Wednesday, April 22, 2009

“A Hamburger With 4 Pickles And A Small French Fries With No Salt”

I went to the McDonald’s located on 28th street around Baruch College for lunch on April 20, 2009. I felt uncomfortable because I knew that I would be viewed and treated as an abnormal customer. However, grade is more important to me than my embarrassment. In order to overcome my cowardice, I asked my friend to accompany me to go to the store. When I entered the store, I tried to pick a friendly looking and nice staff to place my order. Finally, I picked the store manager because he seemed approachable and friendly since he smiled and talked politely to the previous customer before me.
However, I was treated totally different from the previous customer. I placed my order, “Can I have a hamburger with exact 4 pickles and a small well-done French fries with no salt?” His face turned to rigid immediately after I asked my request. He no longer smiled and mumbled. I heard he mumbled something like, “all food is fixed, no extra service.” He didn’t look at me and responded me for a while. I felt helpless and was wondering if he was placing my order. Then, I heard he cried out and placed my order. He asked his staff to make the hamburger with exact 4 pickles and a small well-done French fries with no salt. I think there were 3 crews got involved into my order. The first one was the manager, the second one was the crew who made hamburger and the third one was the crew who made French fries. It wasn’t that bad about the time management because it just took a little bit longer to get my order. I got my order in 7 minutes. When the order completed, the manager just handed it to me without saying anything, any facial expression and eye contact. Also, the order was not completed correctly that there is one extra pickle and I didn’t taste the difference between French fries with salt and that with no salt.
I felt so bad about the manager’s reaction. I would rate the staff’s manufacturing process as normal, communication as bad, coordination as normal and customer service as bad. If I were brought in as a consultant to McDonald’s to help them improve their efficiency, I would give them several suggestions. First of all, the manager needs to be customer-oriented. He shouldn’t feel troubled about client’s additional request. Actually, there is a big difference between the customer service of McDonald’s in Hong Kong and that in New York. I feel the McDonald’s managers in Hong Kong are more helpful that they do not avoid doing more to suit client’s satisfaction. The manager makes me feel like the store is inflexible and I cannot request more beyond the exact menus. Therefore, McDonald will lose its competence. When people want to have a small change on the exact menus, they may avoid going to order from McDonald’s and choose substitute such as Subway instead. In addition, the manager should tell the client how long it takes to get the order done when placing special orders. Because I felt like the manger made me to wait for my special order when he said nothing at all.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The ABCs of DISC

I am C type. I am kind of surprised of the accuracy of the result. I always analyze and think before I act becuase I dont want to hurt anybody else. I want to be what I am because I dont think there are advantages and disadvantages of each type. I think it's helpful to determine people's management "type" to better understand where they are coming from. this test definitely can help us in other personal interactions.
In the winter survival scenario, i want to be with a C leader. C leader is conscientious that he/she makes a decision based on facts and analysis, so this type of leader is more reliable. I also feel more comfortable with this type of leader since I am willing to follow and agree with their analysis.

Vision

1.) get a good job in hong kong
2.) possess my own house with ocean view and car
3.) travel around the world with family.

I am originally from Hong Kong and miss Hong Kong, so I want to get a good job there after i finish my education here. I want to buy my own house with ocean view because I love nature. I feel relaxed when I embrace the nature. I think house is very imporant because it's always the place to let you relax after intense work outside. At retirement, I want to travel around the world with my family.

I know that I need to earn a good salary in order to accomplish my dream. So now I need to study hard and get internships while going to college. I also need to pay attention to the market in hong kong in order to see any opportunity there. Moreover, I want to gain my master degree to improve my competency.

Decision making

I am glad that the professor let us to remodify the test format because i didnt do well on the first exam. I chose Advoidance throughout the whole process because i think other ppl would eventually come up with ideas I want. Since there were so many ppl in the bargainning, I believed too much voice would cause chaos. therefore, I rather listened to them and vote for my preferance. I like the result because it's the way I wanted it. I think the final format of the exam is reasonable. Moreover, I also tended to accomodation because the result is for all the students in our class, so we shouldnt seek out the way exactly we wanted. If not, we just wasted the time.