Bus Case Mod 1

TUI University

B. R.

BUS 303, MOD 1 CA

Dr. A.J. Slaughter

Since when did it become acceptable to leave your mess for someone else to clean up? I mean really, when did this become an acceptable practice in the work place? Correct me if I am wrong in the way that my parents raised me. They taught me to clean up after myself.
I just fail to understand how a well-educated group of business professionals can accept this behavior as common practice. Hello! We eat in a shared break room. This is not your personal kitchen with your personal housekeeper! How can anyone think that it is ok to leave their unconsumed food and beverages on the table for other fellow break room users to clean up after them? I thought that it was just a common courtesy to automatically clean up the mess that one makes in a common area such as this.
I get it that we are all busy with our daily business with deadlines and meetings to make. I also get it that the person’s lunch break may have been interrupted due to some unexpected “work emergency” that may have presented itself. But this should be the occasional exception. It should be only on a rare occasion they fail to clean up after themselves. This is not the case in the case of break room 1. It has become common place for people to leave without the common decency of cleaning up where they ate for the next user.
On a daily basis, in break-room 1, fellow employees are left to clean up behind the members of the untidy who just get up and leave from the table. They don’t even think twice about leaving behind their wrappers, bags, unfinished drinks, and napkins. This has become such a common occurrence that our department is being referred to as the “dirty department” by the housekeeping staff. The dirty department is not a title that I want to be associated with in any way.
Not only is this a distasteful practice for fellow employees to engage in, but worse yet, it invites pests and vermin into our department. Once the invitation is received by bug and pests, it becomes difficult to eliminate them completely from our work space. We might even be the unlucky employee who unknowingly brings home a “hitch-hiker” from work to our home space. This hitch-hiker is now the start of the new colony.
It is a well-known fact that the presence of vermin invites allergies and possible exposure to diseases. It would also require the scheduled visits by the exterminator and pest control professional to lay traps and chemicals to control and hopefully eliminate the unwanted “guests” to our break area. This seems to have more risk and require more work, in the long run for all of us.
We can eliminate the exposure to chemical pest control measures, display respect and common courtesy for one another and make our parent’s proud that they taught us and raised us correctly by simply cleaning up after ourselves. Let’s all take pride in our department’s break room by disposing of our unfinished lunch and cleaning up after ourselves. And in the end, we feel that we are all part of one team of tidy professionals- not the dirty department.

TO: Scott, Damien, Arielle, Isaac, Emillie, Simon, and George
FROM: Blanca, Manager; Shipping Department
DATE: 12 JULY 2012
SUBJECT: Break Room 1 use
Break-room 1 has earned a title that our department should not be particularly proud of having. It has earned us the title of the “dirty department.” This goes without saying, the title is not fitting of our professional staff.
First point is that this break area is for all of our department staff to enjoy a comfortable and clean space to eat or just take a break. It also serves as a location for training meeting or for us to share in a co-worker’s birthday cake at the office.
In light of this newly acquired title, we will work to turn our title into the tidy room and be the envy of other departments that are not as tightly knit as we are. We will simply promote common courtesy by cleaning up after ourselves immediately upon completion of our break time or meal. We will ensure that our housekeeping staff empties our waste receptacle prior to the close out of our business day. We will hold our end of shift team meeting in the break room so that we are all present in our break area in the few minutes prior to closing our department.
We are a tight knit group of shipping professionals that work well together and I have no doubt that these simple measures will be sufficient in keeping our break room in neat and tidy order so that we may continue enjoy each other away from our desk over I quick bite to eat.
The Cialdini principles that I used in writing the memo were reciprocity where if I keep it clean for you, then you will do the same in return so that we can each enjoy a clean break room or all of the department members to enjoy. Then I applied the principle of Authority. As the department head, I politely ask my subordinate staff to clean up after themselves and add the break room as a venue for our end of day team meeting. By using the principle of Social proof, “we are being labeled as the dirty department” and do not want to continue this title, I am encouraging changes in practices. Other departments within the company can maintain a break room that they are proud of and so can we. I hope to have the principle of Liking in my favor, the employees like the department head and will do what they can to assist in maintaining the professional reputation of our department. This memo utilizes the newly learned principles without violation of ethics by not taking advantage of anyone but by including all members of the team and motivating them to take part in an effort for the good of the department. All department members will take pride in their efforts for the good of the team.

Complaint Box Article
The author of the article from the New York Times City Room Complaint Box tell her story from the first person’s point of view and quickly establishes credibility and common ground with fellow strap hangers. The author also uses Conger’s principle of developing compelling position and evidence by providing several examples of public grooming during the commuting experience. Each example that is provided escalates toward more inappropriate public grooming behavior which further develops the emotional connection toward the public grooming experienced that is witnessed during the rush hour commute on the New York City public transit system. The escalation of the examples provided by the author entices the reader to continue reading to find out what could be next.
My online reader comment to the Complaint Box would be as follows:
Finally someone with the guts to write about the public commuter disgust! As a fellow commuter I applaud the complaint box for addressing the all too common and all too personal public grooming on our commute. Let’s make a point of sending this article to the MTA for them to take the public service action campaign. And to my fellow commuters please take the extra few minutes at night or in the morning to take care of some of these personal hygiene tasks or risk finding yourself on YouTube video series labeled “Nasty New Yorker”.
I most emphatically share the author’s feelings on the topic of public grooming and agree that it is annoying. Let’s face it, who wants to be the person that is sitting beside the flosser when they fling the leftover food or blood tinged saliva across the rail car? That should be left for the day that you are driving to work while sitting in traffic in the comfort of your own privately owned auto.

Citations
Calandra, Lion (2009) "Complaint Box: Public Grooming" New York Times. Retrieved May 6, 2012 from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/complaint-box-public-grooming/
Robert Cialdini. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini

Conger, J. A., (1991). Inspiring Others: The Language of Leadership. The Executive 5(1), 31-46.
June 30, 2012, at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/590/01/
Bowman, J. P. Writing Persuasive Messages. Accessed June 30, 2012, at: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bowman/c4eframe.html

Beason, L., (2001). Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors. College Composition and Communication. 53(1), 33-64

Citations: Calandra, Lion (2009) "Complaint Box: Public Grooming" New York Times. Retrieved May 6, 2012 from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/complaint-box-public-grooming/ Robert Cialdini. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved June 30, 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini Conger, J. A., (1991). Inspiring Others: The Language of Leadership. The Executive 5(1), 31-46. June 30, 2012, at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/590/01/ Bowman, J. P. Writing Persuasive Messages. Accessed June 30, 2012, at: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bowman/c4eframe.html Beason, L., (2001). Ethos and Error: How Business People React to Errors. College Composition and Communication. 53(1), 33-64