13. • Oral communication
• Can be misinterpreted
• Interpersonal barriers
• Language
• Emotions
14. • What is moral
vs.
What is business
conduct
• Can sometimes
overlap with what
is legal
15. • Utilitarian Approach
• Best interest of the majority
• Magnitude of the
consequences
• What you anticipate the impact of
an outcome will be for a certain
action
Hello everyone my name is Christina Ramnauth. My story is about an interaction with a customer at my part-time job at the Hess Express gas station.
The setting of my disastrous event is at the Hess gas station in front of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This is the location of my part-time employment. A little background information to know about this place is that it is open 24-hours with non-stop customers coming in and out. Almost all of the customers are tourists that speak little to no English; the rest of the customers are Disney employees.
The task at Hess is simple: you must provide exceptional customer service while doing so very quickly, because customers are always in a rush. Just as I expect, it is a typical busy Saturday morning. A mother walks into the store with her daughter who looked relatively young. The mother is attempting to purchase cigarettes. Following protocol, I am required to ask the daughter for identification because she is participating in the sale and is present during the time of the sale, even though it is her mother who is attempting to purchase the cigarettes. It is evident that they are tourists visiting Florida, because the mother does not understand why I am asking her daughter for ID.
By now I have angered the mother. I explain to the daughter a second time that I need to see her ID, not because I am being difficult but because it was part of my job. The line of customers grows to the back and around the entire store. I get frustrated because we are short-staffed and only one register is open and none of my co-workers are here that can help me. Not only am I frustrated, I am cranky because I did not get a good night’s sleep the night before, and had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to work today at 6 a.m. I could see that most of the customers in line are annoyed. The daughter does not have her ID on her, and asks if I could wait in the meantime that she goes outside and gets it from her car. While she does, I have to deal with a room full of angry customers who I can’t ring up because my register was already in the middle of a transaction. A man waiting in line begins to yell at me, and says that my judgment was out of line and that I was being ridiculous. This set off my frustration even more; I yell back that he needed to mind his own business because it had nothing to do with him!
The daughter comes back into the store with her passport, and I verify it to make sure she is of age. It turns out she is, and I am able to sell the cigarettes to her mother. They both leave the store annoyed. Apparently I have angered the man also, because he leaves the store without purchasing what he came in for. My attitude and the fact that I snapped at him affected his purchase decision. Eventually the line begins to diminish and the store returns to somewhat of a state of normalcy. I realize that I could have handled the situation differently to avoid having customers leave annoyed and/or angered with a bad impression of myself and my store.
I arrive to the Hess to buy myself a cold drink. I notice that the line is pretty long. It seems strange that there is only one register open. Oh well, I am really thirsty and I could use this drink; it’s been a long day, so I don’t mind waiting in line for just a few minutes…
I can overhear the cashier speaking to the lady in front of me. It seems like she is giving her daughter a hard time about providing ID for the cigarettes she is purchasing. But wait, I can see that her daughter is not purchasing the cigarettes, but rather the mother is. Why would she even ask her daughter for ID? That’s seems silly!
Okay, this is getting aggravating. It is obvious that this lady does not understand what this cashier is trying to tell her. This is where I intervene. I told the cashier in a sharp voice that she is being out of line. I was a little bit agitated for having to wait on a long line, and on top of that having to wait for the customer to go back outside to her car to retrieve her ID. The cashier shouldn’t have to ask for ID in the first place if the daughter is not the one purchasing the cigarettes. It seems absurd! The cashier quickly fires back a response and tells me to mind my own business!
I didn’t think I was being rude. But the attitude of the cashier made me reconsider my cold drink. I put the drink back into the cooler and left the store. I didn’t understand what the big deal was about holding up a line full of customers for a situation like that one.
Because of this experience, I have been given a bad impression about the Hess that I visited. I think that the cashier could have told me that it was her duty to ask all participants in a sale of tobacco or alcohol to provide identification if they do not look of age, even if they are not the one who will actually consume the product. I would have felt more empathy toward her. I also may have not left the store in an angry rush.
The two management concepts that I have chosen are Communication and Ethics. I believe that certain components of these managerial concepts apply to the Hess situation that I recently experienced. Further slides will describe in greater detail these components.
According to Hitt, Black, and Porter, communication is “a process of transferring information, meaning, and understanding from sender to receiver” (pp. 303). An effective manager must master becoming an effective communicator. According to the text, it can often times be a difficult task if the receiver does not have complete understanding of what the sender is trying to communicate. In my scenario, I feel as if I did not effectively communicate my message to the customer because she left the store annoyed, even though she was still able to purchase the cigarettes that she wanted. I also feel that I could have done a better job communicating to the male customer that was behind her in line who also left the store but without purchasing what he came in the store to buy. It could have avoided me losing a sale and a returning customer.
One component of communication was the mode in which I transmitted it, which was orally. Oral communication is a form of verbal communication. According to the text, this form of communication has the disadvantage of being misinterpreted. This can explain why my customer did not have a change of attitude toward the end of the sale. She continued to show how annoyed she was, and I understood at that moment that I did not effectively do my job. Also according to the text, “oral communication between those whose first language differ, as in many management situations today, simply multiplies the chances of intended meaning going awry” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., pp. 305). This leads me to my second component of communication, which is interpersonal barriers. Interpersonal barriers are one of several barriers that can interfere with the effective communications process. Both language and emotion are two interpersonal barriers that I believe pertain to my situation. It was evident that my customer was not from the United States and that English was not her first language. She probably viewed our customs differently and was confused as to why I was questioning her about her daughter’s identification card. The other factor I mentioned was emotion. During the time of the incident, I had not gotten a good night’s sleep the night before. This had an effect on my attitude the next morning. “As a consequence, comments that normally would be taken as mere statements get interpreted as criticisms” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., pp. 313).
As defined in the text, managerial ethics are “the study of morality and standards of business conduct” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., pp. 29). It is my responsibility as an employee of Hess to request identification for anyone who appeared to look under the age of 30, even though legally a person is able to purchase tobacco products at age 18 or older. If I had wanted to, I could have argued that the daughter of the customer did in fact appear to look over age 30, which she did not. By doing this, it could have avoided the confrontation and also the fact that I had a line full of customers who were waiting impatiently to be attended. But if the person was in fact under the age of 18 and I had not requested identification, it would have been an ethical issue and also a legal one, and I could have potentially lost my job.
There are several basic approaches to ethical decision making. One that pertains to my scenario is that of the utilitarian approach. The utilitarian approach “focuses on the consequences of an action” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., pp. 31). If I had wanted to, I could have sold the cigarettes to the mother, even though there was a possibility that she could have been buying them for her daughter. The only reason I would have done that is because I knew I was working by myself and had a line full of angry customers. I would have pleased the majority of all of the customers in my store that day because they were all waiting impatiently to be attended. The second component of ethics that pertains to my scenario is the magnitude of the consequences, which is defined as the “anticipated level of impact of the outcome of a given action” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., pp. 33). Had I taken the chance and not requested identification for the daughter of the customer, there could be a possibility that she could have turned out to be a secret shopper. I would have failed the test, get fired from my job, and possibly get prosecuted for selling cigarettes to a minor who participated in a sale of an adult purchasing tobacco.
During the course of this project, I analyzed a situation and learned several things about myself that I feel could change. In the next few slides, I will outline which behaviors led to my unfortunate Hess situation with a customer. I will also describe what I think it would take for me to become a better manager in the near future.
Reflecting back on this project, I have learned a few things about my own personality and characteristics. I realized that the moment I saw the line of customers was beginning to grow to the back of the store, I went into panic mode by releasing my frustration. Releasing my frustration was my way of dealing with the situation. I noticed that at times I can be irrational because my frustration turned into anger when I yelled at someone who was not even directly involved in the situation.
I have learned that I could have dealt with the situation in a better manner. First, there was no need for me to become frustrated. I should have calmed myself and empathized with the customer instead. The customer would have had a better understanding of why I asked her daughter for ID in the first place had I empathized with her. Second, I could have also been apologetic to the customers who were impatiently waiting in line to be attended. I dealt with the situation in a more aggressive manner rather than a more composed manner.
My understanding of the situation deepened because I viewed the situation from the perspective of the customer. Chances are the reason she did not understand where I was coming from was the simple fact that she was not from this country. And instead of me understanding her, I lost my temper by becoming frustrated and annoyed. My negative attitude affected my customers because they in turn had a negative attitude toward me as well. I lacked the communication necessary to make the situation more manageable.
A better manager is one who can communicate effectively to people, which during my situation I lacked. I have learned that my communication skills need to be improved if I want to become a better manager. I also realized that keeping my composure in frustrating situations is also very important. Viewing the situation from a different perspective gave me a better understanding that people don’t always know where you are coming from, so you can’t always assume they do. I believe that working on these characteristics will make me become a better me!
