Question

Read the case below and answer the following questions.

In a large publishing company in New York, a young woman, Laura, was hired as a copy editor for one of the many journals produced by the company. Seven other employees worked on this team editing this Journal, including a senior editor named Tim. Laura had worked there for about a month when she and her fellow co-workers went for happy-hour after work. Everybody had a great time and had consumed a fair amount of alcohol. When everybody was leaving the bar to head home, Tim, who had been secretly attracted to Laura since she started work at the journal, hailed a cab and offered to share the ride with Laura. Laura accepted the offer. Once she was inside the cab, Tim then suddenly made an aggressive advance toward her. Horrified, Laura pushed him away and told him to get out of the cab. Mortified, Tim slinked out of the cab.

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The next day, Laura came to work with some apprehension. How would she deal with Tim? Would the cab incident affect her job? Although Tim did not supervise her, would he try to get her fired? Tim immediately went to her office and apologized for his extremely inappropriate behavior in the cab. Relieved at his apology, Laura decided not to pursue the matter through any formal channels in the office. She figured that since Tim apologized, there was no need to dwell on the incident. After all, Laura was a new employee, still in the process of learning the office politics and proving herself as being a competent editor. She did not want to rock the boat or bring negative attention to herself.

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Everything would have been okay if Tim had stopped at just one sincerely expressed apology. However, whenever he found himself alone with Laura, Tim apologized again. And again. He said he was sorry about the incident at every opportunity he had for three months. This constant apology was awkward and annoying to Laura. Ironically, by Tim apologizing continuously for his unwanted attention in the cab, he was foisting another form of unwanted attention upon Laura. When he first started apologizing, Laura told him that "it was okay". After three months of many apologies, she reached a point where she asked him to stop apologizing, to no avail. Frustrated, she confided in a few co-workers about her unusual dilemma. Consequently, these co-workers lost respect for Tim.

Although the cab incident was not common knowledge in the office, Tim sensed that others knew about it by the way they interacted with him. The incident became the office "elephant" that the employees "in the know" saw, but didn't explicitly acknowledge. Meanwhile, Laura was tired of hearing Tim apologize and her feelings of discomfort increased. So when another editor position opened up in another journal division of the company, she applied for the job and was transferred to the other journal. In her new position, she didn't have Tim bothering her anymore. But she was unhappy with her new job. The journal material was very boring. She didn't work as well with her co-workers as she did in the previous journal (excepting Tim). She realized that she really enjoyed her old job. She began to regret her decision to avoid the conflict with Tim by moving to the new job. In an effort to seek advice as to how to solve her problem, Laura decided to consult with the company ombudsman.

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Required:

Question: Propose a solution that the company ombudsman can offer through interpersonal intervention.

The solution should cover:

• Introduction of the given case study
• Analysis of the Conflict in various viewpoints
• Provide Convene Resolution of the Conflict
• Conclusion

Answer 1

Answer-) This case is somewhat an example where people can have different perceptions or opinions. As we know from this case that Laura has newly joined in a publishing company and is working on a journal which she likes . She works in the editing department with her other colleagues including Tim, who is a senior editor but not a supervisor. In a incident after office , Tim being drunk approached Laura physically without her permission in a Cab and Laura in a defensive manner pushed Tim out of the cab. After that, Tim purposely apologized to Laura for three months at a stretch to a point where it was a mental torture for Laura and she had to leave the journal and shift to other journal which she finds extremely boring .She is now regretting to leave that journal.

So, if we analyse the conflict, we have different perceptions such as 1-) Laura should have stopped Tim at the second or third time , when he was apologising and should have warned him that the incident is over and that they should move forward. By this , Tim would have stopped and not proceeded further.

2-) It can be said that maybe Tim was extremely sorry for the deed he had done and he was genuinely apologizing Laura and if Laura would have talked to him, he could have stopped and Laura wouldn't leave her position.

3-) If Tim is intentionally harassing Laura by saying sorry every single time when they are alone , it is a matter of mental torture and she should have adopted formal procedures to stop this nuisance rather giving up her position.

4-) Another viewpoint is that as three months have passed and Laura does not have solid proof against Tim, she should continue with her new position and forget about the incident.

The convene resolution of the conflict is that Laura should not continue with her new position as it is not personally satisfying to her .She should talk to Tim and if he disagrees to stop , she should formally complaint against him to higher authority. As everybody has secretly known about this incident ,they can also speak in favour of Laura. This is also beneficial for the company as Laura loved to work with her old collegeaus except Tim and even if she continues with her new position , she may not do justice to the company.

So, here we learnt that molestation and mental torture is a big issue in Organisations. Men needs to repect women in corporate culture and should not physically or mentally harass them. We also learn that torture does not require harsh words to be spoken, even apologizing can be a way to harass someone.