"Honey, Down Time Won't Earn You A Penny!"

"Work on your time management!"
That's what my momma once said.
So I listened without a comment,
Otherwise I would've been dead.

A little older Jae asked "what does it mean?
"Because time is money," she replied.
I thought my brain was the size of a bean.
So therefore I obliged...

So I walked and spread the word,
About how time management can save.
Kurpis heard this and said, "absurd."
And thought, "you must live in a cave."

She told him that time is money.
And Kurpis said "you have it all wrong,"
Because UP time is money, and "honey,"
Down time won't earn you a penny!

Blogs A Burden?

I believe that one of the greatest challenges for a teacher is to show value to whatever subject he/she is teaching to the students. If the students cannot find any relevance for the subject, then they will most definitely begin to disregard the subject as anything more than just mandatory. Once a student thinks that way, then all purpose for education is lost. This is just my opinion of course...

The best way to connect students to the subject is by showing that it is, has been, and will be part of their lives. Some students will do this voluntarily; however, others need a little more "management" to do the same. Let's not focus on those that can leave the subject most enlightened but on those who are finding it a little more difficult to reach a conclusion about the purpose of their entire semester in lectures. In Management 3120's case, the blog assignments force the students to revert back into their own lives to find examples of management in their past and present.

A wonderful way to inspire students, is it not?

I do not even want to mention the grade incentive to the whole deal!

Well, That's One Annoying Customer...

     Upon entering the corner McDonald's located on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, Queens, I was expecting another rejection from the McDonald's staff and the general manager. As soon as I opened the doors, it seemed that this franchise location was a busier one than most other branches that I have been to outside of Manhattan. Much to my surprise, however, this particular location was much more receptive and cooperative with its customers. As I asked for unusual favors such as talking with the general manager after placing my bizarre order, but the cashier, without any questioning, called for the manager and continued on with the next customer on the line. Understandably, of course, I was not met with much appreciation.

     As my turn to order arrived, I was met with smiles and a welcoming, “how may I help you.” However, this gregarious greeting did not continue after I opened my mouth to place my order. When I tried to specify that I needed to have exactly five pickles on my McDouble, the cashier did not take my order with a great attitude. When I specified that I needed to have those five pickles on the receipt, the employee simply did not respond and continued on with entering my order into the database. Again, when I asked for small sized french fries that was well done and unsalted, and asked him to make sure that those orders are specified in the receipt, the employee did not acknowledge. Instead, he looked at me with an agitated expression and called, “anything else?” When I responded “no,” he simply ignored all of my favors and yelled to the crew in the back, “extra pickles, make it five with the McDouble, and the fries are unsalted!” Upon hearing this, I urged that whatever he said to the cooking staff must be on the receipt. To that he replied, “sir, please step aside,” and, “next on line.” Afterward, when I asked for the general manager, the cashier called for him in the back without any protest.

     Waiting for the general manager to step outside to talk to me, I was watching very carefully how they were preparing my order. I noticed that the burger was made relatively quickly and put into a small sized bag, which was then placed next to the deep fryer. It was then when I saw that they brought out a whole new batch of frozen french fries just for my order because the batch that they had prepared before were salted already. It took a few more minutes for the french fries to cook, which made this the longest time that I have ever waited for my order in any McDonald's, and when the fries were placed inside of the bag, there was no employee to bring it over to where I was standing. A short few minutes later, a gentleman with a tie stepped outside with my food bag to where the customer lines were forming.

     As the general manager placed my order into my hands, he greeted me with a, “hello, how may I help you?” To that I responded, “I am fine but having a little trouble here with my order.” I tried to explain to him that I needed the receipt to specify that I ordered a McDouble with five pickles in it, and small fries that are well done, and unsalted. Subsequently, he tried to alleviate the problem by ensuring that my lunch was prepared just the way I asked for it to be. When I asked him to command the employee to recreate a receipt of my liking, he replied to me that he cannot do that with the number of people waiting to be served during the busy hour. I realized then that the employees here were concerned more about the expediency of their job, so I decided to press the manager to take a private picture with me and signaled my friend to take the camera out. Immediately, the manager explained to me, like numerous other managers that have preceded him, that there is a strict no camera policy inside every McDonald's. I abandoned all of my ego and ambitiously tried to convince him that I needed this photo because it was my goal to record everything that I have done during my vacation in New York City. It was after this plea that the manager agreed to just one picture because he needed to be behind the counter to do his job. When I tried to take the food out to check that my order was placed correctly, the manager spoke to me in an impatient tone that he made sure that the food was prepared properly himself, and that he did not have much leisure. After the picture was taken, I decided to press further for the receipt to be fixed; however, he cut me off and told me to fix whatever I needed to fix and that he would sign the receipt to ensure its legitimacy. With my hopes suppressed, I just left the area after I had done as he asked and checked that my order was taken correctly.

     The organization of this particular branch of McDonald's was very efficient. Everyone was placed where he or she was supposed to be to maximize speed. However, the only problem that I had observed was that they assumed there would be no orders of unsalted french fries, which slowed up one of the customer lines to accommodate my special order while trying to do the same for every other customer. Communication was also highly efficient from what I had observed. My order of “five pickles” was omitted in the order entry into the data; however, the cooking crew was able to prepare it with accuracy from just listening to the cashier verbally communicate with them in the midst of other chaotic occurrences inside the kitchen. A bit informal, but very effective. Training, I found a bit lacking in this branch. If they were trained properly, in my opinion, they would not have any problems with entering my order the way I wanted them to enter it. However, because of their lack of dexterity with the technology that they are working with, the employees resort to informal methods of communication without using the computers that they are provided with inside of the workplace. More training of the front cashiers to drill them to use the technology that is in front of them with the utmost efficiency is required. From my experience, the manager appropriately showed the greatest amount of leadership. He manages this group of employees by example, as he does not like to take much time off from his own work, and stresses the value of time very clearly. He breeds the importance of work speed within the work culture very effectively, which is a very important quality for a leader in a McDonald's franchise. The other individuals involved in my transaction could have shown more leadership qualities by taking initiative to serving the customer to ensure their experience to be one of the highest quality. They could do this by stepping away from their informal work culture and providing customers with the service that they ask of.

"Cool." That's About It!

The DISC leadership diagnostic test that the professor had everyone complete was one of the most interesting activities during our entire semester of Management 3120. I believe that the test was extremely accurate for my case and seemed to be on a similar track for many other students as well. The result of the test came out for me as an "Id," or "Influential" as a dominant trait and "Dominating" as a recessive trait. This result basically sums up my personality very well, considering that I have heard often from others that I have the tendency to excite, inspire, motivate and energize groups of people fairly naturally, as well as becoming very dominating and aggressive in times of instability and ambiguity. I was satisfied with the results of this diagnostic in that I do not wish that I had different results. However, one interesting fact to note was that depending on viewer, I could be classified as either "Id" or "Ic" according to the line chart.
I think that these results are only relevant to a certain extent. We can all gauge our general leadership style; however, this proves nothing about our effectiveness as actual leaders. True leaders are those who can win the trust of their followers through a combination of confidence, technical skill, humility, and other qualities. The letters that we were all assigned to have nothing to do with whether we realistically attain that level of trust or not.

Just Believe, And It Shall Happen...

The future intrigues me very much and there is not a day that passes by when I do not think about my future for extended periods of time. It has been said in the video that was shown during the lecture that a vision without action is just simply a dream, and I always fear that this is valid for my case. I am afraid that dreaming is all that I am doing presently due to the lack of keen understanding of the necessary steps to transform my visions into realistic gains. At the same time, however, I am just glad today that I can even dream while many others do not have the luxury to.
Recently, I have learned an important lesson in life. This lesson is that one's happiness is only dependent on those individuals around him/her. A very simple lesson indeed. However, learning via experience allowed me not only to just simply comprehend this lesson intellectually but also feel it emotionally which embeds this lesson much more deeply into my core. Therefore, the first vision that I would like to share with everyone is my vision of family. A lovely wife and gorgeous children. Unfortunately, human relations is something that cannot be solved mathematically so I do not have any set plans to make this vision into a reality.
The next vision only exists to supplement my first, and greatest, vision of family. Many people define being rich as having a surplus of capital and wealth. I define being rich a little differently. To me, a man who has a million dollars in his pocket is not rich, but a man who can consistantly find one-hundred thousand dollars without trouble every year is. Being rich implies that the individual can circulate his/her wealth so that it always returns to him/her in the end. A steady flow of income with a limited amount of work is a beautiful thing, and that is my second vision. A very good balance of work and life so I can always be physically present for my family. To make this vision into a reality, I plan to save aggressively early on to invest those savings into assets that will yield steady periodic incomes.
The last vision that I would like to share with everyone is my vision of the true meaning of success. Of course this is highly subjective. To me, a man who reaches success while his closest loved ones linger behind will never be happy. Therefore, my last vision is that should I ever become successful, then I will work hard to bring my friends and family with me to that same success. In the end, my family and friends' happiness is my own so in order for me to be truly satisfied, then everyone I love must be happy. A little farfetched but it is my vision and I believe it can be done!

Chaotic Decision Making...

What happens when a class full of different individuals are asked to create a method that would aid in improving their grades in a democratic setting? I certainly thought that there would be a lot of agreements as to which direction we should all take as a class. I believed that simple ideas such as removing the essay portion of future exams, simplifying the multiple choice questions, curving the exam grades, and many others that would obviously make attaining an A easier were going to be unanimously voted "yes" among the students. I was very confident that agreements would be made early and that I would be out of class within twenty minutes. Unfortunately, as soon as the professor gave his students the power to make decisions, the room exploded with arguments in favor of opposing and contradicting ideas. Chaos occured, and finding common grounds seemed very far away.

In the midst of chaos, I observed many different behaviors among the students. Some approached the fight with the "compete to win" focus by yelling very aggressively and taking advantage of the unanimous decision rule by objecting when the entire class was accepting. Others followed the "compromise" focus by playing the roles of mediators in the front of the class. Then there were students like myself who followed the "avoidance" behavior as we realized early on that this is one fight not worth struggling for because reaching a consensus, no matter the effort, was not going to happen until the last minute of the class. Had I forseen the disputes earlier, then I would have tried the "collaborating" behavior to help the negotiate an idea that could satisfy everyone before the differences split the class as drastically as it did. This would have been a far better strategy because it would have saved a lot of time and effort for many students in the classroom that day.

EGGsplosion!!!

     Salvaging an egg that will fall from a height of ten feet with a few straws and masking tape is not an easy task. This fact was made more obvious to me during a very chaotic but educational project assigned in last Thursday's lecture. Preventing an egg from cracking when gravity is working against it is a difficult project for a single student indeed, but would it not be easier with more people on the job? After all, the saying goes: "two heads are better than one." Quite the contrary. What that particular quote did not mention was that more is better only if they work together as one. In relation, when the final seconds were counted and all of the groups were called up to the front of the lecture hall, it was clear to me that the true challenge in saving the egg was organizing a group of students to work effectively not only as individuals but also as a group.
     Well then, how exactly did my group manage to get a few students to work productively as a single unit? The answer: we did not. That is why our egg cracked upon impact with the floor... In the outline for organizing an effective group, step one states that the group should clearly "define its goals and objectives." Well, those were already specified in detail by the professor when the assignment was given so my group skimmed past number one. Step two suggests that the group "evaluate its resources and compared to its objectives." During this step, my group had focused more time on the few resources that the professor had provided for us to create our egg's protection than our actual human resources. The specific talents and advantages of each student were not assessed - in fact, the thought did not occur to us at all. Step three instructs that the group "develop premesis and several alternative strategies." This is the step that my group had committed most of our time on. Various designs that each group member had branstormed were collectively rejected or reformed constantly on the basis that our resources (straws and tape) were too scarce. In my opinion, my group had never gotten beyond this step since there was no group consensus on the final design even until the final minute. When half of the group thinks that they are creating one design and the other half is thinking of something conceptually different, then it is obvious that the design will have major flaws. Regardless, due to the time limit, my group stumbled on to step four: analyzing alternatives and make a tactical plan. Without a group consensus on what the final design actually will be, anyone can imagine how confusing the fourth step was. Everyone eventually figured out what they should do in order to get the job done; however, without an actual design, each member did not have a clear understanding of what the other members were working on. As a result, progress,  if there was any, was very slow. Lastly, when the group reached step five which directs the implementation of a plan and evaluation of its results, the group was already on the road towards failure. The plan was clearly underdeveloped; therefore, correct implementation was impossible. Without the correct implementation, the result was obvious. My group was unable to save the egg.
     I learned from the project that my group was too focused on what we were supposed to build and did not focus enough on what qualities the individual members brought to the group. Had we realized the qualities and characteristics of each person in the group, perhaps we could have worked more efficiently and completed the building of a successful protection for the egg.

Holy Smokes! Why?!

     Take an individual from anywhere in this world and displace him/her from wherever that person was raised. The result will be what is called a "culture shock" in that person's mind. This case is prevalent in the majority of  immigrants shortly after their arrival in foreign countries that they will begin to call "home," and it is something that I have experienced countless times after my arrival in New York.
     The first things a person can notice in a new environment are the obvious things like people, language, and behavior. Accordingly, the first thing that I have noticed the second after I took my first step outside of the airplane was the people. It is important to note that I have never seen foreigners, or "non-asians," before except on the television. It was surreal to see people that were white, black, hispanic, middle eastern, and etc. What was stranger, however, was their behavior. I assumed non-asians did what they did because they are obviously not asian; however, it later became evident to me that even the asians in this country did not take part in the same conduct that I was raised to follow.
     For the first couple of years, I found that the way people greet themselves in this country was outrageous. In Korea, there is usually an exchange of bows and hellos. I was not unfamiliar with the idea of friendly physical contact, but I was shocked at the way Americans could be so physical when greeting each other. I saw people hugging each other constantly - which was not too bad but still weird. To take it up a level, I started seeing females kiss each other on the cheeks which, to me, was very peculiar. Finally, to take it one step further, I began seeing MEN and WOMEN kiss each other on the cheeks and hugging even though they were married! This was something that I could not understand. Was it normal in this culture for married couples to touch others of the opposite sex so passionately?! Is that not some form of cheating?! Do they not become jealous and argue afterwards?! In Korea, a married couple that would touch others the same way Americans did would be degraded and belittled by others, but here, in America, people are so happy while doing it!

Holy smokes! Why?!!!

Guess Who!

Hello everyone!

My name is Jae Young, and I am currently an upper sophomore. I am have not been accepted into the Zicklin School of Business quite yet so my major is undecided at the moment; however, I intend on majoring in International Business when I do finish my pre-requirement courses. My interests include sports and food; therefore, my hobbies are playing sports, and cooking! In reality, though, I spend most of my leisure hours practicing, teaching, and competing in the martial art and sport of Taekwondo.

In case anyone was wondering, "Ahn nyung ha sae yo" means "hello" in Korean!