Plane Crash Simulation
Life Change from a
Hypothetical Plane Crash
Introduction When I stepped into the office for the interview it was a far cry from the body shop I was just at a short hour before. I accepted the part-time position as a bookkeeper for the Christian owned tax service firm and was excited about the prospective of being one step closer to getting fully out of my current position at the body shop. My interviewer was the owner’s wife and she seemed like someone that I could learn from as she invited me into their family. I hoped that this would be an opportunity to further develop my skills as a bookkeeper but so far the biggest lessons have been in management.
“I can’t believe that she makes you sign in like that- I mean we are all adults here.” “We can’t order it without her approval-she makes everything go through her.” “I enjoy working with him but I tolerate working with her.”
The above are just some of the statements I heard in my new position about the woman I hope would be maybe become a mentor. She had appointed herself the new office manager when the office moved a year before I took the position. Being the owner’s wife she displaced the woman who held the position before, taking away the power of the former office manager and giving her an administrative assistant title instead. This left the small office staff angry and frustrated. This was the small business “family” I stepped into when I accepted the position instead of the happy one that I was told it was. This environment of lack of trust and with no positional power to affect any real change, I wondered what lessons I could learn. I needed the paycheck while I looked for something else anyways so I embraced the value of learning some lessons from someone else’s mistake instead of waiting to make these mistakes myself. I had a real life situation to look at and see the concepts discussed in my organizational behavior class applied to my job. For example Tubb’s
Hypothetical Plane Crash
Introduction When I stepped into the office for the interview it was a far cry from the body shop I was just at a short hour before. I accepted the part-time position as a bookkeeper for the Christian owned tax service firm and was excited about the prospective of being one step closer to getting fully out of my current position at the body shop. My interviewer was the owner’s wife and she seemed like someone that I could learn from as she invited me into their family. I hoped that this would be an opportunity to further develop my skills as a bookkeeper but so far the biggest lessons have been in management.
“I can’t believe that she makes you sign in like that- I mean we are all adults here.” “We can’t order it without her approval-she makes everything go through her.” “I enjoy working with him but I tolerate working with her.”
The above are just some of the statements I heard in my new position about the woman I hope would be maybe become a mentor. She had appointed herself the new office manager when the office moved a year before I took the position. Being the owner’s wife she displaced the woman who held the position before, taking away the power of the former office manager and giving her an administrative assistant title instead. This left the small office staff angry and frustrated. This was the small business “family” I stepped into when I accepted the position instead of the happy one that I was told it was. This environment of lack of trust and with no positional power to affect any real change, I wondered what lessons I could learn. I needed the paycheck while I looked for something else anyways so I embraced the value of learning some lessons from someone else’s mistake instead of waiting to make these mistakes myself. I had a real life situation to look at and see the concepts discussed in my organizational behavior class applied to my job. For example Tubb’s
References: 1. Greenleaf, Robert K. (1998). The Power of Servant Leadership. San Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 2. Kilmann, Ralph H. and Thomas, Kenneth W (2007) Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. CPP, Inc. 3. Lafferty, J. Clayton. Desert Survival Situation (2003) Chicago, IL, Human Synergistic Center for Applied Research, Inc. 4. Tubbs, Stewart L. (2009). A System Approach to Small Group Interaction. New York, NY, McGraw-Hill Higher Education an imprint of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 5. The Institute for Motivational Living (2010).The DISC Personality System - Enhance Communication and Relationships. New Castle, PA, The Institute for Motivational Living Inc.