Analyzing Conflict and the Influence of a Collaborative Environment - Essay Example

This included Tim, a senior editor. Laura was working at the place for close to a month while she and fellow workers went out for happy hour one evening. All of them had a good time consuming fair alcohol amounts. While all left the bar heading home, Tim, with a secret attraction to Laura ever since they started working on the journal, solicited a cab offering to ride together with Laura. Laura was okay with the offer. While inside the cab, Tim suddenly initiated an aggressive sexual encounter towards her.

Aggravated, Laura also pushed him from her telling him to go away from the cab. Full og mortification, Tim suddenly slinked from the cab. The following day, Laura went to work with particular apprehension. Tim went to her office to apologize for the inappropriate behavior previous night. With relief from his apology, Laura did not pursue the issue through normal channels across the office. She thought that Tim’s apology meant no need of dwelling on the past. Laura was one of the new employees and was learning office politics while proving to be a competent editor.

She was not interested in rocking the boat and bringing negative attention towards herself. All would have remained well if only Tim settled on one sincere apology. However, he kept apologizing whenever he was alone with Laura. When he initially began apologizing, Laura assured him that "it was fine". After two months of constant apologies, she was convinced that even though she requested him to stop apologizing, this was to no avail. Full of frustrations, she shared the issue with few of her co-workers.

In the end, the co-workers watered down respect for Tim. The initial conflict cause was the cab’s sexual advance occurring in rather private setting. Sexual overtures remain inherently private even though consequences play out in public contexts. In fact, the sole reason for Laura going to the Ombudsman was that this conflict classified as ‘private’ while wanting to