Career Pathways: Fall III 2010
Worksheet 7.1 – Communication
In Trouble Role Play
#1
Place: Lab at the Mayo Clinic.
Actors: Lab technician & lab supervisor.
Situation: Part of the lab technician’s job is to keep the work area cleaned up. It has been a very busy day. Because the Clinic has placed many orders, most of the lab technicians haven’t completed their tasks of cleaning up the counters. It is nearly quitting time and you are the only one available to clean things up quickly. You are doing your best, but in your hurry, you accidentally put some of the chemicals in the wrong storage area. The lab supervisor comes in to do a daily inspection and finds your mistake. This is not good. The lab supervisor is upset about it and immediately starts complaining about your work.
Role play the conversation between the lab assistant and the lab supervisor.
#2
Place: Childcare center.
Actors: Childcare worker & the site manager.
Situation: It is nearly closing time. For the last 30 minutes, the parents of the children have been coming to pick up their children. All the children have left except one. When the father of the final child comes in, you have already prepared the child to leave and have dressed her in her jacket and put her backpack on her. But the father notices it’s not her backpack. (While dressing the other children, you must have put the wrong backpack on a different child.) Now, the father is angry because his daughter’s favorite toy that she always sleeps with at night was in the backpack that went home with the wrong child. The father complains to your manager, but you don’t hear their conversation. Now, your manager is angry at you.
Role play the conversation between the childcare worker and the site manager.

Career Pathways: Fall III 2010
Worksheet 7.1 – Communication
In Trouble Role Play
#3
Place: The hospital.
Actors: Nursing assistant, the supervising nurse, and a doctor.
Situation: Part of a nursing assistant’s job is to weigh, record, and empty urine collection sacks from catheterized patients. While doing your job, you accidentally drop the sample on the floor. It makes a big mess. While your are standing there trying to figure out how to best clean it up, your supervising nurse walks in with the patient’s doctor. They both see the mess and see you just standing there. The doctor looks disappointed and shakes her/his head. Your nurse supervisor is embarrassed because you are under her supervision. She is not happy about it.
Role play the conversation between the nursing assistant and the supervising nurse.
#4
Place: First grade classroom.
Actors: Teaching assistant and the classroom teacher.
Situation: The first graders are very active today. During a student free-time, one of the children trips and bumps his head on a desk. The teacher asks you to watch the classroom while she delivers the child to the school nurse. You say OK. As you are helping a pair of students work on their art project, another child climbs up onto the bookcase and falls to the floor, injuring a finger. He begins to cry loudly. Soon, another child starts to cry in reaction to the first. Within moments, half of the students are crying while you are trying to calm them down and help the injured child. The teacher returns to find the room seemingly out of control. She quickly quiets the classroom down and gives you a very concerned look. You realize that after class, she will want to talk to you.
Role play the conversation between the teaching assistant and the classroom teacher.

Career Pathways: Fall III 2010
Worksheet 7.1 – Communication
In Trouble Role Play
#5
Place: Law office.
Actors: Criminal justice intern & lawyer.
Situation: As a criminal justice intern, you are trying to learn a lot about the criminal justice system. Working in a law office gives you the opportunity to work with lawyers on real court cases. One day, your boss, one of the firm’s best lawyers, asks you to help with a case. Your job is to go to the court house at the Government Center and collect all the available court documents regarding that particular case. This is the first time you’ve been asked to do such and important job. It takes you several hours to do your work, but eventually you return with a big pile of documents that your lawyer has been anxiously waiting for. As soon as you walk into her office, the lawyer notices that you have documents for the wrong court case! She begins to turn red with frustration and anger.
Role play the conversation between the intern and the lawyer.
#6
Place: Rochester Community & Technical College’s main computer lab.
Actors: Computer lab assistant & the lab manager.
Situation: You have recently started working in the computer lab to get some experience with computers. You would like to study computer science, but you don’t know a lot about computers at this point. Working in the lab seems like a good way to learn about your future career. It’s Friday and the lab will be closed for the weekend.
Over the weekend, the computer technicians will be installing new software in all the computers, so you are instructed to turn only the monitors off but to leave the computers running for the installation process. At closing time, you are in a hurry to leave. You go around the room and turn off the computers as usual, forgetting that they are supposed to be left on. When you return to work the following Monday, the lab manager asks to see you in her office. Because of your mistake, the new software did not get installed in any of the lab’s computers! Your boss is very upset with you.
Role play the conversation between the lab assistant and the lab manager.