Cherry Sudartono
Prof. M. Siegel
CPA041 – Paper #4
OBSERVE, REFLECT, ANALYZE, SYNTHESIZE, and EVALUATE! (ORASE!)

One situation that I found, though simple and humdrum that it is, which I was
able to observe my co-worker communicating difficultly in a situation in my
internship, was when there was a phone call from advertising companies calling
our office offering products and services, one of my co-worker firmly said “I am
sorry, but we are not interested currently, thank you for offering” to her caller and
she just hung up. Like I wrote before, this situation is really normal, however I
remembered feeling so awestruck by the way she conducted herself and delivered
her rejection. Personally, I think this is because the way of my upbringing, I was
thought to be rude to people, and to reject someone in the face like that, certainly
is top of my not-to-do list. I think the technique she used in solving this difficulty
was delivering her points of view clearly and firmly. I think I learned that
sometimes we have to be able to say no firmly, or else we might end with
something that we might not want.

One quite difficult situation, which I have encountered in my internship, in which
I believe that I have succeeded in communicating effectively, was when during
one of our company’s event, I was given the task to man the registration desk.
That was the first time that I have given such a duty, but I think I did a decent job
– until two men came to me and asked if they could attend the event. This event
was listed on our website as free of charge but only to members of our
organization. These two men came and tried to lie their way in by saying that
they’re our members, when I checked the roster list, I was sure that these two men
were faking it, so I told them to leave, at first they refuse to leave and demanded
Cherry Sudartono
Prof. M. Siegel
CPA041 – Paper #4
to be given admission. However, after I firmly told them that I’m sorry but I
certainly can’t let anybody who’s not our members into the event, they have to
take their leave because they realized that if they continue on, they were just
going to make a big scene of themselves. I think I have taken a leaf out of my
colleague’s book and learned to clearly and firmly voice my rejection. Besides
that, I was also calm and composed when I was dealing with these men. I learned
that people would give me respect and listen to my opinions and orders if I am
clear and firm in delivering my view.

One situation in which I felt that I wasn’t able to communicate as effectively as I
would have liked on my internship was when I was told to make a fillable digital
pdf type file forms. This form has to be able to be filled online so that people
don’t have to print it out on paper and fill it and process it manually. At the time, I
was not aware of the software that has this capability. Besides that, I was never
trained on how to do this particular task. Maybe out of shyness, or maybe I just
don’t want my supervisor to know that I was incapable of such task, I stayed quiet
and didn’t ask for any help or guidance. In the end, I spent hours on doing the
task, without really knowing and making any progress whatsoever. When my
supervisor came around in hope to find a finished product, I hadn’t even started.
My supervisor confessed that she was disappointed with me that I didn’t want to
ask, she said that the whole reason of the internship was for me to learn, and what
other way was there for me but to ask and to experience first hand. I learned from
my mistake and from then on, I always asked if there were tasks that I wasn’t
quite sure of.
Cherry Sudartono

Prof. M. Siegel
CPA041 – Paper #4
Some of the interpersonal/communication skills that I want to develop further is
firstly, active listening skills, the ability to ask the right question, the ability to not
jump into conclusion. The steps that I need to take for me to develop these skills
include interacting more with people, especially my supervisor and my colleagues
to learn more about how to interact professionally. Besides that I also need to try
and actively listen to people and learning how to anticipate their communication
cues. Lastly, I need to learn to communicate with people freeing myself from any
bias thoughts. I would definitely share these objectives with my supervisor and
co-workers because they are a helpful bunch of people and I know that they will
gladly assist me in learning what I want to learn.