Miscommunication

I have not had any experience in the work place where there has been miscommunication, but the television show The Office is a great example of frequent miscommunication in the work place. In one particular episode, the manager of the Scranton office, Michael, is told by his superior, Jan, to choose a health plan that cuts back on benefits. Instead of completing this unpopular task himself, Michael delegates the task to his employee Dwight and then locks himself in his office. When Dwight chooses the worst health care option available, the employees of the office object. Michael emerges from his office long enough to reprimand Dwight for his health plan choice, tells Dwight to pick a better one without giving him any specifics, and promises everyone in the office a big surprise for all the stress they've gone through that day. Dwight goes through more conflict with the other employees of the office, causing them to loose confidentiality rights. Nothing is solved, and the employees are disappointed with Michael's "big surprise" of ice cream sandwiches.
Many examples of miscommunication occurred in this situation. First off, Michael causes huge a huge barrier between himself and his employees by locking himself in his office. Second, Michael should have explained to his employees that the health plan had to cut benefits, and not just blame Dwight. Michael was the person in authority, and he is the one who should have picked the health plan in the first place. Michael did not explain the task well to Dwight, and Dwight, being a salesman, was unqualified to make that decision. Dwight's solution for choosing the health plan is for everyone to write the illnesses they are suffering from on a sheet of paper. This causes the employees' confidentiality rights to be violated, and they become disgruntled. Another miscommunication was Michael's promise of a "big surprise." Michael did not have anything in mind when he promised the big surprise, and the employees were picturing a more significant reward than ice cream sandwiches. Michael should have spent his time wisely on choosing the health care plan instead of searching for a reward to make up for his mistakes.

Online Portfolios

My favorite presentation was Kyle Cook's on the top 5 Clemson dunks from this basketball season. I liked it because he used appropriate visuals and he included video footage from the games. It also helped that he was enthusiastic about his subject.
I must say I have not had a great deal of experience with online portfolios. Someone once gave me a brochure to create an ePortfolio, and I did, in fact, make one of those. I'm not sure if that counts, as I merely downloaded about two essays from my English 103 class. But I assure you, it was a good experience. Having the brochure that laid out instructions step by step made a big difference. I will probably need to know how to set up a portfolio before the portfolio draft is due.

Presentations

The presentations I have seen so far have been very well done.
I particularly liked the sugar glider presentation because, let's be real here, he brought in an actual sugar glider and it was adorable. Live animals just add to any presentation. I also like the Drive-Thru presentation because Melesha was informative and funny. She used humor to grab our attention and get her message across. Keeping with the theme on humor, the third presentation I liked was the presentation on aquariums. It made me want to get an aquarium. It's true too. I have a fake aquarium that smells like burnt rubber when I plug it in, and it makes a wonderful conversation starter.

Cover Letter

Before this class I was not aware that a cover letter was required for a resume. Now I see that the cover letter is an essential part of the job application process. Also, I had no idea that the cover letter would be read last. That is very interesting. I agree with the point that the cover letter should be about the company to show you understand the goals and needs of the company. So it stands to reason that the cover letter should not be sent to a hundred companies. The cover letter should be specific to the one company to which you are sending it. I thought the basic formula for a cover letter was helpful.

The Client

I think some of the ideas that the client threw out there seemed like they had potential. For instance, one good idea was to create a blog, and that would be easy enough to do considering the class is familiar with that. Another idea similar to that was to create a facebook group, which would be a very good idea to get the concept of the project to the students of Clemson. Basically everyone has a facebook - probably more than a blog - and videos and information could be put in the group. Messages could also be sent to all the members of the group. I am only concerned that I may not be familiar enough with technology or have to equipment to perhaps make a video. But maybe we can all pull something together. There seems to be a problem in my group with all the members showing up for each class/meeting. This only has the potential to be a major problem because my group is the smallest and declines significantly when members do not show up.

Job Interviews

I have never had a job interview. I suppose those top interview mistakes mentioned in the article would be some of the worst mistakes you could make. Who would be unkind to the secretary? I believe it really would be best to give honest answers in an interview. I agree with the article on that point. If you say you can speak fluent Spanish and you cannot, you will only have trouble if you actually get the job. A follow up note is an excellent idea that I never thought of before this class. I do not really have any good insights about interviews, but I would welcome more information because I could really gain learning more about the interview process.

The Know-It-All

I am in a wonderfully good mood right now, despite the fact that I seem to have contracted Bronchitis this week. I have finished my computer homework (at least the parts I could do) that I feel like I have been working on for the past three days straight. And now I am free to read my book. The book I am reading now is called The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs, and it is hilarious. The concept of the book is that this man (A.J. Jacobs) has taken it upon himself to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in order to enhance his knowledge, and then he writes about the facts he reads about. The book is both entertaining and educational. I may just enjoy it because I am a bit of a dork, but I really like it.