Glad I got that out of the way.

Professor Piderit, Meredith and Professor Poonamallee,

Thank you for all the time and effort that was put into the class and simulation this semester. I usually enjoy going to my classes, but I looked forward to this one. Yes, I said a lot of stupid comments, but that's kind of my thing. I took a lot from this class, especially the HR Simulation. A lot of the people in the class are going to be in our classes for the remainder of our tenure at Case. I think that the simulation and the stress on class participation really allows us to gauge one another, to become familiar with our peers. Short run, this is one of the best things the class had to offer. For the next several years, when we're made to do a lot of group work, we'll have an idea of who we want to work with and who we're comfortable working with.

I'm looking forward to 251. All of you, professors, teaching assistants, classmates and random readers,

Have a great winter break,

Chris Lambert
Dean of CLU

P.S. Dean of CLU doesn't sound good.

P.S.S. I tried posting this around 11:50 PM, but our router went out around 11:45 PM...I had to drive the hour back to Case before I could post (I just got back to my room).

Create-a-College.

I'm going to create the best college the world's ever seen. I've already put a lot of thought into what my curriculum is going to be, the campus layout, etc. Name-wise...I'm not so sure...Maybe something like CLU: Chris Lambert University. Sadly, when CLU is said outloud it comes out "Clue". People would associate it with the board game. I don't want that.

I think HR techniques will big a huge asset. I need to be able to draw students in and keep them (turnover). I'll need to make sure campus and safe and that I have a well-trained staff. Basically, everything I learned in class, I need to use. The happier faculty is, the better the teaching. The better the teaching, the better learning environment. The better the learning environment, the better the students that come to the university. The better the students, the more money the university makes.

Your commercials are terrible. Every single one of your marketing campaigns for the last several years have been atrocious. I actually discuss this with people. Everyone I talk to has agreed with me: stop it.

I don't know if it's because management doesn't care about the commercials because people will buy pizza anyway or if those really are the best ideas, but something is wrong. Are you not budgeting enough to advertising/marketing? Do you have a screening process before the commercials run? Maybe there is high turnover in the advertising/marketing departments and you hire really incompetent people for cheap?

Whatever it is, I think both companies' head quarters need to look into this. When I was young, I used to love Pizza Hut commercials. Now, I change the channel.

Drew Mazzola

While a lot of what we discussed in class wasn't applicable to the simulation itself, it could be used in building and maintaining team morale. The lectures on feedback, motivation, and evalauations were especially relative.

I liked the end of the semester sha-bang Professor/CEO Poonamallee did as well. It was good to see how the other teams did and how we compared.

Overall, I believe I gained a lot of information about team building, motivation and maintenance. This summer, I hope to be on the executive planning board for Case's orientation. If I do get the job, I'm sure what I learned will be an asset.

(The present tense in being used because she still works at Subway)

Mary, while vibrant, isn't always...composed. She tends to mishear orders, to deposit the wrong items atop sandwiches, to forget what it was she's doing, among other things. She's distracting, and whoever works with her has to keep constant watch on her. She's not allowed to work the cash register either.

Despite her handicaps, she's worked at Subway for at least 4 years and outlasted at least 4 different managers. I was there through three of the managers, and each one mentioned firing her. None could ever bring themselves to do it though.

I guess the main difference between Mary and Tommy-Boy (besdies their sex and age and job), is that Mary's job isn't as demanding. It doesn't hurt the managers or the rest of the employees to keep her.

If I tried, it'd be a cheesy, we-all-know-this-is-B.S. post. I could write a boring but honest okay-so-what-do-you-want-me-to-say-about-this post, but that isn't fun.

I end up torn among writing what "I should" write to get the grade, writing my honest opinion which probably wouldn't score me any points, babbling, or writing a mixture of the three along with the creative, personal flare that blogs are supposed to incorporate.

Yes, this is prep work for the "real world", but if the real world can't handle words like "nope", I don't want to write for it.

(Here comes my relating to class. Nothing concrete, but it talks about class.)

The grading for this class has been harsh, but not for the sake of harshness. We're graded this way because the people with experience, that are teaching and preparing us, feel we need to understand how proper and strict the profession is.

For me, it's been deflating. I don't want to be a machine. Yes, the assignment says relate to class, but what if I don't want to? The grade isn't enough to motivate me. If it was "write blog entries and try to relate them to class, but the more important thing is to be writing professionally in terms of grammar and word choice, so if you don't talk about class, it's no big deal, just remember your audience and what we're looking for" I wouldn't have a problem. Even if only one entry had to relate to class, I'd accept that. I just hate the rigidness, the constraint, of it.

I hope the business world isn't as terminator-esque as it's been made to seem at times.

Maybe I'm unaware and I could write a letter to the editor of Maxim asking him to publish an article I write, and Meredith would grade it and give me feedback on structure and diction.

I guess after writing this, I'll find out.

See, our group planned out a training regiment based on what we'd learned in class about the learning styles. Each employee would be lectured on all aspects of his or her job, then allowed to ask questions, would pick up a step-by-step sheet for future reference, and would go through a simulation call before taking a live call. We felt that covered everything (assimilator, converger, diverger and accommodator).

I decided that it'd be good to call in an outside source to see how accurate we were and to make any necessary revisions, so I took out my cell phone and called 411. The lady that answered had an amiable, clear voice. I told her that I was in my management class and that we were planning out a training program for a directory assistance positions and wondered if she could highlight some of the things she did in her training.

Little did I know that, "that information is secret." I didn't know Cingular's Directory Assistance Training Program was so high-profile that it had to be guarded like the recipe for KFC.

But, we did learn something else our program had to include: A confidentiality contract.

The lecture was good, and the points were all viable and effective, but I can't help but feel a majority of the "tools" we're learning are common sense. I don't even remember what SAFE means because after hearing about it I thought, "Ya don't say," and promptly forgot.

There was also the method where you say something positive to butter them up for the uppercut punch, then, after you've dropped them and the ref's counted to 10, you tell them that they fought well and to keep working hard. That's cheesy and amateur. Bad movies use that technique to be funny.

It's the little things Professor Piderit tells us, what she's gleaned from her own experience, that are the things to really take home. For instance, by making sure everything is clear and understood, the feedback process can be much less painful and stressful for both parties. The right questions (Is there anything I can do to help? Do you have any questions? Are we clear?), if offered at the proper time and answered honestly, can be relaxing.

I'm sure the skills we listned about were helpful and will be put to good use by many people, but I still think they're basis is in tact and being understanding, and that if you have those skills already, you should be fine.

The late announcement of teams and team leaders, that there was no time set aside in class for initial team discussion, and the confusion on how to pick up our results are three more serious lapses in communication.

Fall break was handled poorly; no one said results weren't being e-mailed and that a hard copy was available in PBL. Even if the information was made available, many students had already left campus for fall break. The explanation e-mail from Professor Poonamalle came Monday the 23rd. Not to be overlooked, the only reason for the e-mail was because someone took the time to e-mail her and ask what was going on. I'm afraid there wouldn't have been any contact if an initial query hadn't been sent out.

It took until Saturday to receive an e-mail that results could not be picked up on Friday the 27th.

I've heard horror stories from several teams about how severe errors have been made in data entry.

Here's an e-mail one of my team members sent to Professor Poonamallee explaining the errors in our 4th quarter results:

"Professor Poonamallee,

I picked up the results for our team today, and they are completely
wrong as there were several errors when the data was inputted. Here are
the highlights:

- Our budget planning form states that we have raised costs for the
safety program to $22,000. The output states that they are $15,000.
- Our promotion training was $1,000, but the output says they are $15,000.
- Our management training was $15,000, but the output says they are
$25,000.
- Our decision form states that we are keeping fringe benefits the same,
at 22.3, but the output shows us as increasing them to 23.1
- The incident expense of $10,000 was not charged to our budget.
- Our wage increase was calculated as $169,485, but the output says they
are $122,000. I don't know if the problem is on our end or yours, but I
would like an explanation for this large discrepancy.
- Along the same line, I would to see how our hiring costs were
calculated for the output results, as there is an $18,000 discrepancy.
- The output states that the CEO is very unhappy that we exceeded our
budget, but clearly this is a result of the copious amount of errors in
data entry. Our budget form shows us as being under budget.
- The same goes for the CEO being upset about our decision for Incident
D - but of course we didn't follow Incident D.

I believe those are all the errors, although there may be more. Our
results need to be re-entered into the system so we can go forward with
our annual report and decisions for the next quarter."

I don't understand how that happens. If it was a mistake on our part, why is there no explanation for what we did wrong that warrants a complete change in our decisions? Why should we spend the time and effort of making decisions if they're going to be skewed with no way to correct the mistake?

Why do we put together a decision form, a budget form, a simulation journal and an incident report if they, and us in the "HR department", are not taken seriously?

Maybe the better question is this: if what we do is a joke to the administration, why should we take this class seriously?

What I have learned about getting work done in business:
-Do it early so there is time to review.
-Make it good.
-Ask for others' opinions to get an outside perspective.
-Do not wait until the last minute because you can't:
1. Review
2. Do your best
3. Ask for others' opinions

What I did for the blog:
-Did it late
-It is not as good as it could be
-There is no way I can ask someone to look over everything

According to the rubric of what I have learned about doing a good job, I did a bad job. I said I hoped to learn, and I did not. Now is my chance though.

While it is provoking and intriguing, it is annoying. (I would write annoying in capital letters, but I do not think that that is blog-assignment appropriate. Know, though, that I want to write "annoying" in capital letters.)

The double-edged sword analogy works for this.

The double-edged sword analogy: both sides of the blade can cut which is a problem when blocking an overhead slash because a hand is needed to support the upper-edge of the blade. Hence, in order to stop from being killed, the warrior has to injure himself.

Because each person has arrived at different conclusions from all the self-analysis work we have done, the learning plan has to target a wide variety of topics in order to draw out emotion from each student. This way everyone has a topic that really hit home for them. But, because there is so much, it is almost too much. I wanted to talk about my strengths and weaknesses a lot more, but I couldn't because I had 4930850928 other things to touch upon. For me, the assigment ended up uneven. Half of it I wrote really well, the other half, I did not care. I already had written so much, I lost interest.

I understand why it is how it is, but I still hated doing it. It does its job, though.

Everyone on the team communicates well. And instead of only referring to them as "the team", out of respect, I should name them.
Team Wyndham:
Pete Berke
Vitaliy Neyman
Vignesh Raghunath
Robert Skuski

When we pick our own teams for 2nd semester, I recommend trying to get any of the four on your team. All of them have a fantastic ethic and are not only timely but turn in quality work. Everything we talk about in class when it comes to working well as a team (such as communication and praise and respecting each other) is there.

We all believe our team will be the best. The best part: we should be.

Note to Meredith--this doesn't count for anything. It's for me to laugh at. And anyone else if they happen to find it more funny than sad.

My first thought when Meredith passed back the memo assignments during Tuesday's class, "I need to find out when my blog entries are due." Little did I know I was already late.

How about a little more about why I'm doing this:

I picked the blog partly because writing is a hobby but also because it wasn't something that had to be completed immediately. Since anyone reading this is familiar with Case (after Brian Gray's comment I need to reiterate this statement: Since the chances that whoever reads this is familiar with Case), I don't need to go into details about how it feels like there's never enough time accomplish everything that needs to be finished; how every worry-free, stress-free, second I have is bliss. When I had the option to either complete a long-winded summary and assessment paper (a short-run problem) or do a blog entry later on(a long-run problem), I saw short-run freedom and lunged for it.

Which doesn't make a lot of sense since, now, I have to do all these blog entries.

Back to realizing I needed to get started:

I didn't check the blog due date on Tuesday. I didn't check Wednesday. Nope, I waited until before class on Thursday (9/21). I found the blogging rules file on blackboard, read, nodding as I went along as most of the information is common sense, and then I frowned. It turns out I needed to make an entry by 9/15. I believe that means -1 point for me.

The nice thing about the blog is that it does work around my schedule; I can make time and not be forced to complete it. But the bad thing is that I need to manage my time to work it in (already starting with -1 point off is a good example of this). Keeping a blog seems like such a small thing--get online, write a few sentences and be done--but it needs to be thought out, coherent and have a point to it. While convenient, I can't slack on my time management or writing skills if I want to get a good grade.

As logical as it seemed to work hard to get the memo done, I do think the blog is the better long-term decision. It's a free form assignment that involves observations, critical thinking, relativity, assessment, grammar and--what I feel is most important--I have to get it done myself. No one is going to be asking me if I have my blogs done or if they make sense or anything about them. I can either do my entries as I can and make them good, or I can wait till the last minute and reach for concepts and examples from class that I don't remember.

If I haven't matured at all, this will be horrendous.

I'm ready to see how things go. And even if at the start it's not very good, I hope I learn.