Month: February 2017

We are living in the era of information, which suggests that communication methods nowadays are far different from before – more and more electronic communications appear and even replace the former traditional ways.

Email is considered as one of the milestones on the revolution of communications. It saves so much time and cost of message delivery that it’s impossible now to imagine living without it. However, as every coin has two sides, there are also drawbacks. There are five most significant limitations listed in our textbook, including misinterpreting the message and overuse of email, the two that I do have a personal understanding in.

For misinterpreting the message, it seems like everybody has made mistakes in this part. From literally misunderstanding the message,(such as omitting a short key word or taking 24 hour mode as 12 hour mode) to decoding the sender’s message in a wrong way since everybody’s perception is not the same, all these misinterpretation can impede the work process. On this level, face-to-face communication seems to be the most efficient and effective way of message delivery, in my personal opinion.

And as for the overuse of email, firstly, tons of “junk emails” are sent everyday. I receive dozens of junk emails or advertising emails in my daily life and, though on most occasions they don’t matter that much, however, sometimes they do hinder my efficiency during work as if I got the notification of new email I have to go to check if there is anything important or urgent. Also, with the rapid development of online services, many people take email as a easy way to ask questions, however most information that has been asked frequently are already posted online. Emails like this are another aspect of overuse which also dramatically affects work efficiency.

In summary, email is a strong and useful way of communication, but its drawbacks also affect the work negatively in many ways. As a result, both senders and receivers need to pay attention to these limitations hence building the most efficient and effective way of communication.

Reference:

http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/trey-gowdy-caught-using-his-own-private-email-server/22908/

Last summer, I got a full-time job at a local English-teaching organization in my hometown as a Teaching Assistant. I got the job because one of my friend who was once a student also a friend of the boss introduced me to the boss. After a not very formal interview, I was told to come to work in two days. Since it was not a really formal job, there was no contract. The boss told me that I could just help with the front desk issues at first, and if any students wanted to ask for help, I would go to help them. The work time was 9 to 5, 5 days a week. And my boss promised a month salary of $300, which was not that much considering the working time compared with similar jobs in other organization. But the job was more likely to be a experience instead of wasting my free time, so I didn’t show any disappointment about that.

However, things began to change in the second week. There was another TA, Harvey, who was assigned to give some tutorials sometimes, thus earning more than me. Sounds fair, right? However, due to trying to get his driving licence, Harvey began to be absent for most of his tutorial time. Therefore, my boss let me take his job. Actually I was pretty happy with that because the front desk work was so boring that I felt tired of it only in one week. So I gave tutorial classes probably three times a week, but I have to say it went well since students were interested of what I was talking about. And I felt kind of proud of myself, too, as a teacher.

However, my boss called me on the Sunday of the fourth week, telling me that he was so sorry but I did not need to come for the following days because they found a new TA. I was not that emotional at first but when I saw the money he transferred to my bank account I got really mad: it was only $200! That was so unfair since I did more work than our deal but got less paid! Especially when I knew that Harvey still got $300.

Such distributive injustice made this definitely the worst work experience of mine. And it shows how injustice in working environment will affect the employees.

As a movie fan, what can be more interesting than connecting your favourite movie to the OB knowledge you are learning? The current hit movie La La Land tells a touching love story of how a young couple,  Mia and Sebastian, pursue their dreams and maintain their relationship, which reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory.

The theory hypothesized that individuals possess a hierarchy of five needs: physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization. Apparently there is a progressively increase in transition. At the beginning of the movie, Mia works as a barista serving latte at a coffee shop in Los Angeles, but she dreams to be an actress therefore sparing no effort to attend tons of auditions but never getting chosen; Sebastian, a jazz musician who loves traditional jazz and dreams to open his own music bar, tries to play piano songs at a cocktail bar but gets fired.  As the hierarchy of needs shows, Mia and Sebastian have to do the jobs far from their dreams to satisfy their basic physiological and safety needs (i.e. hunger, shelter, security, etc.) , in other words, to make a living at first.

And as the story goes, the two dreamers encounter, mutually attract each other and then fall in love , which I think fulfills the social need, for example, emotional support. With opportunities showing up, both of the young couple get the chance to realize their dream: Mia’s short play at theatre wins recognition by a casting director, and Sebastian accepts Keith’s, his old acquaintance, invitation, starting to play pop jazz with his band and winning success. This is the period when individuals, after satisfying the first three phase of needs, begin to pursue higher level of needs: esteem and self-actualization. The process shows that human beings tend to keep pursuing higher-order needs after satisfying lower-order needs. After the lower-order needs are substantially satisfied, the higher-order needs become more dominant.

Though this is not the end of the movie, the process vividly illustrates how the hierarchy of needs theory influences people’s life. By the way, great movie, really worth seeing.

Word Count: 351

References:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/