From: dapetersen@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Toothpick (-:))
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: A business major catching up.
Date: 12 Apr 92 05:04:35 GMT
Organization: Petersen's Homestead

Toothpick, still exhilerated from her first week of "real" work - which went
spledidly! - decided she just has to post, though she's 200+ posts behind.
Smiling, she skips over to Mike.

"Hiya!  How about...oh...chocolate milk?"  Mike smiles.  "You're working now...
you're not supposed to be so peppy."  Toothpick grins. "I know!  Isn't it
wonderful?  Who was it who was speaking about getting paid to have fun?  I
certainly am!  My mom tells everyone that I don't know the meaning of the
work 'work' and don't I realize that work isn't supposed to be fun?! (She
says this in jest, of course.)"

Not seeing a free seat at the moment, Toothpick jumps up onto the bar and sits,
swinging her feet, drinking her chocolate milk, and looking like everything's
going right.  "THe job reallyis fabulous.  My hours are perfect for night-owl:
10am to 6 pm.  Of course, having all the clients on the west coast makes life
easier to keep such hours.  BUt I miss rush hour traffic AND get to sleep in!
So far this week, I've designed/created coupons, prepared to set up a Macintosh
network (not bad for someone who'd never really used one before), taken over
invoicing and customer orders, and went on a shopping spree for office supplies/
furniture with someone else's money!  Not bad for a management major!"  She's
still smiling, but as she sips her milk, the smile fades a bit.

"I guess that's what prompted me to post before I've caught up here.  Frankly,
I'm offended...no, that's too strong...I'm bothered by some statements I've
seen here lately about business and management.  Specifically, Jilara's
statements about business generalists having no skills at all and Bear's 
statements on getting more people out of organizational work.  Now, I have
a liberal business background with a double major:  Organizational Behavior and
Personnel/Employee Relations.  In layman's terms, I studied a lot of
psychology as it relates to workplace issues and a lot of specific personnel
related functions (compensation, interviewing, training, etc...).  Though I
took lots of business classes - which were and are crucial to my career plan,
I also took classes in just abut every other subject - from philosophy to
zoology to language to computers.  It's fair to say I consider myself
pretty well-rounded, though by no means finished with my education.  (Hope I'll
never be finished!).  I can't really claim specialization in any particular
area, even business.  I have so much to learn in ALL areas..."

"But to say that my business skills are worthless knowledge (not your exact
words, Jilara, I know) or to imply that managers are useless figureheads or that
business is not a creative field (again, Bear, not your exact words), is to
my obviously biased thinking a big mistake.  Managers are necessary, much as
many people complain about them.  Mangers are leaders, and society cannot
function without leaders.  I believe that the problem with most ineffective
managers comes from the fallacy that everyone WANTS to be a manager.  So we
take, for instance, technical people who have done a great job and promote them
to head of some technical department.  But often, that takes people away from
the very work they enjoyed!  It can put them in a position of authority over 
people who were once their peers.  And often, no one trained them or taught
them how to be a manager."

"To me, management is a delicate balance between company interests and indivi-
dual interests.  For me, management isn't a power game (though tht certainly
*IS* the case too often).  And if you think it doesn't take a creative and
delicate approach to be a successful manager...well...I've failed at it
enough (even in my short career/life) to know that it's certainly not at ALL
as easy as it looks or seems."

Toothpick looks down. "Hey!  Where'd the bar go!  Where'd these boxes come
from?!  Sheesh...(-:"  She jumps down from the rafters (where she's floated)
to the bar.

"And as for business generalists causing a lot of the problems, I think it's
the specialists who can't see the forest for the trees.  To run a small
company successfully, it's ESSENTIAL to consider the 'big picture' - to think
about how one action in one area impacts another area.  When a company gets
so large or so complex that the functional areas start competing with each
other to the detriment of the entire company, you've got problems."

She bats away a hovering soapbox, sips her half-full (yea optimism!) glass
of chocolate milk, and continues.  "Of course, my opinions are vastly influenced
by my experiences of the last 6 months.  In that time, I've worked for Stouffer
Foods - a LARGE company which in itself is a tiny piece of an even LARGER
company; Cumulus Computer Corp. - a small but growing company doing everything
wrong, it seems, yet still surviving; and Power Brands, Inc. (where I am now) -
an even smaller, growing company seemingly doing everything right.  It makes for
interesting comparisons."

"And for the record, scraping the bottom of my brain for ideas from that 
original post on education, I *DON'T* believe having everyone study business
will solve anything.  In fact, I can't believe anyone seriously propsed such
a stupid idea!  We all have our strengths and weaknesses and should all be
able to use educational opportunities to develop the weaknesses and fortify
the strengths.  Now if you want to talk problems in education, look at the
family..."

The soapboxes are zingging toward her at such a high velocity, that she
promptly shuts up with a smile, adding only, "Hey...my parents are both
high school teachers...how can I *not* hve an opinion?!"

The milk finally finsihed, her glass arc's toward the fireplace.

		"To diversity - to seeing and preserving everyone's
		 strengths and to honestly identifying and working 
		 to improve everyone's weaknesses."

<< CRASH >>

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TOOTHPICK (-:                      "When two cultures interfaced, who was
In RL - Debbie Petersen             to say which one was right and which wrong?
(216) 656-3161                      They merely had different viewpoints."
dapetersen@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu              - Piers Anthony -
dapetersen@miavx1.bitnet                        _Crewel Lye_
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