ENGL 3430 Evaluating Negative Correspondence Essay
Please read carefully and respond to all three cases presented below. You have two hours to complete the three documents. All three cases count equally toward your grade on the exam. You may invent needed information, such as addresses or compensation for lost services, but ensure that it is pertinent and realistic. You will be evaluated on your writing style and tone, as well as the formatting for each type of correspondence.
Case 1: Negative Correspondence
You work at Deckard State Bank and have some bad news to give some of your customers. During a recent trip, one of your account managers lost a laptop with customer information, including sensitive information like birthdates. The laptop had a number of software security mechanisms in place, so it’s unlikely, but not entirely impossible, that whoever found the laptop will be able to access the sensitive information.
Only a few of your customers (fewer than 3%) will be affected by this loss. Your procedures dictate that affected customers will be given a new account (a new debit card with a new credit card number will be sent to them) and the old account will be closed (so customers will have to destroy their current debit cards and checks and register the new card/account with any automatic online payments they have set up).
The current balances and current credit limits will be transferred to the new accounts. Customers will have to order new blank checks with the new account numbers on them. Some of your customers will be inconvenienced by this process.
Although you can’t force your customers to, you think it would be a wise idea for them to contact the three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and put an identity theft or fraud watch request on their accounts.
Write a letter to those customers who were affected and let them know that the laptop was lost and what will happen with their accounts.
Case 2: Positive/Informative Correspondence
You are the office manager of the Crunchy Granola Café at the local community college. Generally, the café sells breakfast from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. (including breakfast tacos, biscuit sandwiches, and a variety of pastries) and lunch from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (including sandwiches, salads, hamburgers, pizza, and a daily hot lunch special).
It also sells coffee, soft drinks, and a large variety of snacks all day. The café provides excellent service, and your students, staff, and faculty like to eat in the friendly environment. Indeed, it’s not unusual to see impromptu meetings between faculty members or students hosting small study groups.
However, the café is in desperate need of some updates and improvements, and you need to shut it down for about three weeks during the renovation. While the renovation is ongoing, you plan to open up a temporary facility close to the original café, but you won’t be able to serve hot items for either breakfast or lunch for three weeks and the space you do have will be much smaller.
When the renovation is complete, your students, faculty, and staff will have access to a newly designed café —designed by students in the engineering department and decorated with art from students in the art department. It will also feature wireless Internet access and a wide selection of specialty coffees.
Write an email to students, faculty, and staff informing them of the renovation and providing them with information they need to act.
Case 3: Persuasive Correspondence
You’re the public relations director at NSB Office Solutions, an international organization with its corporate offices in California. Every year, regardless of your annual performance review results, your company guarantees you a 3% cost of living raise. When reviewing your compensation while doing your taxes, you noticed that you did not receive the raise.
You were supposed to have an extra 3% salary on your pay beginning January 1. Furthermore, you had dinner with a fellow employee and this person told you that he received his performance review raise in addition to his cost of 3% living raise.
You believe the cost of living pay raise was a computer error or an oversight by the human resources department. You received an excellent performance review from the company president for last year’s work, and your paychecks beginning January 1 do reflect the merit raise. However, you would like to how to rectify the problem of three paychecks that do not reflect the proper 3% cost of living raise.
Write a memo to the president of the company and the human resources director asking them to review your paycheck and salary.
Bonus Assignment 6: Attend One More Webinar/Online Course in April for your career growth and for your business to prosper, you will need to gain skills and knowledge. This bonus assignment encourages you to take advantage of the abundance of online resources to acquire knowledge and develop essential skills by taking one more webinar or online course in April. The requirements of online courses/webinars and learning takeaway summary for this bonus assignment is similar to those of Learning Takeaways and Peer Learning Feedback.
Online Courses/Webinars
You can find a course/webinar by using the list of online courses/webinars related to entrepreneurship and business development for the Learning Takeaways and Peer Learning Feedback. Or you can use other online sources that fit your learning needs. Here are a few requirements of the online courses/webinars you can view:
- Topics: The main topics need to be entrepreneurship or business development related. The topics can be general business focused or hospitality/foodservice/event specific.
- High Quality: The online course/webinars need to be of high quality. I will let you be the judge of quality if you want to use any sources off the list I provide. If you are not sure, please send me the link. I will let you know whether it is worth your time and effort.
- At Least One Hour: The online course or webinar needs to be at least one hour of online courses/webinars. You can take an online course/webinar that is one hour or longer. Or you can take multiple online courses/webinars to meet the one-hour requirement. For example, you can take two 30-minute online courses of different topics.
- Viewing in April: The online course or webinar has to be viewed in April 2020.
Learning Takeaways
After viewing your online courses/webinars, please summarize your learning into at least five takeaways. Your summary should include:
- Brief information about the online courses/webinars: title/topic of the course/webinar, link online, length of time, a brief introduction of the instructor/speaker…
- List FIVE takeaways you get from the courses/webinars
- Would you recommend the courses/webinars to others? On a five-point scale (1 is lowest and 5 is the highest), what is your rating of the courses/webinars. Why?
Requirements of the Learning Takeaways:
- The learning takeaways summary needs to be 500 words or more.
- At the subject line, please input the title/topic of the courses/webinars you take.
- The total possible score for this bonus assignment is 10 points.
San Francisco Small Business Development Center (SFSBDC) conducts a wide variety of business seminars across San Francisco County on various subjects. These seminars are led by experienced professionals who overview their topics, provide several real-world examples and answer questions from the audience. You can check out these seminars at https://www.sfsbdc.org/calendar
- The U.S. Small Business Administration offers a variety of online course to help you start and run your business. Please check their courses at https://www.sba.gov/learning-center
- Learn Entrepreneurship with free online courses and MOOCs from University of Maryland, College Park, University System of Maryland, University of Cape Town, Stanford University and other top universities around the world. Read reviews to decide if a class is right for you. https://www.classcentral.com/subject/entrepreneurship.
Panelists included Dave Merrell, Michael Cerbelli, Kristin Bantar, Kate Patay, Michael Stavros, and Joann Roth Oseary who all come from an events industry background. I chose to watch this webinar after a classmate had shared it for our first weekly learning post.
I was really intrigued to watch it because it focuses on the events area of hospitality which is my specific area of interest. I am also conducting my HTM 515 internship with an events company and am writing about how this part of the industry is being impacted by COVID-19, so I felt that this would be a beneficial webinar to watch.
The panelists all come from an events background and own small event companies, so it was very insightful to hear how they are reacting to the current situation. They also touched on problems which have occurred in the past like 9-11 and the recession and discussed how these occurrences affected their business. Because of this, they were able to share what they did then and how it helped their business by better preparing them for the future.
5 Takeaways:
- Find other projects that can push your business forward and get you through the period of time in question. As a business, you need to get creative and find alternative areas that you can reach into that will hopefully benefit you in the future.
- Put a stipend or side trust together. Putting away money for your business will give you a cushion and set your business up for success in the future.
- You should not be reactionary, you need to be strategic. In times of uncertainty like this, the way you strategize will determine your future. Making smart moves will lead to future capitalization.
- Don’t try and sell in times of crisis. You must stay true to your client base and keep consideration for who it can be. Take times like this to check in with your clients and ask them how you can help. Trying to sell right now will draw clients away.
- Keep Good Faith. In the long run, your reputation is what will get you through this dark time, so you must do the right thing now to ensure your reputation is strong when business resumes.
I would recommend this webinar to anyone in the hospitality industry, especially business owners. This was very informative and provided strong advice for dealing with crisis situations like this. I would give this webinar a 5/5.