Review the information illustrated below and answer the following questions:
Q1. Analyze the situation in the case study: Heidi High, Heidi Low
Q2. Summarize how management handled the situation and describe better methods of managing the ethical conduct of those employees presented
Q3. Relate how a professional demeanor and actions would have affected ethical decision-making and customer service.
Q4. Determine how the actions of the employees and the managers affected the financial position of the company
Q5. Suggest how a defined set of ethical management practices could have resulted in better financial management.
Case Study: HEIDI HIGH, HEIDI LOW
Gabe was on his break Friday evening and had gone to the lounge for a plate of Chef Eric’s wiener schnitzel that John’d been whining about earlier. Everybody was always running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They all needed to chill out. Not take everything so seriously. Especially John. Like with that creep from the permits department or whatever. Poor guy was gonna die of a heart attack if he didn’t get his shorts unbunched. They could all learn a thing or two from Gabe. It was yoga, actually. Three mornings a week he went to yoga class at the gym. That’s how Gabe managed to keep everything in perspective. The mind and the body were inseparable.
They were one.
Chef Eric brought the plates out himself. It was the end of his day and he’d finally get to try the schnitzel he’d been making over and over for 8 hours. Gabe couldn’t imagine making wiener schnitzel all day and then eating it. You’d think it’d get kind of sickening after about the 400th plate. At any rate, Chef Eric came over with the righteous vittles and sat down across from him at the table usually set aside for employees. Gabe looked up and smiled. Not so much at Eric but more so at the prospect of eating that wonderful pounded veal. It smelled fantastic! The mind and the body were one with yoga, and both needed Eric’s special breading to prosper.
He contemplated the plate in front of him and fanned the aroma into his nostrils. He hadn’t eaten since that morning before work. He was ravenous.
“Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “That smells vundiba! Thanks for the weiner schnitzel!” Yeah, no problem,” Eric grumbled, “but don’t call me schnitzel.”
“What?”
Just then Gabe’s radio crackled and it was Ellen at the front desk.
“Gabe! Come in, please!”
Gabe rolled his eyes. He complained to the schnitzel: “Aw, man! I should never take this stupid radio when I’m going for dinner!”
Eric sliced a triangle of schnitzel and forked it into his mouth. Nice texture, pleasant, unassuming flavor. He’d gotten the recipe from his grandfather on his mother’s side. Grandpa Laszlo, from Hungary. Guy was crazy as a loon and had swore he’d seen two-headed space aliens on at least three occasions while boating on Lake Powell, but he sure knew how to make schnitzel.
“You gonna answer that?” he inquired of Gabe, pointing at the radio with his now empty fork.
Gabe picked up the offensive black troll. He closed his eyes briefly and tried to picture his body and mind as one, oblivious to the siren’s call of schnitzel.
“Yeah, Ellen. I copy. What’s up?”
“Gabe, you need to come back to the desk. We have a problem.” Yoga. Schnitzel.
“I’m eating dinner. Can’t it wait?”
“It’s that promotion thing Heidi sent out. The one for the weekend rates?
You gotta see it, Gabe. I got a guest trying to make reservations on the phone right now. I’ve got them on hold.”
Gabe looked at the schnitzel and could sense it getting cold.
“I don’t get it, Ellen. Just take the stinkin’ reservation. You want me to hold your hand or somethin’?”
“No, you don’t understand. There was some kind of printing error. This guy called and said he wanted to book a room for that weekend, y’know, and I quoted him the price . . . and he said it was wrong. It’s seventy-five a night, y’know, and he said it was seven-fifty. So, I’m thinkin’ he’s crazy, y’know, but I go take a look at one of our copies of the promo, and . . .”
The transmission got kind of choppy all of a sudden like maybe Ellen was crying. Gabe had been meaning to talk to her lately about that yoga and how it might be something that she could benefit from. Ellen was always getting emotional about one thing or another. She just needed to chill out. Take an aspirin or something.
“Just calm down, Ellen. What’s wrong with Heidi’s promo?”
“He’s right! They must’ve misplaced a decimal point or something! It says $7.50 a night for the weekend! The suites! What’re we gonna do?”
Gabe’s stomach twisted up in a knot and his eyes almost popped out of his head. That Heidi! The moron’d messed up! Not seventy-five dollars a night, not seven hundred and fifty dollars a night. Seven dollars and fifty cents a night for the weekend, in the suites no less, printed out and sent to every customer on their mailing list!? Oh, my God! Eight hundred and ninety-some-odd copies mailed out to every blooming customer on their mailing list!?
WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE WE GONNA DO?!!