50 Case Studies for Management and Supervisory Training

221

Case 43

Fixing Things Over Dinner

Background Information

“It’s been almost four years since I was made supervisor,” Wendy Miller told her

husband, Ted, during dinner on Friday, “and I thought I had seen it all. But this past

week was a new one.”

Ted smiled. “What happened? Sounds like another radio ad fiasco.” Wendy super-

vised the Advertising section of the Marketing Department for the Heritage Valley

Insurance Corporation, and Ted was kidding her about a major snafu in radio ads that

had happened on the day she joined the company. Even though she had not been

responsible, he never let her forget it happened “on her watch.”

“No,” she shot back, smiling. “No, this involved Melissa, my secretary.”

“But I thought you and Melissa worked well together,” Ted responded.

“So did I, at least until this week,” Wendy said. She paused, sipping a glass of

wine. “Let me tell you what happened.” She reviewed the following facts with Ted.

Wendy hired Melissa Wolff, 24, about one year ago for the secretarial job in

the department. Melissa had almost two years of college and had worked as a

receptionist-secretary in a nearby doctor’s office for the past two years. Dur-

ing the interview, Wendy felt that Melissa could be a good addition to the

department.

Sure enough, Wendy was pleased that after an initial orientation period,

Melissa turned out to be a great employee. She was always at work on time,

was careful about completing her tasks correctly, was eager to help out, and

was good in dealing with the various people who came into the department.

Things had progressed so well that Wendy and Melissa became close, occa-

sionally talking about the problems they had with the men in their lives, jobs,

and family.

Wendy felt she could achieve such close relationships with her employees

because she liked to let employees manage themselves. Wendy disliked the

idea of acting in a “dictatorial” manner or being a “corrector,” so she was

perfectly happy to let Melissa and the three other employees in the depart-

ment work on their own, as long as they remembered who was the final

authority.

“Well, that’s all well and good,” Ted told her. “But I don’t see what the problem is.”

“I’m not finished,” Wendy said.

“Well, excuuuse me,” Ted said, laughing.

About two months ago, Wendy started noticing how much time Melissa was

spending talking to Deborah McBride. Deborah worked as a clerk in a

department on another floor of the building, and it seemed that Deborah was