here goes the poem:)

If you really hate your job,
And your boss's a nasty snob,
Go and learn some management
And promotion that seemed so distant
Will be yours in an instant.

Blogging...

To say that blogging is not my cup of tea would be an understatement. Let me start with that I'm behind on social networking technology. I don't have Myspace or Facebook. I have a Russian variation of Facebook, but just to keep in touch with my friends from Russia. And i don't spend any time making my page attractive or pretty, since I'm not looking for new friends there. I feel much easier to talk to people in person or over the phone.
But the blogging was an assignment for the class and i had no choice but do it. So, at first i did feel sort of annoyed. It took me forever to formulate my thoughts in writing (i did it in Word first then copied and pasted it to the blog), then i felt weird to go to people's pages and comment on their blog entries. I felt like "why do i need to comment on what those people think? they are free people; they can think whatever they want to, it's not my business..."
Then as assignments became more task oriented and as i got to know those people a little better, it got more and more easier for me to express myself and to comment on my classmate's blogs. It started to feel normal.
I'm not sure if there was a great deal of learning from one another during this blogging experience but we definitely were exchanging our ideas, feelings and thoughts, which was interesting and sometimes let me see the same things in different perspectives. However I noticed that blogging made learning of management a more conscious experience, because we were asked to reflect on what was going on in class. And when you are reflecting on something after it happened you are forced to rethink it again, to make some conclusions and form your opinion on it. It helped me in understanding what management is.
I definitely think that blogging helped me out a lot. I always knew that living in the States i need to be more into it and need to develop my social networking skills, but i probably would have never done it until i was forced to. I'm grateful to this class for pushing me. I believe it needs to stay as a component of this course. Even though I'm sure a number of students would feel annoyed by it, blogging is helpful.

DISC

I usually like all sorts of assessments like DISC that are supposed to tell you who you are and what you are. But after completing this particular one i was slightly disappointed. According to the test I'm an IS person.
I was so excited to read what it actually meant, but the descriptions of the types of the personalities seemed to me so vague, general and broad. I-management type is described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. S-management type people are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable and consistent.
Even though the results were not as specific as i would like them to be, nevertheless, they were pretty accurate. I can definitely identify myself with the description of IS type of manager. Sometimes i noticed that i can influence people or become a team leader without appearing to be dominant. Also, i do consider myself a stable person. When i think about it, i have a lot of friends and co-workers, even the ones that are older than me, who trust me with their problems, whatever they are and asking for advice.
I can see how this test can be helpful to some people, but i personally wouldn't rely on the results of it in order for me to pick the right way to communicate with a certain person. I still rely on my own perception when it comes to this. Ultimately, all these management types come from the types of personality. What kind of manager you'll be depends on your personal psychological qualities. If a person is struggling with shyness all his or her life, if the person simply hates to be in the spotlight, i think it is unlikely this person will ever become a dominant type of manager, no matter how much this person works on being less shy.

An Unusual Order

I would like to start my essay by saying that I’m one of those people who don’t like to be persistent or extra specific with their orders in restaurants. Even when I see that my order was clearly done wrong (like getting my coffee with milk instead of cream at Dunking Donates) I keep quiet. I just take my order and leave. So, when I got an assignment to go to McDonalds and get not only very strange and super specific order but also double check if it was done according to my request, I was dreading doing it.
Finally, yesterday, I toughened up and made my husband drive me to McDonalds. He of course was laughing at me and refused to walk in with me, he said he’ll enjoy the show watching from the outside. The McDonalds that I went to is located in the area where I live, in Brooklyn on 86th street and 20th Ave. When I walked in the restaurant there were a couple of people before me, so when the time came for me to place my order all those people were standing aside and heard everything.
First I warned the girl behind the counter that I have a rather specific order and all the requirements have to be reflected on the receipt. I stressed that it is very important. She smiled but very calmly and even kindly and said “No problem”. When it came to ordering pickles she said that since they put 2 pickles on each hamburger, she needs to put on the receipt “1 extra pickle” in order for me to get 4 pickles. I trusted her authority, because she sounded very reassuring. I need to mention that during the whole process of putting the order into the system she was really nice and friendly, which I totally didn’t expect from McDonalds worker in Brooklyn at 8.30 pm.
She got my order into the system and asked me to wait a bit. As I watched, she went and put fresh French fries into the fryer, I figured it’s because the ones that were already precooked are mixed with salt. Then she just went on with helping another person in line with their order. And that was it! I was in shock.
First of all, I expected her to tell me that she is not able to generate this kind of receipt for me or that she’ll have to make her supervisor to make this kind of receipt for me. Second of all, I thought that she would have to go and instruct people in the kitchen who make hamburgers on the exact amount of pickles on my hamburger and people who make fries - on making an order of fries with no salt. And finally, I didn’t think she’ll be so friendly and accommodating during the whole experience!
After waiting for few minutes I received my order, I went to one of the stands there, unpacked my hamburger and counted the pickles. There were exactly four of them. I went back to the car.
I can truly say that I was pleasantly surprised by how everything went. The girl behind the counter was able to quickly and efficiently assist me with my order without going to her manager or involving and at the same time destructing people from the jobs that they are doing. There is a really good communication system between the front and the back of the restaurant, because she didn’t have to go to the kitchen staff which would waste her time. Of course I’ve heard on the commercials that McDonalds’ staff is very friendly, efficient and professional in what they do, but I never tried to put it to the test. Well, they really are. At least the ones I had a chance to deal with yesterday.

Future

As easy as it sounds to make a vision of yourself in a future it is not, especially when you trying to organize this vision and write it down... I tried to come up with visions of my future in different spheres of my life, even though all of them are very dependent on each other.

1. My family life. As of right now I'm married to a wonderful man and we are expecting a baby girl in August. In around 5-6 years i definitely picture myself being a mom, spending enough time with my child and my husband. I can see myself baking cupcakes with my daughter and having lots of fun:)) By then i would like have one more baby. (I'd like to have at least two kids). I absolutely don't picture myself as a housewife, who only cooks, cleans and walks around in her pajamas all day long. I picture myself a busy, working, elegant woman in her 30s:)To achieve this vision: I'm getting a degree in marketing. I believe that the job in this field will not only help me support my children, but also will give me more free time than a regular 9 to 5 job. As i noticed from my personal experience working in marketing, often you can work from home.If you are proactive and efficient you can have your job done fast and there is no need to be stuck at your desk.

2. My carrier. I'm already working as an office manager in a pretty big company, but this is not what i would like to do for the rest of my life. In the future i see myself working at an executive (or close to it) position,having my own office and my own assistant:)In order to achieve it: Currently I'm going to school, i know that as soon as i graduate i will be promoted and will be working in marketing field at my company. (I already let all of my managers know that this is what i want to do, and they totally agree with it, my company even pays for my tuition). This job will actually help to get the necessary experience and confidence. Then i will move to a bigger company with more opportunities to grow. Then I'll just have to work hard and prove myself.

3. My social life. I definitively want to do something great in my life. Something that I'll be remembered for. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something:) In order to achieve this vision: I always keep my mind open to different ideas and experiences. I'm always opened to learn something new, to see something new. I believe this strategy will help me to come up with some great idea of my own one day:)

Speaking of our class activity on egg planning, I would like to start with mentioning that I was lucky to work in my team. It was easy to work together with my teammates because everyone was enthusiastic, talkative and had ideas; we didn’t waist time on getting over being shy. As for our planning process, I can define the following steps:

1. Define your goals and objectives.

This was probably the step that we spent the least time, because the goal and objectives were clearly explained by the professor. And by the time we formed a group all of us clearly knew that we need to make some sort of cushion for an egg in 30 min. So, in about few minutes we went to the next step.

2. Determine your resources and current status vis-á-vis objectives.

This was the step when we recapped on the resources that we had which was 2ft of tape and 8 straws. Then we were asking each other if any of us had a previous experience of doing something like this; or may be someone had some sort of knowledge for example in physics that might help in designing the egg protector. In about 4-5 min we moved on to the next step.

3. Develop several alternative strategies.

At this point we started collecting different ideas on how to construct the protector. We had few ideas, such as to make a cube out of straws and make the egg hang inside; also we had almost the same idea as the winning team, which was to hang up the egg on a long string to decrease the falling distance of the egg, one more idea was to construct some sort of a cone out of straws for the egg. Few people out of our team were drawing the possible constructions.

4. Make a tactical plan.

At this step we came to a conclusion to make a cone-like structure to protect the egg. We declined the rest of the ideas as we thought they were too complicated to be made in the remaining time. We didn’t allocate jobs or roles for our team. I think it didn’t really come across our minds, I personally think it wasn’t as important for our type of activity.

5. Implement the plan and evaluate results.

As soon as we got our materials, we started working on the project. I can say that every member of the team was involved. No one was just standing by and watching. Someone was holding the egg, someone was giving out tape in portions, someone was cutting straws in pieces, a couple of people were holding the straws in place and someone was taping the whole thing together. As a result pretty much did the structure we planned to do; we didn’t have to change anything while implementing our plan. Unfortunately our egg broke, but we were not disappointed in the way we worked as a team because we did choose the best option we had and we didn’t dismiss any other ideas; we all felt like we did our best as a team.

I was born and raised in Russia. So, it was my first time abroad when I came to Wildwood, NJ in summer of 2005. I remember that there was a ton of things that surprised, shocked or puzzled me and my friend (we came here together).
There were all sorts of things, starting from a salt package that we tried to open for like half an hour to clothes in store that has only 4 sizes: small, medium, large and x-large, we fit in neither of them and didn't shop for the whole summer.
But I can point out one thing that is very characteristic for the majority of Americans, which is makes American and Russian people differ a lot. The thing is that, very often Americans come across as very emotional people, who get easily excited; they are extra nice and caring and they have their Hollywood smile on all the time. At first I felt skeptic about this kind of behavior, it seemed to me fake sometimes.
At the time I was working in a store on the boardwalk and I used to see women come into the store, see pretty bracelets for $10 and start jumping like little girls saying: "OH MY GODDD!!! How cute! How Pretty! It's amazing! I Love It! I Love It! I Love It!" And I would think to myself: "Ok, yes, the bracelets ARE pretty, but it's not like they are some miracle bracelets that will, for example, turn all the singles in your wallet into 100 dollar bills. Why jump like that? It looks stupid."
Also, people always had a smile on their faces, they smiled walking along the boardwalk, walking into the store or just talking to me. In the beginning I kept thinking: "What's so funny? Is there something wrong with my clothes? Or makeup?" I started carrying a little mirror in my purse and kept checking myself, later I realized that it's not me, the people are just smiling. My American friends always asked me why I look upset or sad and I kept telling them that I’m fine and happy, if I don't smile it doesn’t mean I’m upset.
I tried to do it myself - to smile more often, at first I felt like an idiot. But in a week or so, I just felt like smiling. It helped me to understand American mentality more. After all, why not smile to each other? Why not get happy about simple things? If these little things don’t get you excited or happy, then what does?