Brad's Dilemma: Finding a New Job Brad Thomas, a 53-year-old retail store manager earning $75,000 a year, has worked for the same company during his entire 28-year career. Brad was recently laid off and is still unemployed 10 months later, and his severance pay and 6 months' unemployment compensation have run out. Because he has consistently observed careful financial planning practices, he now has sufficient savings and investments to carry him through several more months of unemployment. Brad is actively seeking work but finds that he is overqualified for available lower-paying jobs and under-qualified for higher-paying, more desirable positions. There are no openings for positions equivalent to the manager's job he lost. He lost his wife several years earlier and is close to his two grown children, who live in the same city.

Brad has these options:

Wait out the recession until another retail store manager position opens up.

Move to another area of the country where store manager positions are more plentiful.

Accept a lower-paying job for two or three years and then go back to school evenings to finish his college degree and qualify for a better position.

Consider other types of jobs that could benefit from his managerial skills.

1) What important career factors should Brad consider when evaluating his options?

2) What important personal factors should Brad consider when deciding among his career options?

3) What recommendations would you give Brad in light of both the career and personal dimensions of his options noted in Questions 1 and 2?

4)What career strategies should today's workers employ in order to avoid Brad's dilemma?

See the multiple-choice question below, which deals with how to treat a grant from an employer that pays for tuition. I do not ask you to answer the multiple-choice question. The correct answer is C.

Required: Rank the four answers from most attractive to the taxpayer to least attractive to the taxpayer, ignoring the fact that the correct answer is C. No partial credit. Half credit for no explanation or inadequate explanation.

Additional comments (you can earn maximum points if comment is insightful above and beyond the requirements):

Eighty-one-year-old Stella Liebeck was a passenger in a parked car, when she accidentally spilled scalding-hot McDonald's coffee on herself. (McDonald's allegedly kept its coffee at 180 degrees, 40 degrees hotter than most people serve coffee, to maintain peak flavor). The spill caused second and third degree burns that required skin graphs and left scars.

When McDonald's offered Liebeck $800 of the $2000 medical expenses she had asked for, Liebeck sued. After hearing that there had been 700 complaints about scalding coffee, the jury found for Stella and awarded her $160,000 compensatory damages and another $2.7 million in punitive. The latter were reduced on appeal to $480,000.
How might you use the above scenario to argue for/against tort reform and what do you think should happen if the case were appealed?

Phil Parent purchased a new car from Major Car Company. Two weeks later, he was in a serious car accident when a four-wheel drive drove into the side of his car while he was driving his four-year-old daughter home from school. The driver-side airbag did not open up, and Phil was thrown through the windshield - causing the car to spin around and hit a tree. At that point, the air bag on the passenger side, where his daughter was sitting, opened -- injuring the young girl.

The driver who caused the accident was uninsured and has no money, and little chance of ever having any. Parent and his daughter have both suffered serious injuries. Parent was out of work for six months and lost his job -- his daugher nearly died. Expert testimony established that airbags cannot normally be expected to open when a car is struck from the side. There has been extensive publicity about the risk to small children seated in the front passenger seat.

CH 7: Entrepreneurship Case BBG 101 -- Hart

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is getting the word out about their new venture. Perhaps that's why entrepreneurs have embraced social media as a communication tool.

If used skillfully, many believe, social media can help level the playing field between small businesses and their giant competitors. David avRutick, co-owner of Folbot, a small kayak retailer, claims that without Twitter, he wouldn't have as many sales as he does. “You can't buy that kind of exposure,” avRutick says.

Folbot competes against such household names as L.L. Bean and Cabela's—there's no way the smaller company could challenge the larger ones without widespread interactive communication. However, critics point out that social media sites vary widely in their value to small businesses. “The hype right now exceeds the reality,” observes Larry Chiagouris, a professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business.

Despite the fact that the use of social media by firms with fewer than 100 employees doubled in one recent year, only 22 percent of those who responded to a separate survey reported a direct increase in profits as a result of social media use, while half said they broke even on the investment. Others caution that social media networking eats up valuable time, particularly for entrepreneurs whose day is chock-full of tasks ranging from design to distribution and manufacturing to marketing.

Most entrepreneurs support the use of social media, but with moderation. Chris Lindland, owner of Cordarounds.com, an online clothing retailer, advises patience. “My business has been visited millions of times, but I haven't made millions of sales,” he comments. But he believes patience pays off.

Questions for Critical Thinking

How will social networking change the business environment for entrepreneurs?

How might entrepreneurs use social media to secure financing?

Brad's Dilemma: Finding a New Job Brad Thomas, a 53-year-old retail store manager earning $75,000 a year, has worked for the same company during his entire 28-year career. Brad was recently laid off and is still unemployed 10 months later, and his severance pay and 6 months' unemployment compensation have run out. Because he has consistently observed careful financial planning practices, he now has sufficient savings and investments to carry him through several more months of unemployment. Brad is actively seeking work but finds that he is overqualified for available lower-paying jobs and under-qualified for higher-paying, more desirable positions. There are no openings for positions equivalent to the manager's job he lost. He lost his wife several years earlier and is close to his two grown children, who live in the same city.

Brad has these options:

Wait out the recession until another retail store manager position opens up.

Move to another area of the country where store manager positions are more plentiful.

Accept a lower-paying job for two or three years and then go back to school evenings to finish his college degree and qualify for a better position.

Consider other types of jobs that could benefit from his managerial skills.

1) What important career factors should Brad consider when evaluating his options?

2) What important personal factors should Brad consider when deciding among his career options?

3) What recommendations would you give Brad in light of both the career and personal dimensions of his options noted in Questions 1 and 2?

4)What career strategies should today's workers employ in order to avoid Brad's dilemma?

Working in the healthcare field I am always forced to face with a variety of challenges. One in particular that has always stuck with me was when I first started my job as a medical assistant. In the first couple months as I was getting the hang of things, I had some trouble adjusting and getting comfortable with all the tasks and responsibilities I was given. I am thankful that I had an amazing group of co workers that were willing to help me through it as I got comfortable with the job. I was told that I had to draw blood from a patient, and although we were taught these things in school, it is different than doing it on your first patient in real life. It can get very intimidating when its your first time but sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone to learn more. My co worker was there to guide me through the steps which made me feel very confident at the end. Something that caught my attention in the learning pit video was"We become more comfortable with the uncomfortable learning" which meant for me to get out of my comfort zone and be confident to continue to learn new things and be more knowledgeable in what I do at work as medical assistant . Some things that I tell myself when things start to get difficult is that every struggle leads to learning and accomplishing things in the end which makes me more motivated and eager to learn more. I find myself focusing more on long term goals rather than short term and remind my self that everything that I am doing are steps toward bettering myself and my career.

Can you relate to them? Have you experienced something similar? Are you impressed? Do you have advice that may have helped them at the time?

1. Start a new worksheet and name it Z-scores. Use the STANDARDIZE function in Excel to calculate the z-scores for problems 2 and 4 on page 401 and problems 2 and 4 on page 412. Read Examples T.3 and T.4 on page 422 to see examples of how to use STANDARDIZE with means and proportions. Your output should look like the partial worksheet at right, except that cells C3, C4, C9, and C10 should be filled with the correct z-scores for each problem. (4 pts)

2. Start a new worksheet and name it Puppies. Then, complete the following: Suppose you are thinking about getting a puppy and want to know the amount of time people spend caring for their puppies. You survey 31 puppy owners and find that the mean amount of time they spend caring for their puppies is 108.0 minutes per day, with a standard deviation of 17.0 minutes. Construct and interpret a 98% confidence interval for the mean amount of time puppy owners spend on their puppies. Be sure to read page 500 and then use either Example T.7 or T.8 as a guide, whichever applies to this situation. Store your margin of error in cell A1. Then, write two (or more) complete sentences stating and interpreting your confidence interval. Write these in your worksheet in cell A4. For rounding, use the rounding rule on page 432.

Worth 4 points: 1 point for inputting data correctly, 1 point for getting the correct margin of error, and 2 points for correctly stating and interpreting the confidence interval.

3. Start a new worksheet and name it Chips. A random sample of 200 computer chips is obtained from a factory and 4% are found to be defective. Construct and interpret a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all computer chips from the factory that are defective. Use Example T.9 on page 501 as a guide and format your answer like the example. (Note: Be sure that you are clear about what x, n, and p-hat are in this problem before you just enter numbers into Excel.) Write your sentences in cell A9. (The function in Excel 2007 is NORMSINV, but you will need to read about the NORMSINV function and think about what the first parameter will need to be to do this problem correctly.)

Worth 4 points: 1 point for inputting data correctly, 1 point for calculating the correct margin of error, and 2 points for correctly stating and interpreting the confidence interval.

Part 2

For problems 4-5, perform hypothesis tests for each of the following scenarios. You may use Excel, manual calculation, or a TI-83 or TI-84 calculator to compute your results. Submit your project to the Project 3 assignments folder on Brightspace by the due date. The easiest way to complete this project is to just take this Word document, fill in your answers, save it and submit to the assignments folder as Project3.docx. If you don’t have Word on your computer, you can print the pdf version of this document, write in your answers, and then scan it to a new pdf before submitting.

Grading for each problem is as follows:

Hypotheses: 1.5 points = To receive full points, hypotheses (both H0 and Ha) must be stated correctly, either in words or in symbols. Examples: “µ ≥ 35” or “Population mean is greater than or equal to 35”.

Test stat and value: 1 point = Identify the correct test statistic and its value (Example: t = 2.215)

P-value (or Critical Value): 1 point = Correct p-value (or Critical value on #4) of test is given.

Conclusion: 1.5 points = State how you decided and whether you reject or fail to reject null hypothesis. Then, include a full sentence description of what this means in this particular problem. (Example: “Since the p-value > the 0.05 significance level, fail to reject H0. There is not enough evidence to support the claim that listening to music while studying increases your chances of getting an A.”)

4. A children’s clothing company sells hand-smocked dresses for girls. The length of one particular size of dress is designed to be 26 inches. The company regularly tests the lengths of the garments to ensure quality control, and if the mean length is found to be significantly longer or shorter than 26 inches, the machines must be adjusted. The most recent simple random sample of 28 dresses had a mean length of 26.30 inches with a standard deviation of 0.77 inches. Perform a hypothesis test at the 0.01 level of significance to determine if the mean dress length has changed.

Hypotheses:

Test statistic and value:                                                                  P-value or Critical value:

Conclusion:

5. CNN/Money reports that the mean cost of a speeding ticket, including court fees, was $150.00 in 2002. A local police department claims that this amount has increased. To test their claim, they collected data from a simple random sample of 160 drivers were fined for speeding in the year 2002 and found that they paid a mean of $154.00 per ticket. Assuming that the population standard deviation is $17.54, is there sufficient evidence to support the police department’s claim at the 0.01 level of significance?

Hypotheses:

Test Statistic and value:                                                                     P-value:

Conclusion:

True Or False ( Health Question )

1. Humans are NOT social beings—we have a basic need to belong and to feel loved, accepted, and wanted. We can’t thrive without relating to and interacting with others. Strong connections to others reduce depression and anxiety, improve sleep, increase self-esteem, and enhance our capacity to have greater empathy for others, and be more open and trusting of others.

2. Unless you decide to be a hermit, there is hardly a career or life path you might choose that won’t require communicating and cooperating with others.

3. Research shows that it is the quantity of our friendships, not the quality, that matters when it comes to health.

4. These intimate relationships (Links to an external site.) often include four characteristics: behavioral interdependence, need fulfillment, emotional attachment, and emotional availability. These characteristics only relate to romantic relationships.

5. Self-nurturance (Links to an external site.) means developing individual potential through a balanced and realistic appreciation of self-worth and ability. To make good choices in life, a person must balance many physical and emotional needs—sleeping, eating, exercising, working, relaxing, and socializing.

6.It is from our family of origin (Links to an external site.), the people present in our household during our first years of life, that we initially learn about feelings, problem solving, love, intimacy, and gender roles. We learn to negotiate relationships and have opportunities to communicate effectively, develop attitudes and values, and explore spiritual belief systems. It is not uncommon when we establish relationships outside the family to rely on these initial experiences and on skills modeled by our family of origin.

7.Joe has been excluded from friendship circles at school because he is physically challenged. He may have difficulty forming romantic relationships later in life.

8.Sex drive involves a chemical reaction in the brain.

9.Attraction theory suggests that more than just chemical and psychological processes influence with whom a person falls in love. This theory proposes that proximity, similarities, reciprocity, and physical attraction also play strong roles.

10.Women communicate better than men.

11.Selective listening is involved in our selection of political candidates.

12.It is always wise to get in and out of relationships carefully.

13.Our sexual identity begins at conception.

14.Some children are born with intersexuality. This is marked by the mutation of sex organs before birth.

15.Men experience Midlife crisis when they have changes in sexual function, changes in sleep patterns, physical and emotional changes. The technical term for this life phase is Andropause. Some men call it male menopause and it can cause major upheaval in a man's life if untreated.

16.The majority of healthy older men and women can enjoy a regular and satisfying sex life. Those with forms of sexual dysfunction can be successfully treated by their family doctor.

17.Dyspareunia is (Links to an external site.) a treatable disorder.

18.Birth control is the males responsibility.

19.Ancient Egyptians used alligator dung as a behavioral method of birth control. (258)

20.Female condoms are highly effective.

21.A diaphragm is a safe and effective method of birth control when a woman is having her period.

22.According to Table 10.2 the contraception method used by most college students is withdrawal.

23.Every sexual relationship should begin with a conversation about STI's, STD's and the presence or treatment for any active conditions.

24.In 1973, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade stated that the “right to privacy . . . founded on the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”48 (Links to an external site.) The decision maintained that during the first trimester (13-week period) of pregnancy a woman and her health care provider have the right to terminate the pregnancy through abortion without legal restrictions.

25.Pregnancy after the age of 35 is considered to be high risk to the child and the mother.

Compare and contrast: Business cycle theory--Keynesian cycle, Monetarist cycle, new classical cycle, new Keynesian cycle, and real business cycle