Page 42 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

D. S/he did not like us on the phone, and chose not to attend the interview.
E. We simply don’t know; it could be any of these or any other reason.
2. An employee sleeps a lot at her desk. We can assume:
A. She is lazy.
B. She is sick.
C. She has a new baby at home that keeps her up at night.
D. She has another job at night.
E. We simply don’t know; it could be any of these or any other reason.
3. An employee, Rosie, is unable to attend a workplace party for another coworker,
Susan, that is taking place after work hours and is optional. Rosie has done a great
deal to help Susan and has been very close to Susan in the past ten years. It can
be assumed that:
A. Rosie is jealous of Susan.
B. Rosie has a schedule conflict and was not told about the party in time to
rearrange her schedule or is unable to rearrange her schedule.
C. Rosie is ill or has a sick child or other family member to care for.
D. Rosie intends to sabotage and ruin the party by not attending.
E. We simply don’t know; we would have to ask. However, in this instance, given
Rosie’s past behavior, the most logical and reasonable answer is B.
4. A company is newly implementing the use of vending machines that will distribute
basic over-the-counter headache and other medicines for a nominal fee. The
company takes a survey of employees to ask what they think about this versus
asking the HR/OD VP for headache medicine or Band-Aids when needed. Another
option presented was that employees could bring their own supplies to work and
make sure they have enough of what they need, but the problem was that many
employees kept forgetting to do this so the company wanted to have supplies on
hand. However, when they were just free in a supply kit, they would often all be
taken and none would be left. Some of the employee responses are below. Given
that there has been a problem of supplies being stolen, choose the most reasonable
and the least reasonable response.
A. I don’t want to have to go get them from someone, because then my headache
is not private and other people know I’m not feeling well. But I always forget to
bring my own medicine, and I don’t always have change.
B. I like the vending machine; everyone is responsible for himself or herself and it’s
refilled regularly. It’s fair.
C. I think we should keep the free first aid kit and put a camera on it to see who is
stealing all the supplies.
D. I don’t think we should have a first aid kit at all; if someone gets hurt, it’s his or
her own fault.

CHAPTER 2 • The Impor tance of Emotional Intelligence for the Credible Activist 25