I have been given many personality tests over the last six years, and they all read the same. I love rules!!! I was a C type which makes perfect sense because I like maintaining the structured order of preexisting institutions and analyses there function to discover what make them better. What I think is interesting is my great passions theatre and acting are creative and unpredictable field. That perhaps I wish I was more of dominating type because it would serve an actor well to be dominating things like the stage or auditions. So what I have been discovering about myself is that to find happiness I need to explore other aspect of Theatre like working for institutions of theatre in the managerial sense which is the reason I am in this class. That through a test like these I have discovered a better understanding of my career goals that will lead me to happiness.
By presenting an unfamiliar problem to an organization, I can gain insight on the strengths and weakness of an organization. In the course of this assignment Macdonald’s and I both faced a problem – I needed ten points on my test, but would have to go out of my comfort zone to get them.Macdonald’s, on the other hand, would have to fight an outdated Point Of Sales (POS) machine that it does not fully understand to meet the customers needs. The observation was to ask Macdonald’s for above and beyond and to see the management process and its breakdowns. While putting Macdonald’s to the test I discovered its limitations and its strengths of dealing with the unexpected.
Late on a Friday night, I decide to visit the staff of a MacDonald’s and challenge there service for my own benefit. My first attempt was the Macdonald’s on West 4th street.The moment I entered, however, I could see that events in the store were insane. Two giant lines surrounded by panhandlers, drunks screaming, and boom boxes playing were being serviced by one frantic sales clerk. It was immediately apparent that this store could barely handle normal orders, much less my special one – I would have felt horrible even making the request.Moreover, the line was long and the people waiting were being pestered by drunks the entire time.Finding the idea completely unappealing, I decided to try a different store.
I traveled uptown to 8th avenue and 34th to see if every Macdonald’s was a nut house at on a Friday.I found a store being staffed by four sales clerks, with a busy but moving line. This suggest some organizational problems in consistency to me. Geographically, thirty blocks should not make that big of a difference. The MacDonald’s on West 4th was about as welcoming as a hive of angry bees – I could hardly stand just being inside, let alone eating there. 34th street MacDonald’s contrasted this by being welcoming, clean, and approachable.
The line moved quickly, and I found a very helpful sales woman waiting for me at the end.It turned out that she was a team leader, and through the ordering process was helpful and encouraging. When I gave her my special order she did not flinch and did not treat me any differently. It was obvious she had been taught that every customer request was do able, and not to question even a peculiar order. In this case, she took my order, but I did notice she avoided using the POS machine.In fact, she put as much as she could into the machine, then hollered at the kitchen to make the special request. This hollering was not very professional, and showed that communicating through the POS was difficult, confusing, and generally not done. I received my order within five minutes perfectly done – she even took the time to make a top for my cup of special sauce using an upside-down water cup lid.The over all process of customer satisfaction much better than I expected.When it came time to get the receipt, however, there was a problem.
My order was initially impossible to put into the POS machine. My sales clerk printed a receipt that was incorrect, then told me that the POS lacked the buttons to complete my order.While I discussed with her how I could get a correct receipt, a manger walked up and asked if there was a problem. I was surprised and impressed how quickly the manager noticed there was problem and moved to offer assistance, even while under the pressure of a busy restaurant.Once again, this MacDonald’s impressed me in customer care.
However, although the manager had better knowledge of the POS and could make the necessary alterations, it turned out that she could not print out a second receipt without another sale. I was desperate at this point and pressed for time, so I decide to go ahead and order a second round of the special items. The process of receiving the order was similarly fast and effective, but without the order being verbally hollered to the kitchen.Unfortunately, my second special hamburger came with about fifteen pickles on it instead of the requested ten. Also, the receipt still did not print out correctly, placing me in a pickle.I was not about to pay for a third set of food and had to demand a new receipt without paying. At this, the manager stepped away for a moment, then came back was able to print me a new receipt with all of my requirements.
The whole process took less than twenty minutes. Although I have waited longer for fast food, twenty minutes is still not acceptable.. The organization worked well at the MacDonald’s on 34th street – there was a nice greeting, a short wait, friendly sales persons, and quick service. The only problem in the exchange was the non-human element in the form of the POS machine. From what I could see, the employees often navigated around the POS – either because the POS is ineffective, or because there is a lack of training on the POS. The manager of the store was efficient and clearly capable of offering support to her employees and the customers, but also lacked training in use of the POS.This seemed to show that although training had been given to meet customer needs, little attention had been paid to how to communicate those needs. A reevaluation of the POS should be done. A simpler machine or enough training to give employees faith in the machine would help the quickness and efficiency of the process.
The fact that the manager had to step away from the floor to consult with a higher manager still was also a problem. It showed that the manager on the floor did not have full autonomy in running her store and had to go through a bureaucracy to be efficient. Her consulting higher management was the longest part of the process. While I would encourage the management to give more freedom to the floor workers and training it clearly had some good leaders for its ability to keep employees for a longer times and there overall customer service.
The analysis showed that 34th street MacDonald’s did care about keeping the atmosphere of the store and its customer care friendly and positive. It also indicated, however, that Macdonald’s has poor communication and lacks proper training in important areas. Yet, I question the reluctance of upper management to dole out more responsibility to the floor manager. That the real power was tucked away in a back room or over a phone seems to indicate a lack of trust in employees, which hampers this ability to service their customers. Overall, however, the experience was positive and my friend and I enjoyed our extra pickles.
The desire to be full-filled as I have gotten old has become more coherent. Yet, it still is murky that is why I went back to school to develop some ideas of a path to take to my future. What I have discovered is there are many more paths, and thousand different visions. But the glorious thing I have discovered about my future is that I am ok with whatever I am doing as long as I am with people I care about, and whatever I am doing is full filling. Here are some things that I have found that give me joy, and some specific steps to reach them.
1. I would like to be creating and/or performing professional theatre. Acting or administrating in the Not for profit theatre world either: regionally, in New York or abroad. To be creating theatre that was current and important is the goal. After graduations I plan on auditioning and interning at theatres in New York, and also studying the craft of acting at conservatory or go on to get a masters in acting or in Theatre Management.
2. I want to volunteer abroad. To volunteer and live abroad would have an impact on my life that I can not fully comprehend. It would challenge me to work on skills that I myself am challenged with mainly langue. It would also give me a chance to work on teaching. I have been gaining knowledge on teaching English abroad programs and have been speaking with friends and loved ones who have spent time volunteering in places like Peru and India.
3. To teach. Being dyslexic I would love to help other students with learning disabilities and special needs. To learn about the brain and the process of learning to educate others on how to better teach theses students would be endlessly fulfilling. Also teaching theatre to students has always been in the back of my mind. I would have to go back to school to learn more about this field which is where I would turn to CUNY.
Monday October 13, 2010 was a class I will not forget. The only other classes that have put me through that many emotions have been acting classes. Discovering I failed a test and then being thrown into making a decision with forty strangers in thirty minutes was if anything emotional.
It was very interesting what I went through, and what I observed about others. When El Profesor stepped back, and put us to the task of fixing our test grade I felt overwhelmed. For me not having a leader was difficult, but the lack of information was heartbreaking. Those two conflicts stunned me. I sat and waited hoping something would happen even though I was someone who desperately needed my test fixed. Things seemed to change for me, and the class as we gained leaders and gained the knowledge of curve. At that point I felt and saw in others confidence over control over our grade, and it pulled me somewhat out of that avoidance mood. Yet when we gained the curve again I found I was timid. My brain was saying “just take the curve and move on” yet the others pushed harder and I benefited.
In retrospect I wonder if I was avoiding the decision because of guilt. I knew I did not study hard enough, and therefore dissevered my failing grade. The curve is a gift of a grade that I have no business having. I feel this is why I offered only one idea, and even that was for the extra credit assignment to be about ethics.
The decision about the next test formatting was very interesting in other ways. This had the conflicts of communication and goal differences. I feel I fell into the realm of accommodation mainly because the two girls in the center of the room were really competing to win over the “Essay issue”. The two really need the test to be different, and in my mind that made there needs greater than my own. Yet, I also felt my behavior fell into the compromise realm. When the argument over the essay grew stagnate. I stood up and brought up some points on my concept of a fairness in test take. I don’t know if it resolved any issues, but it perhaps eased the tension between the two sides.
Our Egg broke. With the time constraint and the lack of egg physics knowledge it’s hard to say if our planning was the direct reason that we did not accomplish the goal. Yet in retrospect there are way we could have planned more effectively that may or may not have lead to a better outcome.
If we did not succeed because of poor planning it was because we glanced over step 1. We knew the general direction and time restrictions, but we lacked specificity. If we had been more specific with the direction of our plan then that would have informed our development and perhaps had lead to a better design. Also there was an idea of where we needed to be in correlation with the time but nothing specific that we could turn to.
Again we glanced over Steps 2 and went straight to step 3. Quickly looking at the resources we jumped to designs. I feel our step three went well and was our biggest strength. We discussed every idea going through about four or five designs. We discussed weaknesses and benefits of each one and decide on what was the strongest proposal. Although if he we spent more time looking at the given resources it could have better informed our design. Yet, interestingly enough after we settled on a design we went back to step two to find our strengths and weakness as a group. This planning helped determine group roles in step four.
Our step four was not very specific. After we chose our design it was easy to determine role and sequence of actions, but there were very little alterative discussed. This became a large problem in implementing the plan. Our only alterative or contingency was to just tape it.
Our final step was rather amazing. We ran into problems that were not considered. This showed that we had some flaws in our plan, but we toke some amazing corrective actions and revised the plan as need. First the straws were not cooperating with our design bringing our one contingency into play. We taped it and it worked, but then we discovered builder’s fingers were to big to complete the plan. This is were everyone stepped up and switched roles to accomplish the goal. Personally I was rather impressed by our team for the sudden shift did not affect the out come of the plan. I felt like our team was one of the first teams done within the time limit, our egg carriage looked like what we planned, and we fulfilled all the requirements to not get disqualified.
We could have looked at our direction and our resources more specifically which could have informed on a better design. We could have hashed out the seemly obvious which could have had led to more success. Yet, we communicated well we thought out logically our premises and at crunch time we all contributed which is kind of amazing.
