Reference no: EM132185129
“The Bully”
Wendy Carlson, office manager for the hospital’s ambulatory services division, was secretly happy that her half-day conference had been in the morning and not in the afternoon. Mornings is the office were so frantic and stressful that Wendy was more than happy to miss a morning once in a while. Afternoons were relatively quiet, so Wendy had hopes of getting caught up on some delinquent paperwork after returning from her outside commitment. However, when she arrived at her office after lunch, she was greeted by four angry expressions and one empty desk,
Indicating the empty desk, Wendy asked, “Where’s Sue? And why all the stone faces? What’s going on around here:”
“Sue went home,“ Eleanor said.
“She had to go home after Dr. Greer got through with her, “ said Kay. “I think I would’ve spit in his eye and walked out for good.”
Wendy asked, “What in the world happened?”
Eleanor explained, “Sue had the misfortune to make a simple appointment mistake on Dr. Greer’s schedule when he was at his busiest. He’s a bear most of the time anyway and we all know how he’s been lately with the practice running with one physician short.”
Wendy said, “We obviously shouldn’t make appointment scheduling errors, but as hectic as it gets around here they’re bound to happen once in a while and there’s usually nothing serious about them.”
Kay said, “You’d think they were life threatening the way he took off on her. He called her about 10 different kinds of an idiot and said he was going to have her fired for incompetence. He literally screamed at her, in front of the four of us and Dr. Wilson and at least three or four patients in the waiting room.”
“No class, rotten style,” Eleanor muttered. The others nodded in agreement.
“Why did Sue go home?” Wendy asked.
Eleanor answered, “Greer really leveled her and ordered her out of the office. She cried in the ladies’ room for nearly half an hour, but even after she calmed down a bit she was afraid to come back in. she just clocked out and went home.”
In further discussion with her four staff members, Wendy learned that Sue had stated there was no way she could continue working where she was treated in that fashion and that Dr. Greer had announced for all to hear that she was forbidden ever to touch his appointment schedule again.
QUESTIONS:
Assume you are in Wendy Carlson’s position and describe how you would approach the discussion of the incident with Sue.
Recognizing that Dr. Greer is neither her employer nor her organizational superior, describe how you believe Wendy should approach discussion of the incident with Dr. Greer.
Outline the steps you believe Wendy should consider in addressing the problem presented by “The Bully” and in attempting to repair the apparent damage caused within her work group. Provide detailed reasons for your recommendations.