Christopher Hernandez
MGT 307 – N
Case #2

Analyze the case from George Stein's perspective:

1) What factors play into the dilemma?

There are a number of factors that play into George’s dilemma in this case, but before I begin to analyze those factors lets briefly reexamine the situation. George Stein is working at a milkshake/ice cream mix supply company called Eastern Dairy. George is working at Eastern Dairy for the summer and he works the night shift. The night shift is unsupervised and ran by 4 or 5 assembly workers. George has gotten along with all his fellow employees and together they have formed quite the comradery. Paul, one of the assembly workers on the night shift, has become somewhat of a self elected supervisor of the shift. All of the employees of the night shift get along very well and enjoy their time together thoroughly which has allowed George to really enjoy his time at work. One night they are faced with a problem regarding the filtration of the mix. All the filters are getting clogged up due to a bad batch of mix filled with maggots. Now, the employees can either repeatedly unclog the filters and reattach them over and over until all the mix has completed the filtration process or they can remove all the filters and allow the maggots to stay in the mix until it has gone through the homogenizer and the pasteurization process, which according to Paul will “Pulverize” all solid matter and destroy any bacteria. The issue with constantly removing, unclogging and reattaching the filters is that it will slow down the filtering process so much that George and his fellow employees will have to stay past the end of their sift. Paul advises George to take the filters out so that they all can get home after their shift but George does not feel comfortable doing so. This leaves George with a difficult choice.
George is having a difficult time deciding what to do due to a number of factors that are running through his mind. The first factor is George’s conscience. In the case it states that when George goes to take out the filters he begins to feel a knot forming in his stomach and that he cannot get the idea of maggots in children’s milkshakes out of his head. Obviously George is an ethical human being who is worried about all the individuals who will be consuming Eastern Dairy milkshakes and ice cream. This explains his gut feeling.
There are a number of factors that also challenge George’s decision to leave the filters in and do the right thing. The first of these factors is peer pressure. Within the case George describes his relationship with his employees a lot like a group of guy friends, they tell jokes, they rough house and tease each other. One of the reasons George must have a hard time doing the “right thing” is that he must be afraid that his fellow employees will tease him for wanting to filter the mix and making all of them stay at work even later then originally planned.
The next factor is the matter of the company’s finances. If they decide to throw out the mix because of the maggots, that would waste 500 gallons of mix and the money that it cost to purchase it. So, from a purely financial standpoint it makes more sense to leave the bag in with the maggots. The last of the factors is the lack of time George has to decide. It is difficult to go against what your friends are pressuring you to do without time to really think about it. Not only is George pressed for time due to the shift nearing its end but also because Paul told him to remove the filters and that is something that takes a matter of minutes. So George only has a minute or so to decide to either do the correct thing or fall into his peer pressure, and it is much harder to decide to do the right thing when you don’t have time to really think about it. These are all the things that are racing through George’s mind and emotions as he approaches the filtration pipes to either remove the filters, or stand up to Paul and suggest to do the right thing.

2) What should he do? In my opinion George should approach his friends/coworkers and tell them that he does not feel comfortable allowing the mix to go through full of maggots. It can be difficult to open up to a group of guy friends because there is always that pressure to be “manly” and “cool” in front of them, but true friends should always care for each other’s concerns and opinions. If I were George I would tell the group how I felt and hopefully they would respect my feelings, and if they do not then it would show that they are not true friends. If someone is not willing to sacrifice for another then they do not care about that person enough and they should not be considered a friend in the first place. After all before they are a group of friends they are a group of coworkers with a responsibility and allowing mix to go through with maggots would go against their duties and responsibilities.