Case Study: The New Workmate

It is a busy day at the airport. Joe and Maria are eating lunch. Suddenly, Maria sighed.
Joe noticed the gesture right away and asked her what’s the matter.

Maria responded, “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that this new ground services agent who
came in a few days ago.” Joe asked again, “Are you talking about Brad?”
Maria answered, “Yes, he’s driving me crazy since he came in. The airport duty
manager asked me to teach him the job, but he’s having a hard time catching up on the
tasks which are very simple and straightforward. He’s been stressing me out the past
couple of days. It’s already affecting my work.”

“Have you discussed this with him?” Joe asked again.

“Well, not really. He’s actually a nice guy, and I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings”, Maria
said. “Maybe the duty manager will notice his ineffectiveness and decide what to do with
him. Besides, I was only tasked to teach him the day to day operations and I’ve already
done my part”.

Questions:
1. What is/are the conflict/s present in the scenario?
2. What are the sources of conflict in the scenario?
3. Explain how Maria tried to resolve the conflict.
4. List down the negative effects that might result in the above situation and explain
why.
5. What better approach could have been applied to resolve the conflict?
1. What is/are the conflict/s present in the scenario?
- The conflict present in the scenario is that Maria is having a hard time because of
her co-worker Brad. She taught him a lot of times but Brad couldn’t easily pick up
the instruction of the tasks. Maria wants to tell Brad about his ineffectiveness but
hesitant because she doesn’t want to hurt Brad’s feelings.

2. What are the sources of conflict in the scenario?

- It is because of Brad’s poor performance and lack of skills to do a specific job.
Also, Maria don’t know how to communicate with him and tell him about his poor
performance.

3. Explain how Maria tried to resolve the conflict.

- She tried to resolve the conflict by going with the flow and ranting inside her
head. She’s waiting for her boss to notice Brad’s poor performance in their work
and let them decide what to do with him.

4. List down the negative effects that might result in the above situation and explain
why.
- Ineffectiveness will affect the performance, not just yours, but also your co-
worker which can possibly result to reducing productivity. If they’re just going to
ignore it and wait for her boss to notice, it will always affect her performance and
will continue to stressed her out.

5. What better approach could have been applied to resolve the conflict?
- She should have confront him in a nice and calm way instead of stressing
herself and tell him about his poor performance at work so Brad will know the things that
he needs to improve and put lot of efforts. She doesn’t need to think about hurting
Brad’s feelings as it for his own sake. Also, knowing that Brad is a new agent and
maybe adjusting to their environment, he still needs guide and words of advice to
improve.