Business Writing Fall 2017 Blogs

Date: November 17, 2017

To: Chancellor Doug Dykstra

From: Carson Murakami

Subject: Memo sample Analysis

In response to the request to have these memos analyzed I am giving my feed back on there effectiveness of communicating with employees. I hope that feed back will help you in your endeavor to create a useful business writing guide.

Ex 1. This example had great information it gave you everything that you needed to know but i feel that it was a bit long winded. It could have explained the situation much more directly. But overall I think it got the message across effectively.

Ex 2. This example felt very rushed to me, it almost felt like the writer didn’t have enough time to finish so he just jotted down the most important details and sent it out like that.

Ex 3. This was by far the best example in my opinion. It got the message across nice and clear it was very detailed and left no room for confusion. Not only was it very detailed about the new holiday system it also simplified things even more by allowing employees to vote on the spot.

In conclusion I felt that example three was the best by far with allowing the employees to vote right on the memo that was something that goes above and beyond and thats what put this one over the top. Number one was a close second it had good detailed information but you were not able to vote on the memo so it was edged out by number three. As for number two this was the worst of the three it was too short and did not have enough details which leaves room for confusion and misinterpretation.

I hope my feed back will be useful for your book good luck.

 

I’m clogging about Wanda’s blogs. I like how she adds interesting pictures to all her blogs, it’s interesting  to see what kind of graphics she’ll be using next (I like the chicken nuggets picture). I’m also glad relaxing a bit more on the in-class recall tests has worked out for her as she’s constantly working on something. Wanda’s work ethic reminds me there’s always room for improvement and that there’s levels to this stuff.

Why is it that every time someone does something they always get criticized for it. For example, say an incident happens at your workplace and your boss follows procedure given from her boss, but yet people criticize him/her because there could have been a better way to handle it. The afternoon goes as followed:

1. Assistant comes into meeting to advise of the incident. Say she’s going to call the parent to inform.
2. When the parent comes all they say is thank you as if nothing happened. (Okay, so no need to panic right?)
3. You finally talk to your assistant, the story line of the situation given by the victim keeps changing.(Again no need to panic, right! No straight answer something’s fishy)
4. Call your boss, boss says to send a letter home because it’s already late and she is the only one left in the office. Letter gets sent home the next day. (BoOM!)
5. Call the cops to advise of the incident. Cases like this we wait for the parent to see where they want to go with the situation. (Parent never said anything) so, you call the cops, they come and the officer says why didn’t you call sooner.
6. Next day comes, nothing was mentioned witnesses says he/she didn’t feel harmed or endangered.  Probably was just a little scared because a person was going in the same direction. Check on the victim again and story line changes once more.
7. Brand new day and the assistant gets targeted. I myself would feel harassed when all these questions are coming in and they’re getting answered but yet the people criticizing you are still not satisfied with the answer the received. So they keep poking at the situation.
8. By now the situation has already been dealt with and protocol or procedures have been followed. SO WHATS THE BIG DEAL?

At the end of the day, if that’s the case how come no one came to ask the boss anything? Instead they target the messenger(assistant). Pretty much because they trying to see how far they can go with nitpicking at everything and anything because they are never satisfied.  SAFETY OF THE OTHERS AND YOURSELF IS AT THE UPMOST IMPORTANCE not YOUR EGO!

I haven’t wrote a resume in 5 years and today’s class really refreshed it for me. I realized that keeping an updated resume is important for when a job comes up all of a sudden, and you would want to turn in a high quality resume that has been updated and worked on constantly rather than being rushed and not being able to highlight your qualities.

Some things that you would want to keep updated are your awards and honors. The rule of thumb of how far back you should be listing info about yourself is 10 years. You should also have a reference page that has the same format of your resume.

Good luck on everyone’s resume!

 

I appreciate what Carson wrote in his Workplace Criticism because he acted according to his convictions and beliefs. Supposing I were the co-worker he described, I would be fortunate that he did not “rat” me out for smoking weed in the company truck, smoking weed all the time and driving under the influence. Besides chilling, stealing hours and cutting corners, I escaped being arrested, jeopardized my co-workerʻs safety and risked liability for the company that paid me. On the other hand, was Carsonʻs silence in fear of retaliation or deferring reprimand to the proper superior.

In all honesty, I should be fired as most companies have a strict no alcohol and drug tolerance policy in the workplace. Should the company decide to suspend me pending completion of a drug rehabilitation program, I should grateful and take advantage of their offer whether or not I am rehired.

People criticize each other in the workplace for many reasons.  One reason that people criticize each other is because they don’t want to be held back by that person.  Say you are in a group project and you do your part well but overall it is viewed poorly because everyone else is not holding their own weight.

Another reason that people criticize each other is because they want people to improve.  Well if everyone can improve and do their part well then everything will be pretty good.  Also I guess people criticize others because of hygiene.  You don’t want to be working with someone who looks filthy or smells bad.

If you have to do this you should be in a private place and be direct but very nice about it.

November 13, 2017

Criticism:

I am going to be blogging about Corey’s blog:

“Always being late, hygiene, micromanagement, talks down to others, being a one upper, being too bossy, bad work ethic, sharing too much…

If you must be, try for constructive criticism, show the other person that there is another way to go about things, instead of saying they are blatantly wrong.” 

I want to say that none of the above apply to me because

1. I am always on time to work
2. I am a very clean person
3. I am not a control freak
4. I like to support other for them to be succesfull
5. I am bossy when I need to be
6. I am kind and patient to customers 
7. I mind my own businesses  

So I am going to take his criticism as a positive thing and make any changes to better myself. I will also make sure to always have a bottle of perfume close to me when he is around. 

I read everyone’s criticism blogs and it was interesting to read what everyone’s experienced in a work environment. Shelia’s blog was a good read and she added a nice chart that had steps for giving criticism. Most peoples blog’s said to be respectful/say something positive before giving criticism. I believe there are times to be direct and straight forward. It all depends on the type of person you are dealing with and the situation because indirect criticism may breeze over someone’s head if they are being praised too much, feel they have more authority or do not care for what you have to say. I personally would prefer someone to be direct and to the point if I was receiving criticism, so the issue is known and not lost or overwrote by the positive’s/buffer’s.

 

A few of her reasons why people criticize each other are actually some of the things I have been working on, for example:

• getting to work late.
• taking a work key with me.

In the past I have responded to these types of criticism positively. I knew the person was telling me these things because it would not only benefit my co-workers but would also help me in the long run. My co-worker was able to break down that being on time is a sign of being responsible and shows your company/co-workers you can be depended on as your co-workers don’t need to worry about when or if you’ll be at work.  I also have accidentally forgotten to return a work key and I’m more careful about returning the key when I’m done before doing other things because I know how it affects others when someone else forgets to return the key.

After reading Spencer’s post regarding criticism, i would probably respond to him in a calm and professional manner. He suggests many good and professional ways to properly criticize someone. I also agree with the reasons why people might criticize someone. He had many of the same reasons I had.