Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You listen to the man on the ground.
This is the real-life decision made by Rita Moore. She left
the bolt she was working on and climbed down to look for a torch. Although
the skill needed most, she says, is the ability to think for yourself, this
situation was a bit unusual.
Usually the most senior person around is the foreman, Moore admits. Typically,
there are no unknown people in the work area.
For Moore, the situation turned sour. She says since there was no torch
nearby or gas bottle, it took several minutes to locate equipment.
"The owner guy was hopping around fuming the whole time. Anyway, the guy
was so angry at the speed we were proceeding that I reminded him that if he
hadn't interrupted and insisted on a torch, the remaining bolt would
have been undone almost an hour ago."
The owner turned to the foreman and declared Moore and her apprentice incompetent.
Both were laid off immediately. Moore says she just went back to the hiring
hall and had her name put back on the list. "You just hope you don't
get called right back to that same contractor, and try to tell yourself you're
glad to be out of there anyhow."
Be prepared, says Moore, to encounter difficult people. You can't
change that. "Doing it his way was too slow, but doing it my way was wrong
because it wasn't his way and he was the boss." It was a lose-lose situation.