Just a Hint

A Hint

Where will life take you

Can we start without nothing

Can we free verse our lives

Can we control it?

You can reset your life when you want

Or you can continue it if you please

But never give up and let life freeze

Life is too short and sweet

And in our hearts I know we all can lead

For There Is A Leader In Us All

We must strive and live to avoid all collision

All we need is a hint of vision

Communicate With Me

I always wanted to write a blog, but I never got the opportunity to ever do it. Call it laziness. Perhaps even lack of motivation. Whatever the reason, I had no choice this time. This blog was mandatory, and in a way an experience in a class that I experienced like no other. 

At first, I was definitely a little iffy on my style of writing. Did I have to write formal-- I mean we are in college. And as soon as the first blog ended, I found out that we had the freedom to do what we wanted. Just by our style of writing, we had to the opportunity to learn more things about each other in a different way than we would face to face.

We mask our "true" personalities when we are in school, that we forget that our other colleagues are in fact people-just like us. Blogging definitely got to show us our "real" side, which is nice for a change.

While most professors would give papers on a specific question, our blogs were extremely open and general. There was no right or wrong answer, no dumb or good answer. And I am sure others got to see the different perceptions on what people thought about the different activities of this class.

Since each midterm was worth 20% of the grade, I think this definitely was points thrown at us for us to use and improve our grade drastically. While most professors provide extra credit of 1 or 2 %, we had a 20% grade that we were able to control. And of course, since this is management, why not allow each student to manage 20% of their grade throughout the course. 

As of blogging again...ABSOLUTELY!!! It had been super fun and an experience that I would love to last. I wish I was a good writer, but I'm sure my style with develop after more writing. After all, practice makes perfect!

McGangBang!!!!

Rizwan Kermaly

Management 3120

McGangbang Extra Credit

So it was approximately 6:15 p.m. when I walked in the Mcdonald’s around the block of my neighborhood. Slowly, I strolled my way onto the line while targeting the cashier that I was going to feel sorry for the rest of the day. His name was Ali, and I can tell that this had to be his first week on the job. How did I know this? The manager was right beside him, monitoring and directing his every move. This was going to be an experience I would never forget.

“Next please,” Ali said in a polite tone.

“I’ll have one McGangbang to go please!”

“Mc…? Ok. That will be $2.77.”

Wow, that was surprisingly easy.

And you know what? I should have known that it was too good to be true. While unholstering my new camera and opening the box of this exciting compound, I was disappointed to see a double McChicken.

“Ali, this is not what I ordered”

“What did you order sir?” The manager now intervened.

“1 McGangbang please!”
“McGangbang? I never heard of that.”

She walks away

Manager 2 comes then and asks the same thing.

I answer her question. “Really? I’m surprised. It’s this contraption. (showing her a picture on my phone) “It is just a double cheeseburger with a McChicken in the middle. They’re famous at home in Daytona.”

“O.. um. Be right over with your order,” she says after taking another glance at the photo

So I wait.

 And I wait some more.

15 minutes has now passed since I was next on line.

When another cashier asks, “Are you waiting for something?”

“My McGangbang.”

“Hold on,” he says like he knows what it is.

He proceeds to the back where I see him laughing with Manager 2 who replaced the other  food makers after they failed to comprehend what she was trying to explain. At least that is what it looked like.

Another 5 minutes pass and she comes back empty handed wanting to double check the picture again. 5 minutes later, she comes back with a giant sandwich that was unable to close even in the Big Mac box.

“Did I get it right?”

“Yes you did!” I said happily.

As for getting the receipt, she charged me at first $6.77. I told her to charge me for the McChicken and Double Cheeseburger. With both items no longer on the Dollar Menu, she charged me about $5.

Part 2

With my overall experience in McDonald’s I would definitely say this line of workers needed to adapt better to high pressure situations while maintaining their “fast” reputation at the same time.

The McD’s team did not seem like a team when it came to communicating amongst one another. When the cashier made the first failed attempt at making my order, it was a good idea for Manager 1 to get involved to make up for the rookie’s mistake. However, after she stated she did not know what my order was, she pretty much just got out of the scene entirely and got Manager 2 to take her previous position. From there, I do not even know what happened to manager 1.  When it came to Manager 2, I am not sure what she was saying to the food staff, but I am pretty sure I saw her making the sandwitch herself. If anything,  I guess after much confusion with the food makers, she told them to just construct a McChicken and Double Cheeseburger. From there, she assembled it herself, after taking a double look at the picture. As for the treatment with me, after standing on the side for 15 minutes, only one person asked if I needed something, and he did absolutely nothing about the situation. In addition, it took me a full 30 minutes to actually get the receipt from when I was next on line. The mistake was understandable of getting the order wrong since the guy was new on the job, but making me wait a second time for a McChicken and Double Cheeseburger is unacceptable. I would recommend that the first manager should have actually taken action instead of getting another manager to assist the situation.  In addition, I really cannot understand why it took so long to get 2 sandwiches stacked.  However, not once did they complain about making the order. They took a while, but they did not say that it could not be done.  

As of being organized, this branch of McDonald’s was nowhere near set up to handle a specialized order. They showed lack of compatibility in a situation like this and a lack of worker-customer manners when they did not take “fast” food into their efforts and when the employee was laughing along with the second manager instead of assisting her. I cannot really complain about the second manager’s efforts since no matter how much she tried to coordinate, she took the initiative herself. However, 20 minutes is still an unacceptable wait. I would have brought one of the food makers out to actually look at the picture so he or she could have understood what she meant. There was no reason for her to take their position and disrupt the flow of food. What also bothered me was the first charge they made. McDonald’s is all about consistency and I expect consistent prices especially the two items were right off the menu. They changed it after my first complain and made a new charge, but that should never be the case from a McDonald’s.

I can obviously see the 2nd Manager being the leader in this. I do not know what the first manager functioned in doing, since she just walked away right after she did not know what it was. She did not even ask what the McGangbang consisted of. With a position of a leader, manager one could have handled the situation, but I guess a little work was too much for her especially when it come to doing something different. Coming back to manager 2, although she tried to make a team effort without success, she turned into a one-man army attempting to conquer the hell of a sandwich called the McGangbang. However, as mentioned she lacked speed, which I’m sure was because of this unheard of sandwich. From my evaluation, I think leadership is completely essential in McDonald’s. McDonald’s is all about speed and servicing their customer. Speed was unheard of when I was there, and because just one manager had to get directly involved, I believe that it disrupted the food making process for other customers.

The McGangbang is surely a story I will never forget!

Who am I really?

The whole time we were taking this personality assessment, I felt that there was a way to somehow “alter” who you are by picking the certain choice. But because there were so many rounds - with choices that were so different, I solely relied on matching each word with my personality.

Doing this, the results I had were Influence (primary) and Dominance (secondary). So was the test accurate? ABSOLUTELY. The only thing I regret is that most of the people in the class got the same results. But I am assuming that because we are in a business school, a large chunk of us should get business personalities. But overall, the test labeled me as a complete extravert, who is exactly what I am, and the person I try to convey myself to be. Even in job interviews, the interviewer always tends to mention how my energy and enthusiasm is different from the other interviewees he has seen that day,

Because of the accurateness of this personality test, I feel that it is completely essential for jobs to do this. Why waste money learning to know if you hired the right employee when you can give them a cheap test and find out who they really are? And of course some personalities are more compatible with other jobs, so just for fun, I think that each person doing the test should see this also as a career assessment test.  

The Power of Vision

To tell you the truth, I felt that the “Power of Vision” was a poorly constructed educational video. I have read 2 books on visions and how to accomplish reaching them. Why? Because VISION is actually an interesting topic, and a great motivator especially when we are all at the latter stages of our lives. Creativity therefore is needed into making a video on such an important topic.

To make the video better, they should have used a series of successful people who had a vision, and presented how they made it happen in reality. Humans are naturally more attentive to images, and the image of someone lunging starfish in the ocean compounded with a hidden voice in the background is not very interesting.

However, overall the same message was clear from the books and the video: a vision must be acted in order to make it a reality!

My top 3 visions upon graduation are:

1. Become owner on a series of small-medium sized multinational companies

To do this, I will utilize all the skills I obtained through business school. I will start off in Tanzania and maximize the potential of the factory my family owns there. With my degree in accounting, I will be in charge on inventory and cash flow to minimize costs. My first task is to learn Swahili which I currently am taking the effort to do.

2. By the age of 40, I will make a salary of at least $500,000.00

This may sound like too much, but this is the vision I have for myself. I know it is inevitable to start off with an entry level position especially in my career choice, but I am not only including my employee wage into this. For every paycheck I get, I will invest 10% into projects such as real estate, my “international business” and other potential profitable ventures. Stock market is iffy since it is unpredictable.

3. By the age of 25, I will already own a house

I will not rent like most people do when they graduate. I will milk as much time as I can living with my parents and use the money I saved to invest in a small house. Many people are in a rush to be independent and I feel that these people are in a rush to get into debt.

These are not hopes for me- they are visions that I am making a big effort to turn into reality. Nothing will stop me into achieving what I desire for it is action that creates reality!

Making Decisions

Working together with a class of 75+ students proved to be more chaotic than expected. There were many ideas and recommendations that were more harmful than beneficial to our grade that unfortunately became the end result of what we received. With the average grade being in a D range, it was easy to decide that we all needed a curve and an extra credit assignment. But, with an unstructured format of making the next possible test format, many decision leadership styles emerged, with mine being a compromiser.

I chose being a compromiser because i initially had ideas that would benefit pretty much everyone. All we needed was to make the entire exam multiple choice, with only one question. THAT'S IT. From there it would have been an exact test that we have been taking throughout college. However, some people thought that it would be a good idea to put up "other options" for partial credit, which I think the professor stated himself makes the test much more complicated. I am not being negative because i did bad. I actually received a 71, with a possible curve to a 90. I am just saying that i do not want the same situation to occur when it could have been avoided. 

Most of the methods i noticed was the avoidance stage. People gradually gave up and did not want to contribute their opinions when every single opinion mattered. I think my role as a compromiser benefitted everyone. The test seems a lot easier, but there was still a lot more ways to make it direct and straightforward.  It does not matter to me since what's done is done, but I am sure the results of the exam will still cause a lot of poor grades and just as many complains. However, if everyone collaborated with one another, i know that we would have succeeded into getting what we wanted. The lack of time and planning caused a panic, and we tended to drift off on the ideas of certain students. It was still a very interesting assignment; it accomplished what the professor expected. 

Humpty Dumpty HAD A GREAT FALL...and splattered

Ok. Assuming that because we were in a management class, the task for us to do was to allocate our resources, skills, and time amongst the five people within our group. I'm sure for a big chunk of the class, the planning process went by making someone the drawer and the rest brainstormers for a project that was primarily physics based. I think the steps that we actually went through successfully were 1, 2, and 3. 

For Step 1: I think that was necessary for anyone to complete the project at all. We successfully worked as a team and monitored our time effectively, while keeping in mind the goals that we needed. 

For Step 2: The artist of the group made made sketches that were successfully drawn. However, it took almost up until the last five minutes to finally decide the best blue print that can be made using the limited amount of resources, which is why we needed every minute.

We also needed to decide someone willingly to volunteer and drop the egg. The person had to be the shortest in height and have the best aim. Although our egg cracked before hitting the bottom of the bin,  it was still a fun project. 

Before any design could be implemented, it had to be thought out up until the last step  drawn to conserve time. The first few (can't remember the exact number) sketches, we either did not have enough resources or it just did not seem logical that an egg would remain in tact due to gravity. Step 4 was probably one of the steps that we ignored. I think our group lacked communication. We had a plan and we carried out with it. Objections were not really made only up until when we finished our prospective blue prints. It was funny how when one person said something, the other group member gathered up enough courage to concur with her opinion. Step 5 occurred during the last ten minutes. It was there that one can see if the preceding steps occurred due to a such chaotic situation. And that's what it was - Chaos.

 It was so crucial for us to finish the project successfully that teamwork was replaced by individual action. Although we completed the assignment, teamwork was definitely needed and we I think we were just lucky to even finish given the lack of communication.

Although major errors were apparent, it was a great assignment-one I'm sure I will never forget. 

My Breakdown in India

In the summer of 2010, I went with a group of friends to India as an intern in the law department. I personally knew that I was extremely tolerant of other cultures despite my 7 week stay being the first experience that I got to witness first hand. Now I am not trying to insult any native Indian, my father is 100% Indian so I'm not intending to insult myself.

India was a different world. It was a trip that I loved but it was also a trip that I would reconsider doing again. I recall experiencing my first culture shock when we were in a desert region called Rajasthan attempting to go the city of Mumbai aka Bombay. We wanted to experience the culture to its max so we didn't have any chauffeurs or upper class bus or train tickets. Instead we travelled with very low budgets and just a backpack on our backs.

So when I got inside the bus (I was one of the last ones to get in), I was horrified. There were no more seats, the temperature was borderline 100 degrees, and there was no room to breath in the bus that felt more like a coffin. So what did i do? I walked out. There was no way I was going to allow myself to stay in that "death trap" for an entire 11 hours.

I walked hundreds of yards on the town in the desert, shoving the shop owners in the bizarre that smelled vulnerability off an American. I kept walking, being alert and scared knowing that I had no idea where I was walking to. Long story short, my friends ran to me, and told me that there was another bus that had a few more seats. Now, I am not trying to make it seam like I live like a princess, but just the sound of having a seat made it seem like a palace. As a result, I quickly accepted their offer, and we began our journey into the biggest city in India: Mumbai.

That had to be the most extreme form of culture shock I first encountered and I am sure glad to be back living it up in America with the MTA.

-Ritz

So Do i Qualify to your Expectations?

Greetings fellow business students, this is my first blog so please don't go hard on me. I will start off on an introduction so you can see who I am and what I do in black and white.

I am a current junior pursuing a B.B.A. in Accounting, which I hope to then get my Masters in Taxation. Currently I  am unemployed like the large percentage in America, but I am hoping to change that by the next month.

Some of the things that I enjoy doing include running, long distance road biking, hiking, camping, boxing (record is 0-2 but my opponents were huge), and coaching high school football.

Don't know if this has any relevancy, but I once had a football scholarship, which I unfortunately lost due to an unfortunate ankle injury (which I'm sure was fate).

I am hoping to become an amateur body builder by June 2011, which I have been training for since January 1st.

As of right now, that's all i can say. If you need any more info, just give me a shout.

-Ritz