Weekly Writing 9.29 assn.

Weekly Writing 9.29 – Action/Revision Plan & Reflection Mini-Essay


This week’s Writing Assignment will serve a dual purpose. While you will be asked to examine what your plans are for revising your rough draft of the Presenting Negative Info assignment, you will also give thought to the process you went through (and are currently as well) in completing this assignment. As you are writing your revision plan, take into consideration the critiques of your peers, myself (I will respond briefly to your rough drafts on the discussion board by Wednesday 10.1), as well as readings from your textbook (specifically those in Part 1 “Process as Well as Product” and a revision self-assessment handout I will attach to this assignment sheet.

For this mini essay—one part reflection, one part planning—please organize it in the following parts:

1. A reflection about the process you engaged in while writing the rough draft of this assignment, including any pre-writing “thinking” or planning you went through, as well as what you saw as the most important characteristics a successful “Negative Info” letter needs to have.
2. A plan for the revision of this assignment. Self-assessment being a key component of the revision process, give some thought to strongest and weakest aspects of your draft, where the holes are, how you might revise to better suit purpose and audience, and how both style and content will be effected by this process.

How you organize this essay, and what you emphasize, is up to you. Overall I would like you to muster somewhere in the range of 1000 words for the assignment; how you divvy those words up is up to you. As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me through FerrisConnect or at thomaj21@ferris.edu.

Remember:
Action plan/reflection DUE: Sunday 10.5
Negative Info Assn. (FINAL DRAFT) DUE: 10.12

Online Resources

Along with the Purdue OWL site that the prof receommends (which I've used numerous times over the years), here are a couple others:

http://www.businesswritingblog.com/ is a writing blog with a lot of real-world examples and writing advice. There were some similarities between this site and some of the examples in our book.

http://www.managementhelp.org/commskls/cmm_writ.htm is a FREE management library (the link takes you to the writing section). Each subject provides numerous resources just a click away.

Jerrid

Pertinent sites

Here are a couple of my favorites:

First, for any writing intensive class, this is a great link to the resources and suggestions of a wonderful writing instructor, Diana Hacker, whose site has helped me through many years of writing assignments, which varied in topic, length, and intensity.

http://www.dianahacker.com/ has links to all of the various writing resources of which she was a part, as well as an online style guide for MLA, APA and other required styles.

Second, BusinessWeek's online article archive, www.businessweek.com, which is full of links from BusinessWeek itself, as well as articles from a myriad of other publications. A must for all business related reading, as well as for any article writings one may run into throughout the pursuit of a business based degree.

This site is the Free Management Help. I have been using this site for awhile. It has helpful tools on management, business writing, free online training, peer groups, periodicals, and variety great business information. This site is especially handy when you are in a position of management and have question but not sure who to turn too. I have used this site for "coaching" and they gave great advise. A+ site

http://www.managementhelp.org/

Next, is the New York Times business section. This is the world's newspaper and has the most current business information and reports. It has great blogs and article collections from the topics of personal money to shifting careers. Their small business section is an amazing asset for new or start-up companies. A+ site, too!

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html

Online Writing Resources

Here are a few sites that I found with writing tools and help guides.

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/resources.html

Harvard Writing Center site that has a lot of helpful essays on grammar techniques and guides.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

Capital College Foundation site with lots of tools and self quizzes to help with grammar skills.

http://www.careerbuilder.com/

Career Builder is a great site for making and listing resume's and also finding lots of gob listings across the country.

Handy websites

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
http://members.cox.net/rlenc/writing/writing.htm
http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/WritingSkills.htm

Here are some websites I found pertaining to grammar and writing. I was surprised (not sure why) at the number of sites that came up when I googled grammar and writing. All kinds of handy tools for those of us that are grammatically challenged!

Online Assignment- Meghan Meekhof

This website is a good one to learn about 'common mistakes and tricky choices' when writing. You can click on the alphabet grid or any of the links below and it will take you to another page to help you learn about that topic. If you are uncertain about what word to use (example good or well) you can click on it and it will give you examples of how to use each word. It gives examples of correct and incorrect ways to use that word.
http://englishplus.com/grammar/mistcont.htm#G


A website I go to for Joblists is http://www.collegegrad.com/
This website gives a wide variety of a list of jobs, and for people that are just graduating college. I find that most sites usually want a few years experience and this one, from what I have looked at, doesnt usually need any experience on the job postings. There is a wide variety of things to look at on this website.

Meghan

Assignment week four

This is a cool website that is a english and grammer blogger. It gives you tricks and hints for English writing and grammer. Also the software comes with a free grammer checker and style checker. Also gives you templates for writing letters, emails, or whatever.

http://www.whitesmoke.com/whitesmoke-blog.html

This website is pretty cool offering a look at how english is the language of business all over the world and how important it is to be proper to all who is reading. The internet has shrunk the world down to the size of your computer screen. This website helps anyone building a website or just needs knowledge of proper english formats and the importance of proper form which was something we were just discussing.

http://www.whitesmoke.com/whitesmoke-blog.html

Andrew Fuelling

Website Assignment

This website helps with citations for several different types of writing including MLA, and APA which are the two most common types of writing expected for college students. It makes it really easy to credit information sources,by picking the writing format and filling in the blanks. Then you have a citation, and you can also use it to check yourself and make sure you are doing it correctly.

http://citationmachine.net/index.php?page=about


This website has a forum that with nearly 6,000 members and an active critique section. There’s also a job board, a section of writing games, and a resource center.
mywriterscircle.com

Website Assignment-Casie Brink

This website provides information about all types of business writing. It gives advice and examples on how to have effective business writing. This website can help workplace writers and people writing during the job search process. This website provides information on writing memos to email etiquette. This site also provides help with business writing styles, language, and research. Overall this website can help writers in a workplace.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/681/01/

This website provides strategies for writing persuasive letters. It talks about the purpose of a persuasive letter. Pre-writing questions that should be answered before a persuasive letter is written. Strategies that should be used when writing a persuasive letter. And revision tips that should be followed once the letter is written. This website also offers examples of persuasive letters that can be viewed to get a better idea on how to write one.

http://www.washburn.edu/services/zzcwwctr/persuasive-ltrs.wm.txt

While surfing the net.....

I found the website to be of interest and hopefully you all will to. The website focuses on grammar usage and the writing process and there are an abundance of self-tests and quizzes that all provide instant feedback. Writer's block, tone and, research papers are a few areas that instantly jumped out at me. So, take the time and check this website out! I believe it's a lot of cool info on the site.
http://grammar.about.com

This is also an interesting site... It gives free samples of different types of business letters and step by step to take when writing these different letters. The website also offers the letter writing software.
http://www.writeexpress.com/sample-business-letters.html

History website assignment

This site goes over the difference between formal and informal writing. The site also includes topic such as business letters, resume writing, and research proposal writing. This site seems very helpful and related to this course.
http://www.word-mart.com/html/formal_and_informal_writing.html

This site is about writing negative messages. It gives information on what to do and what to think about when writing a negative message to someone.
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bowman/badnews.html

Presenting Negative Info Assignment 9.22

Presenting Negative Information – Week 4 (9.22)

Assignment: (A reminder: we are switching the positive and negative message assns. on the syllabus)

Using what you have learned so far, from your readings and the writing assignments, about strategies for writing “reader-oriented” letters, as well as conveying negative info, or “bad news”, and the sound principles of communication, write a fully thought-out letter responding to one of the following cases.

For the purposes of this assignment, you will find small groups listed during this week on the discussion board. When you have finished your letter, please attach or paste your rough draft letter to the group that you are a part of. Beginning early next week, you will be assigned peer workshop criteria.


Case A: Who Will Pay the Return Shipping? You are the head of accounting at Lux Electronics, and you have a mess on your hands. Ted Langstrom who was in charge of purchasing as well as accounts receivable and payable really screwed up. No wonder Bill Tidewater, the CEO, fired him for his disorganization and high order rate. You discovered on Thursday, July 13, that you needed 200 gallons by Monday, July 17, of a special variant of an acid, Lathacor, used in the processing of metal for some of your finer electronic parts. Ted, the idiot, ordered 2,000 gallons in order #74532 from Florax Chemical, a specialty chemical company. They had to ship the chemical from Florida, the only location they had it in storage to your Holland, MI, factory. Worse, because this was hazardous material, they had to use a special truck and pay extra fees. Since this had to be trucked quickly, they had to pay the trucking company overtime. At $50 a gallon, they had indicated over the phone when Ted was confirming the order that, similar to other good faith orders, they would cover the cost of shipping to Michigan. When they arrived, however, Ted’s mistake was discovered. Lux just didn’t have any place to store the extra chemicals. In fact, the 200 gallons were more than enough for the next four months. After several frantic phone calls, a disgruntled John Markum agreed to take back the excess gallons, but furiously told Ted that Lux would have to pay the return shipment, and Ted agreed, glad to get rid of the problem. Now you have the Invoice for the order on your desk with a charge of $10,000 for the Lathacor and an additional charge of $1,432 for the return shipment of the excess to Florida with the attached charge from Florida Trucking to Florax Chemical verifying this charge. While you don’t think $1,432 is too much given the total dollar volume with Florax, the CEO Bill Tidewater absolutely refuses to pay it. “They have always covered shipping, and they agreed to cover shipping this time.” As a hard as you tried to explain why you think Lux should pay the return shipment, Bill has been adamant. “If they want to do business with us,” Bill shouted, “they can cover the cost of the shipping. What do we do with them anyway, a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of business.” You didn’t want to correct Bill but last year, your first year of operation, you did $72,345 worth of Business with Florax and you are growing. Bill insists that you pay only the cost of the chemical order and that you write to John Markum with the return invoice and the payment explaining why Lux will not pay for the shipment. “It’s there problem,” he shouted. You, however, know you will need to handle this very carefully. You really need to keep Florax as your supplier since they have all the chemicals you need, deliver them promptly when you need them, and at the best price in the industry. If you lose Florax as a supplier, you know, even if it is unfair, Bill will take it out on you. Sometimes working in business can just be very hard.

Case B There goes all that work! You work for IT at Ferris State University and have been put in charge of the conversion of Ferris from WebCT to Vista, a Blackboard project. Okay, none of this is Ferris fault. Blackboard Inc. purchased the company that owned WebCT and is fazing out the product. As a result, Ferris will have to change to Vista by Winter Semester 2007, just a few months away. You have been working hard at your end to get Vista up and running. Here is the glitch. While a lot of WebCT content and functions will transfer to Vista fairly easily, it isn’t going to be an easy process. Bulletin functions will be different, automatic Quiz banks may not transfer well, web content page may not all translate, and links will be broken. While there are some similarities, there will also be differences. Obviously you can’t transfer every faculty member’s course from WebCT to Vista. You have a full time job just managing the installation of Vista. The faculty are going to have to take charge of this. They will need to backup their files. Well, that is easy, they simply need to use Program Controls and under Manage Course follow the backup. Unfortunately, most will not remember that once they backup their course they still have to save it as a zip file to their hard drive using the same function. The backups will be gone come January 15, 2007, and if they haven’t saved their backups they will lose everything. You can hear the complaining now. Once Vista is launched, they are going to have to take responsibility for pulling together their courses. First they will need to e-mail you by December 1, 2006, the list of every course, including the section number for the courses, that they will be offering as a Vista supported course Winter 2007. You won’t get much Christmas vacation as you create the Vista framework for all of those course. But you aren’t doing more than creating the basic Vista template. The faculty are just going to have to upload their files, and it won’t always work. But you don’t really know what will work and what will not work in the transition. You can hear the complaints. They should e-mail you at tech support when they have problems or call #5423. Obviously you won’t answer their e-mails or phone calls; but you have a number of great students working tech support who will try to help. You know already, however, that a lot of faculty courses will just have to be rebuilt, even if it did take hundreds of hours to create the course in the first place. Worse, the Vice President of Academic Affairs is breathing down your neck. He has insisted that you write to the faculty about the situation. Fine. But then he insisted, “Make certain you write to them so that they remain committed to using Web support for their classes. Students like it, and it is an important part of our image. Heck, more faculty at Ferris use Web support in their class than any other comparable institution.” Enough avoidance you recognize as you sit down to write this difficult message.



Case C Badly Honda. You work as a customer service representative for Honda Corporation at its Marion, Ohio, headquarters. You received the following letter requesting $300 reimbursement and the attached letter to the service manager. Obviously, it is your responsibility to re-establish this customer’s goodwill toward Honda. Unfortunately, you cannot offer the $300 reimbursement. Copies of his bills confirm his claims. Since the dealerships and their service departments are independent of the parent corporation, you cannot reimburse someone for shoddy service. Such reimbursements need to come from the individual dealership. You are very limited in what you can do since the problem is not with the car itself. You will want to think hard about what you could do reasonably in this situation that would be received positively by the customer. Any action that would cost Honda money would need to be approved by your supervisor, me. Please write to the customer.

Roger Helfner. 1328 Ramble Road. Grand Rapids, MI. 49505
Customer Service
Honda Corporation
32 Honda Plaza
Marion, OH 38562
I would like to request a $450 reimbursement for the poor service I received at Badly Honda service center in Grand Rapids. My letter to the Badly Service Manager will explain the reason for my dissatisfaction.
As the enclosed bills confirm, I made the following payments to Badly Service for the work they completed on my 1999 Honda Civic.
· Replaced timing belt $660
· 120,000 mile service $340
· Front break repair $240
· Replaced CV joints $450

Since I was repeatedly misinformed about the CV joint problem and had to make repeated trips to the service center, only to discover that they had failed to adequately repair my vehicle, I believe I should be reimbursed for the cost of the CV joint replacements.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Roger Helfner

Roger Helfner. 1328 Ramble Road. Grand Rapids, MI. 49505
Tim Nolo, Service Manager
Badly Honda
1314 Craymore, S.W.
Grand Rapids, MI 49513
Dear Mr. Nolo:
Badly Honda continues to offer the worst service I have ever experienced, service so poor that it is close to dangerous. Indeed, after we purchased our Honda Civic in 1999, the terrible service we received was the major reason we did not buy another Honda. Since then, we have owned a variety of models and used a number of service centers, all of them excellent. When we returned Badly for our 120,000 mile service on our 99 Civic, I assumed that the service had improved. It has not; if anything, the impossibly poor service has gotten worse.
We made an appointment to have the timing belt on our Civic changed, to have the 120,000 mile service, and to have a shaking investigated. We dropped off the car at 7:30 A.M. and were told the car would be done approximately by 2:00 P.M. We called at 2:00 P.M. but no one seemed able to either tell us the status of our vehicle or a completion time. At 5:00 P.M. we needed to fulfill a dinner obligation. After the dinner obligation, we stopped at the service center only to be informed that our front breaks were warped and needed repairs. We authorized the repairs and returned home. I do not begrudge the delay for the extra repairs; however, any competent service would have determined the initial problem early in the repair process to get effective authorization for the repair in a timely manner.
The subsequent events underscores the incompetence of your service department. The next day we were called and informed that the breaks were fixed and that we could pick up the car. I paid the bill, now over $1,000, and carefully read it. Almost unnoticeable at the bottom of the bill was an indication that the right CV Boot was split open and that the left side had deep cracks. No service representative told us about this potentially serious problem, and if I had not read the bill with unusual care, we would not have known about the problem until the axle was damaged. I spoke to a service representative who simply put his hand under the car and immediately agreed that it was broken. How could the mechanic have missed this problem in initially servicing the car? I asked how safe it was to drive the car with this flaw. Initially the representative indicated that it was safe to drive, but when pushed for an explanation, he indicated that it could seriously damage the axle. We contracted to have both CV joints replaced. The next day we were called and told our car was done. Because I distrust Badly Honda and since the bill was less than expected, once again I checked with the mechanic who made the repairs. Once again Badly Honda had failed in its contracted responsibilities and had only replaced the broken CV joint and had failed to replace the cracked joint. Again, the problem was dismissed. I asked about the cracks and was told "that the joint might last until Chirstmas. We might not know if it broke before the axle was damaged. For the third time, we returned home from Badly without our car while the cracked CV joint was replaced.
Even though we were spending over a $1,500 in repairs, we were treated not as valuable customers but as a nuisance for simply asking for the service we initially requested. More alarming, however, is that the poor communication by your service department could have resulted in either serious damage to the vehicle or, worse, a life threatening accident.
Your service letter indicates clearly that you have no interest in improving the quality of your department. You do not, as do all other service departments with which I have dealt, provide a pre-addressed, stamped survey questionnaire that asks for vital customer satisfaction data. While you claim that "Your complete satisfaction is our goal!" it is clear that you do not act on that goal. Given Badly Honda’s disregard for the satisfaction or the safety of its customers, I will forward a copy of this letter as well as copies of the bills with a cover letter to the appropriate representatives in Honda and to the Better Business Bureau.
You can be sure that, thanks to the incompetence of your service department, the new car we purchase to replace my wife’s 99 Civic will probably not be a Honda and certainly will not be purchased from Badly Honda.

Sincerely,
Roger Helfner


Case D Tax Problem. You work for Tax Management Co., 353 Ottawa Avenue, Grand Rapids, MI 49503. (616) 234-7862. During the mid-April rush at tax time last year, Hilda Black phoned to ask whether she could roll over funds from one retirement account into another without paying taxes on any gain. You answered that such a rollover was not considered a tax event, as long as the transaction was completed in 60 days. You also informed her that when she eventually draws out the funds to supplement her retirement income, she will pay taxes on the portion that represents interest earned on the account.
Today Ms. Black (622 Park NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505) has phoned to say that she is being billed by the Internal Revenue Service for $1,309.72 in penalties and back interest because she failed to declare interest income earned when she cashed in ‘those bonds that I told you about last April.’ You explain that bonds are not the same thing as an IRA. One difference, unfortunately, is that people are required to pay taxes the following April on any interest income or capital gains earned by cashing in bonds. “But wait a minute,” Ms. Black went on, “the bonds were for retirement, and I sank the money back into long term retirement bonds. The company even calls them retirement bonds.” You tried to explain to her that regardless of what the security firm calls them, bonds are not the same as IRA’s and are taxable.
Your client is not satisfied. She demands “something in writing” to show her lawyer.” Her position is that you misled her, so you should pay the penalties and interest charges, which, of course, are getting larger every day. She is willing to pay the actual tax on the transaction. “After all,” she insisted, “I never said IRA. It is your job as a professional to ask the right questions. If you had asked me, I would have explained that they were bonds. Heck, the information should be somewhere in my file.” Frankly, you recognize that she does have a point. If it had not been a phone transaction and you hadn’t been so busy, you probably would have taken the time to more carefully review her situation and offered her better advice. Still, you cannot start the precedent of paying the penalties and interest whenever there is a confusion. You would like to blow her off completely; however, she has been a reliable customer. Worse she is really well connected at the Cascade Country Club which has been a considerable source of business. “Boy,” you think, “I better be careful on this one since my letter will be read by a lawyer. I certainly don’t want to admit liability. But I don’t want to generate ill-will either.”

Case E Longwood Country Club. You work as Head Pro at Longwood Country Club, an exclusive club in Nedik, MA, a 20 - 30 minute drive outside of Boston, MA. This 18-hole club is fairly attractive (you can imagine your own features as long as they are reasonable). Your employer is the owner of the country club, Bob Packwood. Six months ago Bob Packwood had asked you to increase the number of private lessons you offered to the club’s more prestigious members. At the time because of staff cut backs, you were swamped. You had to manage the Pro Shop, the course maintenance, and some of the other pros. In a cost cutting move earlier in the year, the club did not replace one pro who could offer lessons or a separate manager for the Pro Shop. While you did have one golf pro in the shop and an intern, you found that the shop was eating up a lot of time. There is a crew and a manager for that crew who takes care of course management; but, unfortunately, they had a tendency to be very sloppy. In fact, in an inspection you found that the fairways were too long and there were indentations where the old holes on the greens had been. Members had complained to you about the condition of the course. You recommended to Mr Packwood that he make Tim Sullivan a manager of the pro shop. Tim Sullivan, a graduate of Grand Valley State University’s PGM program, had been pretty effective as an intern. He was great with customers and did terrific club repairs, but his management skills hadn’t been tested. Still you recommended that Mr. Packwood hire Mr. Sullivan to manage the Pro Shop. He was reluctant to take Mr. Sullivan on because of the additional $10,000 a year cost, but you finally convinced him. At first, the change was helpful and gave you the free time to offer the lessons that Mr. Packwood required of you. However, as the season wore on Tim Sullivan’s performance has steadily deteriorated. He just can’t seem to learn basic management skills. You have mentored him, repeatedly offered instructions and suggestions, warned him twice verbally, and warned him twice in writing. He is very sloppy at maintaining records, forgets to order supplies and equipment, and orders items that a long history has demonstrated do not sell well at Longwood. He is so rude in his treatment of the other pro and the occasional part time help that they have all threatened to quit. Worse still he has begun to get a little surly with some of the members. You have to admit it; you made a mistake in hiring him, and you would like Mr. Packwood’s permission to fire him. However, you can’t afford to simply take over the management of the Pro Shop yourself and continue to offer lessons, direct tournaments, and fulfill the rest of your responsibilities. You would like to begin the process of hiring someone experienced running a pro shop. You believe that it will cost $30,000 to hire someone to run the pro shop on a full time basis. Write to Mr. Packwood asking for permission to fire Tim Sullivan and to begin the process to hire a full time manager for the Pro Shop.

Writing a Persuasive Message Assignment

Writing a Persuasive Message – Week 3 (9.15)

To get readers to act, to provide them with enough information so they know what to do, and to answer any objections that might prevent or delay action, these are some of the purposes of persuasive writing, as many experts see it. According to Lewis, “letters reflect your attitude” and “the best way to persuade your readers to your point of view is to show them that it will be worth their while to do so.” To this end, Lewis speaks of “reader-oriented” letters.

Assignment: Paying attention to what you have read in your text (specifically Lewis (118) and Ewing (231)) and sound principles of effective communication, write a persuasive message/letter, as appropriate, in response to one of the following cases. (Length of the assignment will be determined in each instance by the individual needs of the letter/message—that is to say, length will be as long as it needs to be to be persuasive and not so long as to be over-bearing and difficult to labor through)

When you have finished writing it, please attach it to the assignment sheet as a Word.doc and turn it into the assignment dropbox. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by email through FerrisConnect or @ thomaj21@ferris.edu.

CASE A CAN YOU CHANGE THE CEO’S MIND? “Just fire them, the entire third shift, and most of first shift, too,” Bill Tidewater, the CEO and chief investor in Lux Electronics insisted in response to the excessive down time on the assembly line. In general, this has been Bill’s response for employees who have been late to work twice, for employees who have been ill, and for any perceived problems on the assembly line. You work as the Plant Manager, and frankly Bill’s policy is killing you. As a start-up company, you only pay minimum wage, and employees have to work six months before they even become entitled to health care coverage, for which they have to pay $110 a month in premiums, enough that most employees don’t request the health care benefits, probably Bill’s intention. You can appreciate Bill’s concern about the bottom line. After all, as a start-up company you still have a lot of overhead costs, even if the equipment costs have been depreciated out for the next five years, and Bill, who has sunk almost everything into this company, wants to start seeing a reasonable return on his investment. But, it is so confusing. For example, the recent down time on the assembly line is far too frequent, but it is based on equipment breakdowns that are beyond the control of workers. You have been working with the suppliers of the manufacturing equipment Milton Machines to not only repair the equipment but to fix the underlying structural problems that are resulting in such frequent breakdowns. You have convinced them to work without a fee though they refuse to admit that the breakdowns are their responsibility. Firing workers won’t solve that. Bill thinks that with Michigan’s high unemployment rate workers are readily expendable and easily replaced. However, you have been scraping the bottom of the barrel because of the poor compensation package. Many of your employees have come from Manpower and from local charity organizations; a number of them don’t speak English, and many have had a spotty work history. As far as you’re concerned, when you have had to hire new employees, they have been worse than previous employees. Heck, it takes a couple of weeks to get them trained. Your company is getting an ugly reputation as a revolving door. Those who have been late have often been late because failures in the public transportation system. Bill thinks that they should just buy cars if they want to work. Many of your workers now ride together in beat-up old cars. You get what you pay for, you shrug. You really hate disagreeing with Bill because he is usually convinced that his methods are right, but his tendency to fire workers is killing the plant. Finally you decided you had to write to Bill, which is the only way you have a chance of getting him to think the issue through and persuade him to reconsider the Fire First policy he has adopted for a more standard management model. Certainly you can’t afford to fire all of third shift and most of first shift. By the time you finished the hiring process and the training, assuming you could get the workers, the line would be down or significantly below production capacity for three weeks. He would kill you for that. Write to Bill to persuade him to adopt your policies about dismissing line workers and especially to prevent the firing of the current third and first shift.

CASE B NEGOTIATING A BETTER PAYMENT SCHEDULE Bill Tidewater, the CEO, threw a letter on your desk and shouted, “Take Care of This. But we aren’t going to be in position to pay these SOB’s for at least another 6 months.”

Computer Solutions
1432 Broadmore Avenue
Grand Rapids, MI 49505
(616) 455-3232

October 12, 2006

Lux Electronics
432 Chevron Drive
Holland, MI 49508
(616) 237-892

Dear Mr. William Tidewater:

Computer Solutions is proud of the job it did in providing you with the servers, work stations, networking systems, and software that allowed you to start your electronics manufacturing business in Grand Rapids.

As the attached invoice indicates, you agreed to pay us $64,000 for all equipment and installation within one month of the date we completed installation. This contract would provide you with one year free service on all hardware and software. Your invoice includes your signature confirming that you were satisfied that we had successfully completed installation on May 10, 2006, more than six months ago. According to our records, we gave you a copy of the invoice after you signed the confirmation of completion, and we sent a second invoice on June 5, 2006, as a reminder. Your company did not pay the invoice or respond to that invoice. We sent a letter requesting payment with a copy of the invoice to you on July 12 and called you. You indicated to us in our phone conversation that you would pay us by the first of September. It is now October, and we have received no payment.

Computer Solutions cannot provide you with any additional service until the invoice is paid in full. As soon as you pay the invoice in full, we will continue our free one-year service. To avoid court action, please pay this invoice in full within in two weeks.

We at Computer Solutions want your new business to be successful, and an important part of that success will be maintaining a positive reputation with your local vendors.

Looking forward to your timely payment and serving your computing needs,

Joan Ranklin

Joan Ranklin, Vice President of Business Relations


Over the rest of the day, you managed to talk to Bill in fragments about this situation. As CFO of the company, you know you are running in the red as you meet start-up costs. Bill has mortgaged his house to start this business, maxed out his credit cards, and taken a massive business loan from the bank, so he is not surprisingly stressed. It is hard to start a company and keep it going until it shows sustained profitability, but you really don’t need a law suit, either. Bill didn’t pick the six-month figure out of the hat, either. You have landed several major clients, and in two months the plant will be at near full capacity. By January 2009, you will begin to show your first net profit. Bill just doesn’t see where he can come up with the cash right now to pay Computer Solutions. Some companies, like the trucking company and even some of our materials suppliers would cut us off immediately if we didn’t pay their invoices, which would put us out of Business for sure. Though Bill doesn’t like it, he would be willing to pay $5,000 a month to Computer Solutions until March 2009 when we would be in a position to pay the rest of the invoice. He would prefer, however, to pay Computer Solutions in March 2009 when the company had been in black long enough to weather the cost. To pay the $5,000 a month, he and his wife would have to take some out of their own salaries which they live on and probably run up more debt somewhere else, which means interest rates and more long term cost. “You would think Computer Solutions would understand the problem start-ups face,” Bill complained. “They were one once. If we went under now, they won’t receive a dime. If they wait until we are profitable, they will have a long-term customer.” You suspect it isn’t that simple since Computer Solutions will have its own costs for equipment and employee hours; you can bet that they have no interest in carrying your debt. Still, you know a lot is at stake as you sit down to convince Computer Solutions to give you an extension on paying the overdue invoice until March 1, 2009.


CASE C MAKING THE ARTS AND LECTURE SERIES MORE INTERESTING TO STUDENTS - Ferris State University sets aside $30,000 for an Arts and Lectures series. A committee of faculty and administrators, including Mike Terry, the head of Williams Auditorium, pull together a program each year. The head of the committee is currently Dan Cronk, a professor. The $30,000 is to cover the costs not covered by ticket sales. This program includes a number of lectures by leaders in the field and performances by a number of groups. Performances this past year have included the traditional performance of The Grand Rapids Symphony. You have learned that there are several purposes for this series. The lectures are intended to be educational for students, interesting to faculty, and attractive to members of the Big Rapids community. The first obligation of the performances is to fill the house. Given that tickets must be sold to help cover the cost of the performance, the performers that are chosen are the ones that the Arts and Lectures committee believes will be well attended. Many on the committee believe that students are not willing to pay for performances in sufficient numbers. Besides, many in the community have decided that the University has a responsibility to be a cultural center for the Big Rapids community and bring performances that would be of interest to that community. As one faculty member of the committee put it, “This is an Arts and lecture series, not student entertainment unlimited. We should bring culture to campus, not more popular junk.” Most would agree that the performances should have an educational and cultural value. However, several years ago an attempt was to make the performances very educational, bringing performances like the “Chinese Opera” to the area rather than the standard “Nutcracker.” The Big Rapids community and the administration did not like that approach either. The performances, they decided needed to be suitable to the Big Rapids community.
As a result, most students have little interest in the Arts and Lectures series. Few attend, and those who attend usually only do so because they are required to do so by a class. Write to the committee to persuade the members to bring in some performances that would be of more interest to students. Be specific about the kinds of performances that might be of interest. Be conscious of the concerns of the committee and the University. Recognize that many believe students have other avenues, such as Entertainment Unlimited, to bring acts to Ferris that students would like to see.

CASE D You work for Rathwell, a company that manufactures a variety of automated systems. The president of the company, Angela Rathwell, has been very aggressive in developing the company but isn’t very good at or very interested in human resources issue. She pays what she needs to pay to remain competitive in hiring and offers a reasonable but not generous HMO. You have noticed that a number of companies in the area have gone with a new plan to assist their employees in childcare and health costs. Really the plan is reasonably simple: employees sign up and designate an amount they may need for the year. The company takes the money out of their paycheck as a pre-tax deduction. Employees like this because it reduces their tax burden. The money is placed in a separate account which the employees have no control over. The employees submit their childcare, private school bills, or health costs to the human resources office and are reimbursed for the costs up to the amount they set aside. If they don’t use the money, they lose it. It actually goes back to the company. You checked around, and this is, strangely enough, legal under Section 125 of the IRS Code. They are called FSAs or Flexible Spending Accounts including Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account and Health Care Flexible Spending Account. In fact, the company would be smart, for legal reasons, to have two separate plans: a Health Care Flexible Spending Account which allows employees to set aside money for medical problems not covered by health care and a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account which sets aside money for child care. The maximum for any account can be $5000. Bob Fisher warned you, however, that Angela would be worried about the legal problems. She doesn’t want the company facing investigation by the IRS or the Justice Department. You know you have precedent on your side, but that doesn’t mean that this loophole will be permitted to go on forever. If you were doing this case, you would probably want to check on the form and legality of such plans. Carrie Fisher wanted to know if employees whose life plans changed would get really angry about losing the money. If parents had to withdraw their children from childcare, they might lose a lot of money with this plan. Also, wouldn’t this encourage employees to hurry up at the end of the year and use their health care bucks rather than lose them. Could this actually increase health care expenses and the cost of insurance? Still, as a parent of two children in childcare, you think this would be great. It would cost the company nothing, except some administrative overhead, and could be useful to some families. Write to Angela Rathwell to persuade her to adopt such a plan.

Tardiness Makes a More Memorable Entrance...

Hello all,

My name is Megan and I am a senior in the Computer Information Systems department. I hope to graduate with a BA in May. I am taking this class to fulfill my credit requirements. I am currently looking for an internship within my field. If anyone knows of any, please send me an email. Experience is everything in this era and I look forward to gaining as much of it as possible.

Thank you,

Megan

Writing--Process vs. Product

Your initial readings have concentrated on the “process of writing, or that writing itself is in fact a process. This idea is Writing 101—something we all learned in our beginning writing classes. But the concept bears revisiting, especially because writing doesn’t feel so much like a process when ultra specific instructions await you with strict deadlines and short turnaround times. Then it can feel like a product, something that needs to be churned out, finished, checked off the endless daily list of tasks. So which is it?—concern with being happy with the results, or the ability to crank out the communiqués rapid fire? Of course the answer is both.

The first step to understanding writing/communication as process is to focus on understanding or knowledge. The more you know before you begin to write, the better off you’ll be. Not really break-through information, but important to remind ourselves of. Doing the necessary research means knowing your subject matter. Understanding your audience allows you to make choices about tone, content, form. A strong grasp of your purpose is a foundation for all of the above. During the act of writing, a relatively short amount of time is actually spent writing—the rest is preparation. Though Adelstein and Elbow may have different views of what the “process” consists of and how best to proceed, both are generally preaching similar sermons. Once we break it down into its various processes, we begin to erase the “mystical” nature of writing, and turn it instead into something that is very manageable.

intro memo

My name is Jessica K, I am in my last semester at Ferris and hope to graduate in December with my Criminal Justice degree. I am 23, newly married, and have twins due sometime in November. My interest/hobbies are outdoor activities and spending time with my friend/family.
I am in this class because I need it to graduate and it was online. I hope to learn some writing/eng stuff that I can use in my professional life.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Kevin Davis and I am in my final semester as a Computer Information Systems major at the Ferris Grand Rapids campus. I hope to further improve upon my writing skills learned over the course of my college career in this course, and hopefully have some fun doing so. My interests are mostly computer related, though I do enjoy quite a bit of traveling with my wife. Her mother is from England so we have the pleasure of visiting her family over there a couple times a year, along with many trips around the country to visit friends and family that have migrated across the States.

My name is...

Hello to all...
My name is Sylvia Wallace and I'm a senior at Ferris with the plans of walking in Dec or maybe in May just all depends.... Currently I work in the CJ field with male offenders and I find the work very interesting. I believe it takes a special individual to deal with these type of people so good luck to everyone making this their career. Right now I have a busy busy schedule with working 2 jobs and going to school with a 5 year old daughter. The class is required so here I am but feel I will really get a lot from the class and look forward to talking to as many people as I can... Have a Happy Semester!!!!!!!!!

This should be interesting...

Hi there. My name is Pete. This is my first actual FSU class in the CIS consortium with Muskegon Community College. I split my waking hours between full time work as a mental health worker in a very intensive AFC home, full time student, and father of a very active, giant 3 year old, who is way too smart for his own good, at least most of the time. Life is extremely busy, and that's just how we like it around here. I look forward to working with you all in this blog format, which is completely new to me.

Hello to all

My name is Andrew Fuelling and I am in my last year and a half of the Business Administration program at Ferris Grand Rapids. I am currently a server at a great newer restaurant in Grand Rapids called The Green Well. We are an all green friendly, leed certified restaurant that promotes local, fresh, all organic ingrediants in our European style "gastro pub". I am engaged to a beautiful women and we are about 5 weeks away from the birth of your first son Blake Andrew. I am very excited and scared all at the same time. I am in this class to finish my requirement but have always enjoyed writing and done well in my other English classes. I hope to gain a better knowledge and skill of more techinical writing. After graduation my family plans on moving to southern California to be closer to family and find better employment. I look forward to furthur discussions as they is my first experience with a totally online class, good luck to all and to a good semester.

Andrew

Intro

Hello Everyone

My name is Missy Summers and I from Grand Rapids, MI. I am senior at Ferris GR and majoring in Business Administration. I have been working in banking for 9 years now. I am planning on attending Cooley Law School in fall of 2009. I bought a house downtown 2 years ago with my partner of 9 years and love it. When I have free time I am big reader, mainly fiction & history. I work a lot hours so most of my posting will occur after 10 pm. I hope to improve on my professional writing skills from this course. Good luck everyone this semester!

Hello

I'm Jerrid Velte from Grand Rapids. I'm 29, and a project engineer for a plastic injection molding company in Rockford. I've been with them for 5 years, starting as a quality engineer and promoted from there. I went back to college in 2002 and received my associates in quality engineering in 2005 and decided to get out of that field, so I'm almost done with my bachelors in business management.
I was married July 3rd of this year, and we will be moving to Port Charlotte, Florida when school is completed in about a year. We bought waterfront property there 3 months ago and can't wait to boat year-round and get away from snow!
My passion is boating. The boat is our "cottage". We're on it all weekend, almost every weekend April-October.
Well, good luck to all this semester.

Introduction-Casie Brink

Hi Everyone...my name is Casie Brink...I live in Holland, Michigan and commute to the FSU GR campus. I am taking this course because it is required for my major. I am currently going to school for my bachelors in Health Administrations and my associates in Respiratory Care. I hope to start the respiratory program in January of 2009. Even though this class is required for me to take I hope to strengthen my writing skills.

I currently work at Grand Buick Pontiac as a receptionist/cashier. I work full-time during the summer and part-time during the school year. I hope to get a job in a hospital sometime soon so I can get experience in a health care setting before I graduate.

I am currently living at home with my parents....I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend and going to my cottage when I have spare time.

I wish you all the best this semester and look forward to getting to know all of you!

Intro

I work in the finance department at Spectrum Health. The most frequent type of writing that I use would be email. I have learned that you must not interject your emotions into an email and it should be courteous and professional. I also have had to write policies and procedures, memos and guidelines. These must be precise and to the point without a lot of excess information, which can confuse the reader. I am taking this class as a requirement for the HCSA Bachelor degree program. I look forward to learning different types of business writing. I have 7 classes left to finish my degree. I am married and I am a new mom of a 3 month old and also a stepmom to a 13 year old. I am originally from Oregon and have lived in GR for 6 years, but plan on moving back to the west coast someday.

Intro

Hi, my name is Meghan. I am currently working in a restaurant but trying to get a job in the criminal justice field. I just finished an internship with Kent County Juvenile Center and absolutely loved it. This semester is my last one before I graduate!!! I am taking this class because it is required. English classes have never been a strong point for me, but realize how important it is in life so I hope to learn a lot, and will be trying very hard to do well.
I am currently trying to be a big sister in the big brother big sister program. I am very excited to be a good influence in a childs life. I love to work so I often keep very busy picking up extra shifts. Other than that I have a dog that keeps me occupied at home.

Intro

Hi, my name is Angie Kelley. I am enrolled in the Business Administration program at Ferris. I have about twelve classes to go to finish my degree. I am taking this class mainly because it is required. Writing/English is not my strength. However, I know how important clear, proper communication is so I do hope to learn as much as possible.

I work full time, am married and have three kids. This keeps me quite busy but when I do have spare time I am either at the YMCA, quilting, reading, or doing crossword and sudoku puzzles.

I have never used a blog and don't know the first thing about them but I look forward to learning all about it.