SOCIOLOGY
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Profiles
Rita:
- Rita has been leading the project from day one. She is a senior member of the marketing team and has been with the company for 15 years.
- Rita is responsible for managing multiple departments made up of diverse team members with varied backgrounds and skill sets.
- It is ultimately Rita’s responsibility to decide the direction of the project and to make sure it is finished on time and on budget.
- Although Rita values the varied opinions, experience, and perspectives of all of her team members, she tends to rely heavily on the expertise and opinion of Nimish, because they have worked together in the past, so she trusts him and gives him a lot of responsibilities.
- Rita’s constant deference to Nimish makes some of the other team members feel that she favors him.
- Rita tries to be mindful of not showing favoritism by consulting the whole team before moving forward with the conclusions she and Nimish come up with.
Nimish:
- Nimish works on the project remotely from India. He wears multiple hats, working with the marketing team by providing technical support.
- Nimish has worked for Spruce Paper Company for 5 years. He and Rita worked together at the corporate offices when he lived stateside.
- Many team members have complained to Rita that they have trouble understanding Nimish on conference calls because of his accent, and they are frustrated that he is based in India and never makes any in-person appearances.
- Rita defends Nimish’s contributions and uses the opportunity as a teachable moment to explain the importance of diversity in the workplace to her team.
- Nimish tries to address their concerns by reaching out to every member of the team to figure out how to best accommodate their various tech needs and comfort levels with preferred methods of communication.
- His effort makes it possible for each team member to communicate with him and with each other regardless of location which gives everyone an equal chance to weigh in.
Dave:
- Dave is a graduate student in marketing at a local university and has been working on this project as an unpaid intern. He hopes the internship will lead to a full-time job offer.
- Dave’s role is to assist with market research, preparing proposals and presentations, and providing administrative support for the marketing department.
- Dave pitched an idea to Rita and her bosses, which was well received, and the company implemented it.
- Dave made certain that the whole team received credit for their contributions to his presentation.
Ernesto:
- Ernesto is a retired expert in the greeting-card industry and has been called in for this project to serve as a consultant. He’s worked for a number of companies over the span of his career, but never for the Spruce Paper Company.
- Ernesto works closely with Rita and assists in providing direction on the project. He has also taken an interest in mentoring Dave by giving him goals and deadlines to meet on the project.
- Ernesto has been retired for 6 years and is in need of a refresher on current trends.
- Younger team members find it frustrating to work with Ernesto because of this. Rita is open to hearing their grievances but explains that Ernesto offers other skills and knowledge that are invaluable to the project.
- Ernesto’s key contributions have been summarizing each department’s obstacles and avoiding tensions in meetings by mitigating differences of opinion.
