a haiku.

oh dear management.

what have i learned here he asks

who the hell's maslow?

-the end. =)-

blog. what an unusual word.

this word/concept didn't exist until the 90s and since then it's been a big deal. i've had my share of blogs prior to this class, and i quit that habit. why? it causes trouble! lots of drama, but not this class.. it was.. insightful.. actually a very useful tool in studying my peers. i wouldn't have learned peoples names and placed their names to their faces or to their characters that i got to peek into. most importantly it was a very useful tool to further understand concepts that were taught in lectures. it was a good opportunity for people to talk about their experiences with the activities and what they took from it. blogging beats out any form of homework that would consist of word problems with all straight forward answers. here we were able to give our opinions! =]

downside? commenting.. things i would write would be for the fact that i HAD to. BUT the selfish side of me did enjoy reading comments people left me. haha. so it equals out. blogging should definitely be kept around for future classes! all part of the kurpis-experience huh? =)

having it my way.. at McDonalds?

Who knew you could “have it your way” at McDonalds! Maybe they should steal Burger King’s slogan. The unusual order called for an unusual reaction, and that is what I received from McDonalds’ employees in Staten Island. Despite the long wait and gripe from the fry cook, I got what I needed.
When I placed the order of a cheeseburger with four pickles and a small order of fries with no salt, I made sure to speak slowly and heavily stress the word four. I even held up four fingers. She looked at me like I was stupid, but I just smiled. She told me that there was no way to indicate four exact pickles, before I spoke back a manger came over (and I assumed it was a manger because of her different shirt). The manager said to her employee to just press this button four times and just like that my order was placed. She handed me my receipt and the time stamp on it was 8:03PM. I stood back and watched as the process unfolded.
I wondered where the unsalted fries would be placed because I only saw one area for fries. People who had placed bigger orders after me were getting their food before me. The fries they were getting were coming from the designated heating bed. After the heating bed was empty I saw a man dump fresh fries from the fryer and he quickly made one small order of fries and placed in on the side. Then he added salt to the remaining fries. I immediately knew that that would be my order of fries. That process had only taken one person. I continued to wait for the burger to come out, but I had heard someone in the back say “How many pickles does this person want?!” The manager that had assisted my order before said “FOUR!” At 8:14PM my order was in my hands, and when I opened the burger it was correct! It had taken a total of four people to complete my order and although not all of them were as obliging as they should be, they got the job done.
The staff didn’t give me outstanding service, however the manager did. She fulfills the role of delivering proper customer service where the other employees lacked. The communication from the person who prepared my burger to the employees in the front served very useful in my order. The person who made the fries was very coordinated in his actions. The fresh fries did not get salted, but were easily packaged before the rest.
If I were to help McDonalds to improve their efficiency, I would recommend that they have the ability to type in numerically details of how thing should be made. Four pickles may be an odd request, but three slices of cheese or two pieces of meat is more practical and should be accommodated to. Without that ability, employees should be able to communicate easier with the people who prepare the food. They should be able to interact more and make the process seem less rigid. So by improving special and unusual orders more customers will be satisfied and they can “have it their way”.

D is for DUH!

yeah.. i knew i was gonna be something that had to do with control / power. that's just the type of person i am. i like things done my way, otherwise i don't feel as if much is being accomplished. i wasn't surprised at all. in a way i would have rather liked to be something else, because this just feeds into my pushy attitude. sigh that can't be good. i do yell a lot.. sometimes i yell just to yell. ok no bueno. i feel like i shouldn't change this, but instead find a balance between all 4. i had a high "I" and that's also about right, my friend tells me i have a habit of persuading others. but that's all part of my plan to have things run my way! haha.

i do think it is important to know people's management "type". that way you see where they are coming from and situations can be dealt with more appropriately. a test like this does come in useful with out personal interactions as well. honestly i know myself, and i do try to dominate various situations, be it school, work, relationships etc.. still not a good thing, but at least i'm aware of my actions.

..and the shiney crystal ball says:

if only it was as simple as going to those fortune tellers along the boardwalk in atlantic city, or knowing whats going to happen because my cookie said so.. if only, right? well since it's up to me and not a cookie or some lady who wants to see my palm, what i would like is...

· a new job - sure retail is fun, but i don't want to be one of those people who get sucked into retail for life. i'm 20 and all the new people in there are 17. it's depressing that i'm getting too old, but i know it's time for a change. i'd like to find a simple desk job which could turn into something bigger and better in a few years. i've seen it hundreds of times that the small time clerk moves up in the company all based on the connections they had. i'd kill for that opportunity. ok if this new job fails then i wouldn't mind being a manager for the company, I want to be part of the "New Stores Team". They open all brands of the company across the world.. They travel for free and seem to have fun. So yeah.. I might have to sell my soul to Abercrombie and Fitch for a few more years..
· to build my own life - i'd love to be on my own, have a place of my own and strictly pay homage to myself (ok not entirely). but i always take care of other people and worry about them. i'm technically the youngest sister, yet i'm held to be the oldest figuratively. i know people need help, but it's a bummer when you're responsible for more than you should be. so i want a great job with a great place of my own. i'm sure everyone wants this in their future.
· to contribute - so after college, and after i find that new job.. i'd love to contribute to building my parents a home in the philippines. my parents aren't the youngest and they eventually wanna live there when i'm "grown up". so they deserve that after putting up with me for this long.

so how to get there? i think i need to be more aggressive with job hunting and junk. i know that i am capable of it all, and the fact that i'd like to do it mostly for my family is motivation in itself.

..ok aside from all that stuff, i wouldn't mind winning the lotto, jumping out of a plane, being a trophy wife, meeting edward cullen, and living happily ever after like cinderella `=P

DROP, CURVE, FORMAT!

..yeah thats what i was screaming. when the professor turned the floor over to us, i saw the reactions on many people's faces that this would be an impossible task. so i sat there thinking of the simplest solution. the talk of averaging this score with that score and taking a tenth of that test and adding in this extra credit with my 3rd test and subtracting my first score from the second to divide by the whole to equal my final grade was getting out of hand. so amongst my usual surrounding buddies i said i wanted the curve and to drop the lowest grade, one of us overheard that another side of the room was thinking the same solution so i screamed "drop, curve, format" and then we kept running with it..

i supposed the category that i fell into was the collaborating group. my intial choice would have been to get up there and handle it myself, but i sat back this time. i did not completely withdraw myself from the action, but i knew that what i wanted was heard and it was up to the class to continue to support that idea, which was not only mine.

what would have been better for the class as a whole would have been to compromise, to see each other all as equals. the time limit was a huge pressure on everyone and the few people that refused to push their stubborness away were holding us back from coming to a conclusion faster. i'm content with the end result, but next time we need a woman leader ;] hahah

oh huevo.

Huevo is quite the trooper, but his parents, all 6 of us, were responsible for his journey.

The creation of his hourglass shaped survival contraption was the result of quick planning and good teamwork. In our 25 minutes of brainstorming we tackled Steps 1, 2, and 3 of the planning process. We weighed out the pro's and con's of the traditional cube and then.. Our artist was responsible for the creative design of the hourglass and although certain members couldn't quite grasp the concept of the hourglass, the artist continued to sketch until it was clear to everyone. The 25 brainstorming period seemed a bit long to us, we were finished in about 10 and were more worried about the building time. In Step 2, we understood that not all hands could not be on deck, molesting little huevo was not the solution. So we split roles so it wouldn't end in the death of huevo. Some ripped tape, some gave corrective critiques to the positioning of pieces of tape, some taped the straws together for the final product, some cheered and some tried to steal scissors. The artist resigned and watched as we brought her sketch to life. After we had finished the basic figure of the sketch we decided to add more to it for alternative [tragic] endings. Safety first. We thought of other ways the contraption could have turned in air and began to add more cushioning in those tender spots. We continued to have our original goal in mind for success, there was not much doubt in us.. Whether it was life or death for Huevo we all saw that our teamwork was successful because we stuck to our plans with time to spare.

Honestly the biggest dispute was naming the egg, I voted Milton and Norton.. and I got rejected..

Then i wanted to write his name on the egg, I got rejected again.. bummer.. but Huevo, he's the man