Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
How would you respond to your manager?
14.
You are a junior in college. You sent your resume to a half-dozen companies hoping to
get a summer internship. Two weeks ago XYZ Corporation contacted you and offered
you a paid summer internship. One week ago you accepted their offer, agreeing to start
work a week after your last final exam. Today you received a much better internship offer
from ABC Corporation. What should you do?
15.
You are a senior in college. You sent your resume to a half-dozen companies hoping to
get a job. A month ago you interviewed at ABC Corporation and XYZ Corporation. Two
weeks ago XYZ Corporation offered you a job. One week ago you accepted their offer,
agreeing to start work a month after graduation. Today you received a much better offer
from ABC Corporation. What should you do?
16.
You are the manager of a software development group within a large corporation. Your
group would be more productive if the PCs were upgraded, but you do not have any
money left in your annual equipment budget. Because of employee turnover, you do
have plenty of money left in your personnel budget, but corporate rules do not allow
you to spend personnel funds on equipment.
If you overspend your equipment budget, you will receive a negative performance
review. You also know that whatever money is left over in your budget at the end of the
fiscal year is “swept up" by the corporation. In other words, you cannot carry over a
surplus from one year to the next—your group loses the money.
You complain about your situation to the manager of another group, who has
the opposite problem. She has plenty of money left in her equipment budget, but her
personnel expenses are going to exceed her labor budget unless she does something. She
offers to buy you the $50,000 of equipment you need out of her budget, if you pick
up $50,000 of her personnel expenses out of your budget. If you take this action, both
groups will get what they need, and neither group will exceed any of its budgets.
Discuss the morality of the proposed course of action.
17.
Five years ago Al graduated from college and began working for Superlative Software
Corporation. His most recent promotion has made him the manager of a large group of
software engineers and support staff. One of Al's responsibilities is to submit his budget
request for the next fiscal year. He's never done this before, so one day over lunch he asks
Barb, a more experienced manager, for some advice.
Barb: Figure out what you really need to complete the projects your group will be
doing, and then add another 20 percent. High-level management always cuts every-
body's budget 10 to 20 percent, so after they reduce your budget, you'll still have the
money you need.
Al: But the memo from the vice president said we should only ask for the amount
of money we really need.
Barb: Nobody pays attention to that.
Al: What if they ask me to justify my budget? It'll be pretty obvious that I've
padded it.
Barb: They never do that—they don't have the time. Even if they did, you can work
the numbers to justify the extra staff you'll need to meet the tight deadlines they've set.
Al: You mean lie?
