Conflict Resolution

            I started working at Millennium Park as a custodian during my high school summer breaks and went back every summer for four years. The job was fairly easy besides short spurts of hard work, the job paid two dollars over minimum wage and you got to enjoy the scenery. Everything ran smoothly besides certain days of the week were we would work with the park manager Sal. We had four park managers, working with three out of the four was doable, but Sal was short tempered, impatient with little compassion for his workers.

            The main problems that came about with working with Sal was that workers would get nervous whenever he was on shift, not only that but his work request were at times unreasonable or illogical. He would continuously yell at people to work faster or to do a better job, which was contradictory because if he wanted work done quickly that would mean giving up the quality of the work, and if he wanted quality that would mean giving up time. Also, some of his work requests were silly to say the least. For example, when I was still in high school I would work every weekend and in the winter I had to remove snow from a bridge that leads to the neighbor park. In retrospect, one would imagine the job to be fairly simple, pick up the snow with the shovel and toss it to the sides of the bridge, except that Sal had other thoughts. He wanted me to pick up the snow with the shovel, put it in a rolling garbage can, roll it to the bottom and then toss the snow on the sides of the bridge. Thinking it was silly I ignored his request at first and did it my way but he became furious once he found out and made me do it his way.

            My perspective of the situation was that his requests were silly and illogical, and most of the other workers thought the same things. The job could have been done faster and more efficiently had I been able to just toss the snow to the side of the bridge. On the other hand, Sal’s perspectives were probably different. Maybe he did know that his method was inefficient but perhaps he was trying to get a point across; maybe he wanted to impose his authority on me to show that it was his way, or the highway, a line his had said multiple times to some of the other employees. Another theory to why Sal might apply that managerial method is that he believed that his workers were uneducated and he knew best. But a problem that arose from Sal’s managerial style is that workers felt uncomfortable working with him and worked inefficient most of the time. And as said in B&D, the relationship between the workers and the managers determines how effective they are at work.

            People would not act to the problems that Sal brought to the working environment. The workers were too scared to express their opinions and if they did they would be punished by doing harder work of if the worker was seasonal they would get fired. People’s fears of Sal were so real that people would work their schedule around Sal’s shift, sometimes even giving up work days to avoid working with him. The conflict with Sal never got resolved, and in his anger tantrums escalated so high that he yelled at the wrong person one day. He began harassing a girl that worked at the bar located in the park because she had used park resources that she was not allowed to use; he said degrading things to her and got to her so bad that she went home in tears. What came into effect from that was that the girl’s boyfriend showed up to Sal’s house (no idea how he knew were he lived) and began beating on Sal so bad that he was sent to the hospital with internal bleeding.

            All those problems could have been solved had everyone acted differently. Sal could have avoided that eventual beating had he known how to show respect to his workers rather than being degrading. The workers could have acted differently as well by informing Sal’s higher ups about Sal’s actions since he would not listen to anyone below him. As said in B&D, communication is vital, Sal should communicate with his employees in respectful manner to get his point across, and employees should use their rights to report Sal’s improper behavior rather than just taking his harassment.