? Last year, I spent three month working as an intern in a big company and work as an executive staff.
As a young and diligent intern, I worked very hard and sometimes even work late at night. There™s a regular meeting on Monday every week, which was arranged by the secretary of the chairman, Helen. Her duty was to collect the agenda items, papers, record the minutes, et al. One month after I worked in the company, I was informed to take up Helen™s work as the Monday meeting secretary because she was too busy to deal with such trifles.
I didn™t think I can do that, I came to my superior. I™m fine to undertake more duties, but the minutes are hard for me as an outsider, to take for I have no idea about the core business in the company. Could I start with only a half of the recording? Otherwise I cannot do it well. My superior agreed with me and tried to reach Helen about my difficulty and seek her assistance.
Out of surprise, Helen refused directly neither to talk nor to offer assistance. It™s your meeting now. If you fail to understand the meeting points, just go and ask the corresponding department heads. It™s the way what I did in the past. I was very sad and upset about what she said. As long as I was concern, it™s just like forcing me to do something they though valueless, while at the same time the issue was beyond my capacity without assistance. Moreover, no one in the company hadn™t asking for my decision or opinion. So I wrote an email to Helen in person, explaining my difficulty in the minutes recording.
Helen replied with indifference and said It™s your business. Everyone has to tackle his or her own obstacles and have their work down. Besides, meeting record is such an easy job.
Getting the reply, I became very angry and rush to my superior for the injustices and was about to quit. Looking back, I realize the Helen and I just influenced by culture difference, since we didn™t have similar pattern of value and behavior(p 86). I believed people should help each other while Helen thought people should be independent in work.
Also , the conflict between Helen and I just was caused by power distance. She was superior to me, so she made the decision without asking me and refused to o talk and provide t support. In her mind, I, as an inferior, should obey the order and have the work done.
There™s high power distance bor Susan prefer authorization and directive leadership . From the later part of this story, I also see the uncertainty avoidance. Helen had low uncertainty avoidance and thought meeting record is very easy and everybody can do. Even if you lack the background, you can figure out by asking other people.
It™s the behavior of embraced uncertainty and ambiguity (p 90) to me. While I had high uncertainty avoidance and felt stressful and incapable if I was asked to do something I wasn™t access to before. So, what™s the end of the story? Well, I was persuaded by my superior and take up the duty. It did happen that I cannot understand the speaker. And I could do nothing but try all means to ask the heads about the issue discussed in the meeting.
One month later, I became the one who is most familiar with the company affairs.
