Making Critical Decisions at Work - Case Study Example

This excerpt brings out Alice as hard-working. I was especially moved by the fact that even though she had worked her way up to become a biomedical engineer, she was still able to deliver free medical supplies in poor countries. As a result, she feels that she has made a difference. However, the author points out that Alice was fascinated by the trips to South America and Africa (Sheehan, 634). This is quite confusing since the trips are quite out of the objectives of the company. I, therefore, did not get the connection between the fulfillment that Alice got and the delivery of medical supplies.

In my opinion, the act of hiring Zigda to redesign its website is quite commendable. Zigda worked at a smaller fee than usual. This reduced the company’s expenses which is the dream of every rational manager. I however felt that the knowledge that Zigda had concerning soft-wares would enable them to know that it would be hard for computers, more so in Africa and South America to Access the website. It was therefore clear that the author was trying to show how Zigda, with or without the knowledge of Kent, was trying to lock out the communication channel between them and the poor countries.

In my opinion, I felt that the company had diverged from its core objective and responsibility and therefore Alice needed to be brave and tell Kent, the manager, how the website had hindered the effective communication between the organization and the individuals from the poor countries.

Employers and employees have constantly found it hard to associate with relative ease to each other, more so on the social aspects. Socialization is however a process that cannot be avoided at all costs. In this excerpt, Henry is faced with a dilemma on whether to accept Hamilton’s Facebook friend request or not. This paper, therefore, aims at what Henry should do to eliminate this problem.

Firstly, I think that the author has brought up Henry as a quite contradictory person. The fact that the author states that Henry likes to keep his professional and personal life separate is in a way confusing since he posts gay-like photos on his Facebook page. In my opinion, therefore, the author tries to indirectly state that Henry is not ashamed of his gay friends, but he is ashamed of people, more so the manager, to find out that he is not straight. I however think that Henry was quite justifiable not to reveal that he was gay. This is because he was unsure of the decision that his boss could take if he realized that.

The author was successful in bringing up discrimination that occurs in society, more so in terms of gender and sex. This is particularly illustrated in the part where the author states that Hamilton made occasional negative comments about gays (Sheehan, 646). This, therefore, shows that the author acknowledges the existence of discrimination in organizations.

In my opinion, the boss’ decision to send work-related updates on Facebook is quite out of the job context. I think it is an indirect method to coerce the employees into accepting his request since it was his account and not the company's. Even though I felt that Henry was ashamed due to his gay practices, I do not think that he should accept Hamilton’s request. Henry should, however, create a new Facebook account and instead, send his boss a friend request.