the negative message letter

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Module 11 Negative Messages 185

Only essential business travel will be approved. The company will pay only for the lowest cost of air travel (coach, reservation 7 to 14 days in advance).

The company will no longer buy tables or blocks of tickets for charitable events and will not make any dona- tions to charity until money is less tight.

Counters will be put on the photocopiers. People must have access numbers to make photocopies; personal photo- copies will cost $ .10 a page.

As the chief financial officer, write a memo to all employees, explaining the changes.

11.18 Closing Bill-Payment Offices (LO 11-1 to LO 11-6) For many years, City Gas & Electric had five suburban offices to which people could take their payments. On the first of the month following next month, you’re closing these offices. On that date, 100 local merchants, such as grocers, will begin to accept utility payments. Closing the freestanding

offices will save your company almost $3 million a year. Customers will still be able to mail in payments or have them deducted automatically from their paychecks.

Write a notice that can be inserted in utility bills this month and next month.

11.19 Giving a Customer Less Credit than She Wants (LO 11-1 to LO 11-6)

Yang-Ming Lee applied for your Visa card, asking for a credit limit of $15,000 and a separate card for her husband, Chad Hoang. Her credit references merit granting a credit card. But you generally give new customers only a $7,500 limit, even when the family income is very high, as it is in this case. You might make an exception if your bank had a

previous relationship with the client, but no such relation- ship exists here. While you have no set policy for reviewing and raising credit limits, normally you would expect at least six months of paying the minimum amount promptly.

Write a letter to Ms. Lee, granting her a credit card with a $7,500 limit.

11.20 Addressing an Allegation about Racism by Employees (LO 11-1 to LO 11-6)

You are the human resources director for Kelly Green’s Midwest division. Two of your employees stand accused

of being racist toward a customer. In the customer’s letter to you, she states,

You are understandably shocked by the letter, and your shock grows to dismay when you discover the surveillance video that could provide a visual record of the event has been anonymously erased.

The clerks in question, one a 19-year-old male and the other a 21-year-old female, were both hired at the same time and only a month before. But already the male clerk has been warned about arriving to work late twice, and the female clerk was involved in an argument with a customer over a return.

Kelly Green has a strong policy against discrimina- tion of customers as well as employees, but other than the word of the customer, you have no conclusive proof that the

clerks behaved so inappropriately. They both deny the inci- dent happened. The manager who ordinarily would have been in the store was on her way back from making the afternoon deposit at the bank. At the same time, you see no reason to disbelieve the customer, whose thoughtful tone in particular impresses you.

Your solution, although imperfect, is to document the alleged incident in both clerks’ personnel files, along with a reprimand to everyone on duty that day for the surveillance video being erased. In addition to that, you are requiring that all employees in the store attend diversity training.

Write a letter to Ms. Oranto explaining what will be done.

Today I visited your Kelly Green apparel store in downtown Chicago. In what was probably the most dis- turbing experience of my life—and I’m a 45-year-old registered nurse—the male clerk decided to verbally attack me, saying, “I really hope you can speak English” and “I don’t think someone like you can afford our merchandise.” He said this soon after I entered the store.

When I went to try on the silk blouse I’d come to purchase, I heard him outside the dressing room chant- ing, “Ching chong, ching chong.” There was also a female clerk on duty, and I heard them both laughing.

I’ve been shopping at that Kelly Green store for two years. I’ve never seen either employee before, and I’ve certainly never been treated there like this in the past. When my family emigrated to the United States from the Philippines 60 years ago, they met prejudice, but I don’t think they could have imagined that in this day and age Americans would still be so pointlessly vicious to other Americans.

I’m not writing to you with the expectation of being compensated nor to threaten a lawsuit. I simply want you to know that you have employees whose idea of civility is deeply flawed. The clerks are young, and I hope you can use this experience to teach them a better understanding of the dignity all people deserve.

Thank you.

Lila Oranto

P.S. I’d still like to shop at Kelly Green, but I’ll be driving 30 miles out of my way to avoid returning to that store.

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