McDonald's

As a student of international programs here at Texas A&M I can understand the offensiveness of the new commercial. Normally when there is an ethnicity to a commercial it is to draw that ethnicity's attention. In this case, the chinese people were offended rather than drawn to the commercial. McDonald's should expect to lose business considering that there are stores in China and from the Chinese people around the world. There will also be people, especially here in the US, that will boycott McDonalds for a time due to the offense of an entire ethnicity. I believe that they could have easily avoided this by doing focus group testing with different ethnicities, thinking that it might be seen as targeting towards them. I believe that the advertising company did not do their homework, the Chinese see their customs of prayer and thanks as very important and full of honor. By making light of those customs in this commercial the honor of the Chinese people has been insulted. I believe that "modern" is just an excuse and if nobody had said anything than there would have been no title or classification to the commerical. I think any company, especially one that centers around inter-cultural societies, has to be very careful of stereotypes. Specific ethnicities should not be picked out for their stereotypes, especially when they are very serious ones.

Listserv

When dealing with a listserv in todays world everything has to be scanned for political correctness. When I do anything with an organization it goes through at least two proofreaders for revisions before going out to the general public on the listserv. When thinking of who could possibly read those listserv mails especially during growing collaborations with areas that may be sensative to the materials contained, I would think twice before sending anything to the whole group. Those specific emails given as samples in the prompt were very inappropriate to be sent over the listserv, they should have been done in a private email to the 2 other supervisors. On simple principle anything that could be considered offensive should not be mentioned and was uncalled for. As supervisors and policy developers they should also be looking at the example they set and the face that they are puting on the company by their actions and words. I think a public listserv response is required but not so chastising that firing would be required. I also think that their positions should be reconsidered thinking that as policy makers they may need to have some retraining as to what is actually appropriate. I would not react differently if the company was not dealing with a cooperative firm in a sensative environment. As people we should be considerate of our fellow employees and their situations.

Mutual Accountability

I normally dread group projects. I am assigned one a semester, generally. I don't like them for the specific reason that I end up running them because I think the project should be the best it can be, not just average to get an average grade. I understand that everybody should put forth the same amount of effort, but I hardly ever see that happen. I know that the simple fact of it is that everybody has different priorities. If my priority is to get the best grade in my english class, seeing as it is my only class, it will most likely be a high priority. I will tend to put my best foot forward here because I am not stretched between too many group projects and other tests or classes to study for.

I know that this time I am trying my best not to take over. I want to let others have a bigger part but I know as it gets closser to the end of the semester I will become more frantic and more perfectionistic.

Forwarding E-mail

When I think of E-mailing and the issues faced with forwarding e-mails I always think about patient and client confidentiality. I grew up surrounded by patient and client confidentiality, because of the medical and science fields that I have been surrounded with. I take confidentiality very seriously and I know that as e-mail has grown as a means of common communication very strict rules have been implemented to deal with confidentiality issues. If I, as a professional, was sent an e-mail with privileged information I would take the time to delete the sensitive data or re-write the information omitting what was inappropriate. Even if the e-mail was sent to my boss; they may not or do not need to know everything that was contained within especially in such an unsecured arena as cyber space. I also know that in most of the fields that I would work in or expect to work in, the IT person is not doing a very good job with managing the internet access if while hitting "reply" you automatically respond to all. If something did get "reply to all" that shouldn't have in the medical field I could expect to be fired. If it had to do with negative comments on another employee I would expect to have severe disciplinary actions taken. The internet is not something to gossip over or share personal information; it has too many uncontrollable variables. I don't think the people who grew up not immersed in the technology really understand what all can happen when something goes wrong with the internet. I do also understand that being fired or disciplinary actions taken is a worst case scenario but I also understand that if the e-mail dealt with how to tell Patient A that you have to turn in a positive AIDS report to the state the state, the hospital, everyone in your department, and you could be sued. So I don't see a point in not considering the worst case scenario, I think better safe than sorry when it comes to my job and my livelihood.

In the news lately

Something interesting about the news lately is the fact that only a week after Hurricane Rita and all is pretty much passed from the American mind. They say that today's youth has a short attention span; well I think it is not just the youth. I think the youth learned it from their parents. I know that as a kid we never left the house and didn't buy anything, whether it was groceries, a new movie, or video game. It is kind of a sad state of affairs, but I know knothing will change. Until something drastic happens, like the world running out of oil for gasoline or another worldwide catastrophe like the plague. People around the world are going to continue into the demise of the materialistic world. I will fully admit that I do get caught up in it myself and I am part of the problem. I also realize that there is no way to get away from it, unless you are willing to be a hermit. When becoming a hermit though, you must remove yourself from society which means you have no way of making an impact on the outside world. Thus if you are part of society you are part of the problem, and if you are not part of society you aren't doing anything to help fix the problem.