Conflict

I am in a fraternity and we have had to deal with multiple problems as a group. One example of a problem we had to deal with was a couple years ago one of our members was acting foolishly and shot someone with an airsoft gun from the chapter house. This led to the victim approaching our house and beating up our president to the point where he had to go to the hospital for his injuries. The problem that resulted is eventually the IFC found out and our charter was in hot water. It took us a while to find out who the assailant was but eventually we did. The chapter was at a bit of a standstill; if we ratted out one of our members he would surely be expelled from the university. At the same time we have to preserve the integrity of our chapter and the years of hard work we put to maintain it. This led to our executive committee breaking all ties with the member of our fraternity who committed the heinous act and that also led to his expulsion from the university of Illinois. Some people were unhappy because they felt we ruined his future by getting him in trouble with the university; some people were angry towards him for bringing negative attention towards our fraternity, especially considering the modern day opinion towards fraternities nationwide.

Another example of a conflict in the work force is from the fictional TV show of law and order: special victims unit. I watch this show a lot and one episode really stuck out to me. One of the detectives, Elliot, is a very passion officer but at that the same time has the reputation of being a hothead. This is especially so when dealing with criminals who are child molesters or serial killers. One episode a teenager was accused of trying to rape older women. There was not enough evidence to convict him but the detectives let him know that the investigation will eventually prove him guilty. At one point, detective Elliot and the boy were alone and a neutral cop was walking by. The boy noticed that someone was coming and pretended that he was getting touched inappropriately and yelled “hey stop touching me there”. Then two days later he reported that detective Elliot had molested him and the cop who was walking by was interviewed. He stated that he had heard the kid say the aforementioned but could not see what was happening. Elliot was put on suspension pending an internal investigation and the New York special victims unit had lost their best detective. The staff helped handle the situation by all backing his character and working even harder on the case now that they had to work overtime. I feel like in a situation like this there is very little you can do because you cannot control erratic behavior by a sociopathic fifteen year old. Also, the public will always side with the victim and the fact that the teenager was able to plan it strategically really helped make it look believable. It was very unfortunate but it is a part of life and your plans do not always go the way you expect them to. The main thing is that Elliot was able to handle the adversity and maintained his innocence as he let the court system play out. It was sad that his reputation was tarnished and people were calling him insults such as child molester and creep. In the end, the child was overwhelmed with guilt and got caught trying to rape another women. He cried that he had an alcohol problem and confessed to lying about everything. People felt bad for him because he was a distraught teen with serious mental problems as a result of his father leaving him at a young age. Regardless, Elliot was free but it was an extremely difficult situation to go through and I feel bad for people who have to go through something similar to that in real life.

Team/Individual Production

The piece “How to get Rich to share the marbles” was rather interesting, especially considering how plausible it was to explain the big picture of America. One part that really interested me was how the article stated that the chimpanzees did not share ever, regardless of joint participation or whatever the case may be. In every situation it was first come first serve and every chimp for themselves. This shows the difference between chimpanzees and us; they have no sense of emotional attachment or obligations the way humans do. To them, they show the primal animalistic behavior that is probably emblematic of how humans use to act in the caveman days. Nowadays, in order to maximize our potential, it is more important to work collectively rather than selfishly in order to fulfill the utilitarian idea that is best for all off. It also makes sense that if both toddlers have to work to get marbles, they feel that the result income is shared. Similarly to business co-owners working together to become successful, they feel obligated to share the reward because they needed each other to receive it. It was very smart of the psychologist to use three year olds because at that age you don’t necessarily feel moral obligations and more so react in an instinctive way. The scenario where they both pull the rope and don’t need each other was representative of many American homes. For example, one toddler received only a single marble at a time for pulling the rope while their peer received three marbles at a time. The toddler may feel that it is unfair they are on the side that receives less marbles and complain that there is no reason the other toddler deserves that spot. Two potential students in America today, student A and student B. S resemble this concept. Student A is born into the inner city with very little funding for the public schooling, little academic help from parents working overtime to make ends meet, and the constant stress to over come the surrounding that they were born into. Student B is from a gated community in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the state, can afford to attend the best private school in the country, and will always have some type of job lined up through his parents’ high-end connections. In America, what you are born into is critical into predicting where you will end up on the economic ladder down the road. The cycle of poverty is a vicious one and is difficult to overcome because of all the additional barriers you must hurdle. Whilst there are people who know since the age of five they are going to be wealthy, whether it is through inheritance or through connections. This leads me to the remark about Obama saying we can restore our economy by essentially leveling the playing field amongst everyone; “everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the rules, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” This concept is very true and important in concept, but honestly is not feasible. It is not feasible for the same reason the toddlers did not share their marble when it was their own to pull. People will always, to some extent, act in a way that reflects human nature because that’s just the way it is. If someone is capable of cheating the rules in order to gain a lot of money, most of the time people will take that chance especially if they feel it is low risk. Similarly, say there are two applicants for a high paying job. One applicant is extremely qualified while the other is not nearly as qualified but his uncle is the CEO; what do you think happens here? It is just one of the many examples of what leads to inequality and I believe the gift-exchange experiment from the pyschologists helped prove that.

Managing Future Risks

After graduation I, like many others, will be looking to put my degree to good use by obtaining a reasonably paying job. Currently, our economy is not what it was in the 90’s hence making the job market much more competitive. As an economic major at the university of Illinois, I believe that my personal resume is good but not outstanding compared to other college graduates. Similarly, lets assume that if I were to graduate in the spring and start working full time in June at a annual rate of $50,000. First, I would do my absolute best to be the hardest working employee that way a year later I would have much more leverage than my coworkers in regards to lobbying for a promotion. I am the oldest of my two siblings and the first in my family to go to college so I do not have any one to refer to in respect to following certain steps. Thankfully, I will be graduating very little debt (around $4000). My personal intent would be to stay at home for at least first six months and accumulate as much as I can into savings. I will have very little financial obligations if I am living at home; my father has already spoke to me about buying me a brand new car as a graduation present so all I would have to do is pay for gas and insurance which is completely reasonable. My goal would be to save as much money as I can and hopefully by the age of twenty-five I will be completely self-sufficient and move into an apartment. Then from there somewhere along the road prepare to put a down payment on a house and so forth. All the aforementioned are only plausible if I am successful in the sense that I have a full-time job and constantly improving at what I do. I also would like to begin to invest in a 401k plan, which is exponential so the earlier I start, the better off I am. A lot of the salary I have will not be spent on immediate gratification rather than towards many long-term investments. The best way to limit income risks for myself would be to develop a good credit score through timely payments, do well as an employee to garner positive recommendations, potentially pursue an even higher level of education such as masters, and overall just having a healthy state of mind and physical behavior. The last is better because I truly believe that when you are stress free, exercising, eating well, you are more prone to make better financial decisions as opposed to when you are stressed out and looking for ways to relieve that stress unnaturally. Growing up as a child I always loved playing games where you had to create a life with a long term plan, such as Sims or literally the board game life. It always interested me to see how certain actions will affect you immediately and five years from now. It is important that the financial decisions I make at twenty-two will keep me comfortable ten years from now at the age of thirty-two, etcetera. My summer jobs have been somewhat vague in terms of I was more focused on making money for school as opposed to getting a preview of the work force. The first summer after freshman year I worked for a construction company doing hard manual labor but made a solid $10 an hour which made me a lot of money that summer. The next summer I did office work for my father, which gave me an introduction to communication between employers and clients. All in all, I would most certainly be very conscious of all my purchases because of our unstable economy and the fact that I will never know if I could get laid off or whatnot. It is important to always focus on the future.