Real-Life Decision Making
Property managers enforce rules and agreements with their tenants. Rental
agreements are two-sided. The tenants can also come to property managers with
complaints if something in the building does not live up to their expectations.
Some complaints are very important. If the roof springs a leak, it is important
for tenants to notify the property manager quickly. This ensures that the
problem is fixed before more serious damage occurs to the building.
However, some complaints from tenants fall into a grey area. It's not always
obvious whether or not the property manager must take action.
"A lot of decisions are made to decide whether a complaint is actually
valid. If it's a valid complaint we deal with it to the best of our ability.
Depending on the complaint we'll escalate it to an executive. But 99 percent
of the time we can resolve it," says Kristy Ludwar. She's an on-site property
administrator at a large office building.
You are a property manager working in an office building. Your department
is in charge of the building's services and facilities. This includes the
parking garage, the fitness facility and the cafeteria.
You receive an e-mail from an office worker in the building. You are familiar
with this person because it seems that nearly every week she finds a reason
to complain. This time she complains that the soup in the cafeteria is too
hot. She says she can't eat it until it cools for at least 10 minutes. She
says it is dangerous because if she spilled it on herself she could receive
third degree burns.
Just two weeks prior you received a complaint from someone else that the
soup was too cold. You already asked the cafeteria staff to increase the temperature.
You must decide how to deal with the complaint. What do you
do?