Models of Democracy

Models of Democracy; Web Lecture

I found our web lecture for this week to be very interesting (especially the models of democracy). Thanks for making a chart Prof. Cyborg so that I (and the class) could easily see the differences between each model of democracy. I think at my job I see three models of democracy performed: Procedural, Participatory,and Dialogic. Procedural democracy is important to our company because we do enforce standard procedures and rules daily. Participatory democracy occurs most with the managerial staff with informed discussions about the business. And dialogic democracy occurs between a staff member and a manager. The manager shows concern for the employees emotions and concerns and will listen to them in the appropriate time.

Mindless Communication

Mindless Communication; Ch. 11; page 344-345

I would say that when I partake in mindless conversations they tend to be phatic communications rather than scripted. I have mindless conversations with customers all the time to have them feel that I am interested in what they are saying. Most of the time, I'm not interested. I simply let them I guess let them release their story they have been wanting to tell someone. Rather than being rude, I don't interrupt them and let them say what they want to say. My way of letting them know I'm listening is something subtle like nodding or smiling. It does however surprise me sometimes what people are willing to divulge to a stranger. Sometimes the conversation will be a form of nagging about their spouse (which are usually pretty funny). I know I wouldn't say some of the stuff I hear while I'm helping a customer with their purchase.

Training and Development

Training and Development; Ch. 10; page 322

Employee training and development is something I do every day for my job. I have trained the majority of the staff where I work and continue to develop their customer service skills and knowledge of our programs offered. Training a new hire normally doesn't take more than a couple hours. Most of the training is hands on where I perform a task with the trainee watching me and then I have them do it. After they complete their task, I tell them what they forgot to do. Development is usually done over a long period of time. The new hire will usually start at one position and based on their performance during the first 3 months of their employment we give them more responsibilities and develop what they have been trained on so for and add to it based on their new responsibilities.

Harassment

Harassment; Ch. 9; page 298

Luckily I haven't ever gotten caught up in the whole sexual harassment at work conflict. However, I have made the mistake of dating a co-worker and feared it would hurt me if things didn't work out between us. I thought of all the consequences that could occur if she told my boss something that could be classified as sexual harassment. I knew it was never a good idea to date a co-worker (even worse someone I supervised), but sometimes the heart doesn't listen to your conscience. When we broke up, things at work got as awkward as I thought they would get. We had a very public break-up and everyone at work knew about it. I ended up changing the shift schedule so we wouldn't have to work together. Thank god a few months later she quit and went off to college in another state. After that, things were a lot easier and I was happy.

Take my experience as proof that you should not date someone you work with!

Quality-Improvement Teams

Quality-Improvement Teams; Ch. 8; page 241

I am part of a quality-improvement team for my job as a manager. I am always supervising employees and their delivery of customer service. I have to talk to some employees after listening to how they helped a customer. If I feel they didn't help answer the customer's questions well enough, I will tell them the correct answers/way to help the customer. It usually is a result of the employee not knowing the correct answer and I just need to inform the employee the correct information. However, sometimes I will hear the employee give the customer wrong information and I will intervene. Another responsibility is improving customer satisfaction by price reductions and sales. I maintain or merchandise and inventory. In this aspect, I allow discounts to customers and place orders for customers if we don't have inventory on hand. I am constantly recommending to the general manager when to have sales for our merchandise.

Communication Imperative

Communication Imperative; Web Lecture; Technology & Teams

I am definitely a social being. I communicate through as many forms possible to everyone I know and don't know. These blogging posts are a form of how I communicate to people I have never met in person. I communicate to people I know through phone, texting, facebook, email, and I still send regular postal mail. I have friends that haven't written a letter in years and sent it through the mail. The only thing they will mail is a birthday card to a relative. I used to have a Myspace page to communicate through a social-network, but decided to switch to facebook because the context felt more apporpriate for my demographics.

Conflict

Conflict; Ch. 8; page 248

Conflict is a constant occurrence at where I work. There are conflicts between customer and employee, employee vs. customer, customer vs. customer, and employee vs. employee. I would not be going out on a limb by saying there is at least one conflict every day in one form or another at my job. For example, a customer recently placed an special order for a pair of skates so her daughter can have a new/better pair of ice skates for her class starting next week. She placed the order 3 weeks ago and the skates have yet to arrive because they were back-order by the supplier we purchase from. So the customer is now upset with us (the ice rink) for not having her skates ready for her daughter. We can only apologize to the customer because we are technically not at fault because the supplier had to back-order the shipment. I always understand the customers conflict, but there is only so much we can control.

Second Shift

Second Shift; Ch. 7; page 207

This is not the first time I have heard or read about the second shift concept. I think the second shift is no longer only considered routine for women. I myself (a man) have a second shift every day. I used to have three shifts in one day actually. I used to work two jobs and go to school full-time. So really I had four shifts a day. My routine was go to work in the morning, go to school in the afternoon, go to my internship at night, and then go home and take care of stuff around my apartment (general upkeep like vacuuming, doing laundry, emptying the dish-washer, etc.). My fiance also lives with me and she has a second shift life as well. She works all day (9-5) and then comes home to cook dinner and take care of other things. It will be interesting to see how drastic our second shifts will be when we start having kids!

Practical View of Organizational Culture

Practical View; Web Lecture on Metaphors & Culture

I have heard on more than one occasion that the objective for our company is to be as practical as possible in order to be effect. When I read the description of practical view for our web lecture I thought of the operations as practical. Management makes the necessary changes to company operations and those changes are directed from the top down to the bottom of our employee rank structure.
My second thought on this topic was a practical joke. A practical joke can be a trick on someone and everyone thinks it's funny, including the person being tricked. Practical jokes are also a common occurrence at my job. It's all in good fun...

If you would like to share a practical joke you played on a co-worker, comment on this post and tell me about it.

Concertive Control

Concertive Control; Ch. 6; page 177

The author of our text describes concertive control as occurring when "employees police themselves, developing a means for their own control" (p. 177).
There are times at my job were employees must be able to display concertive control because a manager may be away to lunch or at a meeting. There also has been much negotiations between staff and managers for consensus on the company rules. Many of the rules have changed from when I started working for the company 7 years ago. I do feel many of the changes have worked out for the best. For instance, when I started working every employee had to wear black pants while working. Now the rule is employees are not allowed to wear torn pants (they don't have to be black).

Turning Points

Turning Points; Ch. 5; page 149

Our text describes turning points using students as examples, as well as from employees' perceptions. I would have to say that I haven't yet achieved a turning point in my employment career yet, but I can definitely describe a turning point in my hockey career...
The turning point in my hockey career happened when I was recruited to play ice hockey for San Jose State University. The coach approached me and told me he would like it if I tried out for the team. I was currently going to West Valley College and didn't feel ready to go to a University yet like San Jose State. However, I tried out for the team and (of coarse) made it! Those years of playing for San Jose State were truly some of the best times of my life. I went from playing in a little-known adult hockey league to playing in the ACHA Div. II for my hometown college of San Jose State!

Rituals

Rituals; Ch. 5; page 128-129

Every year my company puts together the best of its employees that play hockey for the annual Tahoe Cup and Bash Hockey Tournament. I didn't play on the team this year, but the team did make it to the championship game (but lost). The company owner pays for the tournament fee so that all the players can play; all the players have to pay is for their hotel stay. This ritual of playing in a hockey tournament is a big deal to the many hockey players working at my company. Since my company is a ice skating rink many of the employees play hockey at various levels. Everyone appreciates the fact that the owner of the company pays the tourney fee. It is a great perk for working there. I think he also pays (or reimburses) employees who want to raise their coaching training for hockey. This is a benefit to the individuals who take advantage of this opportunity and it is a benefit to the rink so that the coaches achieve the highest coaching training available.
I can honestly say that I haven't heard of any similar rituals by any of my friend's organizations.

Feedback

Feedback; Ch. 4; p. 109

Usually the kind of feedback I hear most often is negative (deviation-countering). Customers seem to complain more than they complement. It seems every time a customer does make a complement about one of the employees or our programs it seems odd almost. The sad part about it is that my company doesn't have a system set up to record those complements made by customers about an employee. For example, if one of the skating instructors helps a child get up from fall and the parent notices and reports the occasion to me praising the instructor, I can only tell the instructor, "good job for doing that." It doesn't benefit their employment come raise time. It is really bad, I know. How are employees supposed to be evaluated yearly or bi-yearly if managers cannot record comments made by customers about certain employees. We do, however, have a system set up for complaints made by customers about employees. For example, if a customer approaches me and says the cashier was very rude to them, I ask the customer exactly what happened (to get their point of view). I then (usually) apologize to the customer on behalf of the employee and tell the customer I'll talk to the employee about their behavior. Later I will have a discussion with the employee in private about what happened. If the employee can explain their behavior abjectly I usually just tell them to be more aware of the customer. However, if they become defensive or deny it happened, the employee is given a written warning (write-up). If the employee has three written warnings they are suspended. If the employee is suspended three times, they are fired on the third occasion.

Division of Labor

Division of Labor; Ch. 3; p. 71

The aspect of division of labor helps every organization run efficiently. Where I work there are several divisions. We have skating instructors who teach the students how to ice skate or improve their figure skating skills. We have skate counter employees that greet and hand out rental skates to customers. We have cashiers to help customers with their questions or for purchases. We have managers on duty who oversee the operations of the staff and drive the Zamboni for ice maintenance. And finally we have the General and Assistant-General Manager (usually at least one is there at all times) who oversee the entire staff. This system helps the rink run effectively and when unexpected occurrences happen the staff is trained to handle it or find the proper employee to handle the situation.

Goals

Goals; Ch. 4; p. 108

The term "goals" always resonates with me because I play and coach hockey, but I also understand the organizational meanings for "goals." I know the goals I have as a coach is to not just have my team score goals, but also to motivate my players to work hard on and off the ice. When I hear a player isn't doing well in school, I suspend the player until they can prove they are improving their grade. Sports are a luxury, education is a privilege.
Another example is at my work, each employee has their own personal goals while there. My goal is to try and sell as much unused ice time possible in order to make a good commission and also make the rink more money. This also helps the profitability of the available ice time to be sold. If I don't sell the open ice time, the company loses money (electricity, Zamboni usage, labor, etc.).

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy; Ch. 3; page 77

Bureaucracy can definitely be found where I work. We have fixed divisions of labor (I am a manager with fair seniority of 6 years).

The division of labor or the authority pipeline if you will is as follows:
1. C-level Officers
2. General Manager
3. Assistant-General Manager
4. Manager on Duty (me)
5. Skating Instructors
6. Cashiers
7. Skate Counter Employees.

We have a set of rules that every employee must follow and they can be found in our written employee handbook.
We hire based on previous experience and required qualifications (ability to ice skate).
Everyone is not treated equally due to their different roles (i.e. - management delegate taks for lower positioned employees; lower employees do not tell managers what to do).
C-level officers have always had this bureaucratic business model since the company first opened.

Work Story

My work story will introduce you to "what I do to pay the bills." I work at the Ice Center of Cupertino and I am a Manager/Group Account Executive/Ice Hockey Instructor. My main responsibilities are selling ice time for a commission. I am responsible for the daily ice schedule for the rink. If you haven't been to this facility and are interested in learning more about it, please visit our website: www.icecenter.net
I normally sell ice time to sororities and fraternities for broomball or hockey teams needing ice time for practice for scrimmages.
I "walked" for graduation this past month, however I am finishing my required classes for my Marketing major and Communication minor.

I haven't "blogged" before, so I'm curious how this will play itself out.

*GSackman8*