GMGT 7200 : Critical and Creative Thinking
Submission 1: A Dyadic Encounter
Submitted to: Howard Harmatz
Submitted by: Kaushik Maharshi (007965824)
Due date: January 9, 2023
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We often find ourselves learning a lot from the interactions we make with people in life.
While some interactions teach us lessons through memories, some teach us through
experiences. The following interaction happened between my manager and I during the
quarterly promotions at my workplace.
I was working as a Fraud Investigator for an international MNC when covid had struck
my city, since the nature of my work did not need me to attend office every day, we were
allowed to work from home until the restrictions that had been applied for the pandemic
could be lifted. My team of 18 people handled all the investigations for seller fraud all over
the world for the company. The work was distributed evenly among all the employees with
each employee handling approximately 30 cases a day. The pandemic had hit the city hard
and many colleagues of mine had fallen ill, our team which was 18 people strong had an
attendance of only 6 employees including me, despite the loss in the workforce, we still had
to ensure our targets had to be met, and so, each of us handled about 80 to 90 cases a day for
almost a month to ensure there was no backlog without compromising on the quality of the
work. I stepped up to the task and took responsibility for it, In addition to the extra working
hours, when my manager had fallen sick, I handled the task of communicating with the entire
team ensuring they were updated about the process and had taken up the task of assigning
cases to the ones working based on their production capabilities. I ensured that there were
no delays in the process despite the severe lack of personnel for a month.
As the other employees started feeling better, they started showing up which
lessened the pressure on the other employees, and eventually were back at our full
capabilities. During the month, that I supervised and assisted with the cases and the
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productivity, I was applauded for the excellent work I had done and was told to look forward
to an appraisal with a very high chance of a promotion.
When the time for promotions arrived, I was surprised to see that my name was not
on the list of the candidates that were considered for promotion, moreover, there was no
hike in my salary as well, feeling dejected about the same, I went to my manager to talk about
it. To my dismay, I was informed that my name was not considered as my role and all the
responsibilities, that I had taken up to ensure the process I worked in did not falter, was
something that could have been managed easily despite the loss in the workforce, and when
I asked about the appraisal, I was told that all the additional hours I had put in would not be
considered as well, moreover, we were informed that despite the work done by the team,
the team would soon be dissolved and each of us would be placed into different teams.
Astounded by the decision I asked to remain in the same team as I was well versed with the
technology and had a very good idea of the issues one would face while working, but it was
not up to my manager as the decision was already made by the higher-ups who wanted to
dissolve the team and segregate the team based on requirements in other teams.
This not only undermined all the effort that I had put in for an entire month but also
felt unfair as we had ensured a lot to make this process successful, we brought the accuracy
for fraud investigations from a low 53% to 96% within 3 months without any compromise
in the quality. We managed to get the assigned work done on time despite the huge loss in a
workload, when even our manager was not available, I had taken up the responsibility of
informing my superiors about the progress made while attending calls with the stakeholder
to ensure their demands were met. I felt bad that my efforts were in vain and that I had to
start again from scratch with a new process for a new team.
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Despite my best efforts in trying to address the issue, my contributions and efforts
had not been considered and I eventually got transferred to a new team with a different set
of responsibilities and goal set, the previous team which was dissolved was again created
with new employees to work on the same process, I believe I could have contributed much
more to the process had I been a part of it.
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