch of fries to be ready. So I stepped aside for the next customer to order.

She punched in “pickle” 4 times on the computer and I think it confused the cook in the back because he screamed, “What’s with the pickles?”. The manager screamed that it needs 4 pickles but the cook still didn’t understand so she yelled something in Spanish and she sounded pretty agitated. I did not take that as a good sign at all. Finally, the next batch of fries were ready and she scooped my small unsalted fries. She put them in a little bag, got the hamburger, gave me the food, and I was off. The whole process took about 6 minutes, mainly just waiting for the fries to be cooked.

I did not think that it would really be an inconvenience since it was not busy at all but nonetheless, it was something that took up more time. When I got home and decided to check the food, it was funny. I open up the burger and there were 6 pickles! I’m guessing the cook did not like the 4 pickles idea so he thought it’d be funny to give me 4 pickles on top of the usual 2 that are in a small hamburger. On top of that, there were about a pound of chopped up onions on it too. That upset me since I was hungry BUT, I did eat the fries.

Overall, I did not think that this particular McDonald’s was that customer- friendly. They should know how to deal with customers without having to come off rude. She could’ve just tried to smile to my face instead of having an angry look the whole time. The order preparation was fast, it just was not prepared accordingly. They can’t expect for ALL people to not have certain specification on their orders. They ranked low in my book for customer service and food preparation. If I was brought in as a consultant, the one problem that most fast food restaurants have is being able to deal with special orders without having to come off like they are annoyed and then getting back at the customers in some way by either messing up the order or just spitting in their food.

I would go in to various McDonalds pretending to be a regular customer and see what it is that they do when I order something ridiculous like a burger with mayo and 3 pickles. I think that they could offer some customer service training to at least teach the employees how to better handle those customers who may drive them nuts instead of coming off aggravated. Maybe hire managers who understand the importance of a satisfied customer rather than those managers who thinks that it is acceptable for employees who roll their eyes at customers. Managers should lead by example rather than excuse poor behavior.

EDITT

So today, I forgot to bring out that receipt with me so I had to go into another McDonalds today to order it again. This McDonalds was even worse. The employee was nice about the order but when I asked to make sure that it would show on the receipt, then he became rude. When I saw the receipt, he only punched in “Extra pickle” once so I asked if he could punch it in four times. He told me that if he did that, it would charge me for each pickle which was a lie because the previous Mcdonalds said that pickles were free. Then he also did not punch in “no salt” on the receipt and when I asked about it, he said that there was no button that says “no salt” which was lie#2. I told him that the other Mcdonalds were able to punch that in and he told me that all McDonalds run on different systems which I really highly doubt. In the end, he had to sign off on the receipt that I ordered the hamburger with 4 pickles and fries with no salt.

Hmm... I, High S?

For my personality test, it said that I fell under "Influential". I don't think I fit ALL the criteria of a influence leader. Some of the points were correct; I do view everything optimistically and I do enjoy interacting with new people. I do love a free environment where people don't have as many restrictions and are free to get the job done in their own fashion. And I do need others who can concentrate more on the facts and the task itself, whereas I tend to get distracted and go off on a tangent. At the same time, although I do have most of the qualities of an influence leader, I'm not too sure if it is fit to be a leader... I am more easy- going about things, and I'm not that sure that it is good when it comes to being a leader.

I don't wish that I was another type, if anything I wish that I was MORE of an influence leader. The conscientious type seems too analytical for me and I am not that conceptual. I am definitely NOT the dominant type, I don't like to take charge and be responsible. I'm content with the results of the personality test.


I don't feel like this would help in other personal interactions because sometimes people don't always act the same way socially as when they are in the office. Some people are able to separate business from pleasure. Just because their eyes are set on climbing to the top doing cut- throat things, it does not mean that they are as demanding outside the office. I do believe that a personality type can be beneficial in learning where people are coming from but only if the potential employees are truly honest with the test too. Even as we were taking the test in class, I knew with my answers that I was not going to be a authoritative type of leader but I could have just fudged the answers to make it look better if I were trying to get a certain job.

Let's picture this....

The movie was cute in it's own oldies type of way trying to inspire it's audience and I suppose when it comes to dreams, there are a few that I have accumulated through the years:

1. Travel around Europe. It always seems like everybody after college always has some crazy road trip with their friends and it looks like an amazing experience, one that I would like to have myself. It would be nice to just wander around aimlessly with friends in a foreign place.

2. Law school has always been in the back of my mind. Too much Law& Order, I suppose but it has always been something that I would love to do. I guess that in high school, I pushed it aside to just pursue something that seemed more practical but after taking a couple of law classes at Baruch, it has stirred up some interest in law again. My professor now also has a bachelors in Finance and after that, he decided to go to law school so that is a possibility that I would like to see happen for me too. And he loves what he does

3. Within a year after graduation, I would hope to find a steady job that I'd like. I'm still not quite too sure a career in what yet but a fall back would to just stay at Abercrombie and become a manager until I find something more fulfulling. Then I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to move out. I do love my family but it's time to spread those wings and fly. Fly far away.

4. My dad currently owns his own mechanic shop / used car dealership and I would love to keep that running when he chooses to retire. He spent 16 years as a taxi driver to provide for his family and then he finally was able to go after his dream when I got into college to open up his own business and I would love to keep that alive for him. He worked so hard to get it, it'd be a shame to see it all go away when he gets too old for it.

One thing I should do is to become more organized with even something like time- management and budget to help get some of those dreams moving along.

Multiple Multiple Choice? 1 essay topic.. 3 essay topic... Utter Chaos

At first, I handled the choas by collaborating with my three friends and then I saw that everybody else jumped up at the idea of the curve which was the one thing I actually wanted. After the curve was settled upon, then I think I used avoidance. It wasn't more that I was avoiding it because there was no chance of winning, it was more that I just left it alone once I knew that everybody would agree on the curve. I believe that the test was pretty fair, it was my own mistake that I messed up on the essay which was where I was docked the most points, everything else was pretty okay. I didn't have a problem with the format of the test, it was pretty straight forward I thought so I guess I just let the rest of the class battle it out for the format.

After seeing everything that happened during that class, I suppose I could've been more accomodating to try and figure out ways to change around the test to help the other students instead of just kicking back when I knew I was going to get what I wanted out of that class.

It was only the first test and now we all know how they are.

hm, I'm sure we'll do better from here on out.

HUEVO

Our team started off pretty okay, I felt like it was an episode of Zoom from PBS. We knew the deadlines for planning and to actually build it and we knew the restraints were 8 straws and some tape. There were several ideas that were being thrown out; a cube, just building a barrier around it, and finally, the cylinder/hourglass look. Flaws were noted. The cube, we weren't too sure if we could do it. Just building a barrier around it, we were afraid 50% of the egg wouldn't be exposed. Finally, some member came up with the cylinder structure and we all agreed on it. The structure itself, seemed sound. The egg was basically hovering inside the cylinder and the straws on all sides of it would save it from impact. If it were to topple over in any direction during the fall, it would be okay because the other straws would keep it from touching the ground. It was very nicely guarded from any impact. The design was made and when it came down to actually constructing it, we had some leftover supplies that we ended up just taping onto the structure. And finally, Huevo was secured and ready to drop....
and did he survive?

YES!

All in all, I felt the group did a good job working together to help plan the successful drop of HUEVO. Everybody had a specific task and did it. In constructing it, we all had some part in building pieces that were later put together.

- the cheerleader <3