Short summary and personal conclusion please

CASE FOR ANALYSIS Does This Milkshake Taste Funny?105 George Stein, a college student working for Eastern Dairy Eastern Dairy manufactured milkshake and ice cream during the summer, was suddenly faced with an ethical di- mix for a number of customers in the metropolitan area. lemma. George had very little time to think about his choices. It sold the ice cream mix in 5- and 10-gallon containers less than a minute. On the one hand, he could do what Paul to other forms, which then added the flavoring ingredients told him to do, and his shift could go home on time. How- (e-g.. strawberries or blueberries), packaged and froze the ever, he found it tough to shake the gross mental image of all mix, and sold the ice cream under their own brand names. those innocent kids drinking milkshakes contaminated with Eastern Dairy sold the milkshake mix in 5-gallon card- pulverized maggots. If he chose instead to go against Paul, board cartons, which contained a plastic liner. These pack- what would the guys say? He could almost hear their deri ages were delivered to many restaurants in the area. The sive comments already: "Wimp... college kid...." packaging was designed to fit into automatic milkshake machines used in many types of restaurants, including most fast-food restaurants and drive-ins. Background George was elated when he received the call ask- ing him to come to the plant on June 8. After a brief visit George Stein had lived his entire life in various suburbs with the HR director, at which time George filled out the of a major city on the East Coast. His father's salary as necessary employment forms, he was instructed to report a manager provided the family with a solid middle-class for work at 11:00 P. M. that night. He was assigned to the lifestyle. His mother was a homemaker. George's major night shift, working from 11:00 P.M. until 7:00 A.M. six interests in life were the local teenage gathering place- nights per week-Sunday through Friday. With the regular a drive-in restaurant-hot rod cars, and his girlfriend, wages paid at Eastern Dairy, supplemented by time-and- Cathy. He had not really wanted to attend college, but a-half pay for 8 hours of guaranteed overtime each week, relentless pressure by his parents convinced him to try it George thought he could save a tidy sum before he had to for a year. He chose mechanical engineering as his major, return to school at the end of the first week in September. hoping there might be some similarity between being a me When George reported to work, he discovered that chanical engineer and being a mechanic. After one year of there were no managers assigned to the night shift. The engineering school, however, he has not seen any similarity entire plant was run by a six-person crew of operators. yet. Once again this summer, his parents had to prod and One member of this crew, a young man named Paul Burn- cajole him to agree to return to school in the fall. They ham, received cach night's production orders from the day only succeeded by promising to give their blessing to his shift superintendent as the superintendent left for the day. marriage to Cathy following his sophomore year. Although Paul's status was no different from that of his George had worked at menial jobs each of the last five colleagues, the other crew members looked to him for four summers to satisfy his immediate need for dating and direction. Paul passed the production orders to the mixer car money. He did manage to put away a bit to be used (who was the first stage of the production process) and for spending money during the school year. He had saved kept the production records for the shift. very little for the day that he and Cathy would start their The production process was really quite simple. Mixes life together, but they planned for Cathy to support them moved between various pieces of equipment (including with her earnings as a customer service representative until mixing vats, pasteurizers, coolers, homogenizers, and fill- George either finished or quit school. ing machines) through stainless steel pipes suspended from The day after George returned home this summer, he the ceiling. All of the pipes had to be disassembled, thor heard that Eastern Dairy might hire summer help. He ap- oughly cleaned, and reinstalled by the conclusion of the plied at the local plant the next day. Eastern Dairy was night shift. This process took approximately one hour, so unionized, and the wages paid were more than twice the all the mix had to be run by 6:00 A.M. in order to complete minimum wage George had been paid on previous jobs, so the cleanup by the 7:00 A. M. quirting time. Paul and one he was quite interested in a position. other worker, Fred (the mixer), cleaned the giant mixing Part 5: Managing Dynamic Processes vats while the other four on the shift, including George. the filter screen from the pipe at the leaking joint and saw cleaned and reinstalled the pipes and filters. that it was completely packed with solid matter. Closer in- George soon learned that Paul felt a sense of respon- spection revealed that maggots were the culprits. George sibility for completing all of the assigned work before the hurriedly took the filter to Paul to show him the block- end of the shift. However, as long as that objective was age. Paul did not seem too concerned and told George to achieved, he did not seem to care about what else went on clean the filter and reassemble the joint. When George during the shift. A great deal of story-telling and horse asked how this could have happened, Paul said maggots play was the norm, but the work was always completed by occasionally got into the bags of certain ingredients that quitting time. George was soon enjoying the easy camara were stored in a watchouse at the back of the lot. "But you derie of the work group, the outrageous pranks they pulled don't have to worry," said Paul. "The filters will catch any on one another, and even the work itself. solid matter." George's position required that he station himself Feeling somewhat reassured, George cleaned the filter beside the conveyor in a large freezer room. He removed and reassembled the pipe. But still, the image of maggots containers of mix as they came down the line and floating in a milkshake was hard to shake. And, unfortu- stacked them in the appropriate places. Periodically, Paul nately for George, that was not the end of it. would decide that they had all worked hard enough and Shortly after the pumps were restarted, the mix began would shut down the line for a while so that they could to flow out of another point . Once again, a filter plugged engage in some non-work activity like joke telling, hiding with maggots was found to be the cause. cach other's lunch boxes, or "balloon" fights. The balloons For the second time, George cleaned the filter and re- were actually the 5-gallon, flexible liners for the cardboard assembled the connection. This time Paul had seemed a bit boxes in which the mix was sold. more concerned as he noted that they barely had enough While George did not relish being hit by an exploding time to run the last 500 gallons remaining in the vats be- bag containing 5 gallons of heavy mix, he found it great fore they needed to clean up in preparation for the end of fun to lob one at one of his co-workers. The loss of 10 to the shift. 40 gallons of mix on a shift did not seem to concern any Moments after the equipment was again restarted, one, and these fights were never curtailed. George quickly another joint started to spew. When maggots were found learned that management had only two expectations of the to be clogging this filter, too, Paul called George over and night shift. First, the shift was expected to complete the told him to remove all five filters from the line so the last production orders each night. Second, management ex- 500 gallons could be run without any filters. Paul laughed pected the equipment, including the pipes, to be spotlessly when he saw the shocked look on George's face. clean at the conclusion of the shift. Paul told George that "George," he said, "don't forget that all of this stuff inspectors from the county health department would oc goes through the homogenizer, so any solid matter will be casionally drop by unannounced at the end of the shift to completely pulverized. And when it's heated in the pas inspect the vats and pipes after they had been disassembled teurization process, any bacteria will be killed. No one and scrubbed. Paul also told George that management will ever know about this, the company can save a lot of would be very upset if the inspectors registered any com-mix--that's money-and, most important, we can run this bout cleanliness through and go home on time." George did join the union but saw very little evidence George knew that they would never get this lot pack- svolvement in the day-to-day operations of the aged if they had to shut down every minute to clean filters, glas Labor relations seemed quite amicable, and George and there was no reason to believe it would not be this way thought of the union only when he looked at a pay stub for the rest of the run. The product had been thoroughly and noticed that union dues had been deducted from his mixed in the mixing vats at the beginning of the process, gross pay. The difference George noticed in working for which meant that contaminants would be distributed uni Eastern Dairy compared to his previous employers was not formly throughout the 500 gallons. George also knew that the presence of the union but the absence of management. the 500 gallons of milkshake was very expensive. He did not think management would just want it dumped down the drain. The Current Situation Finally, Paul was definitely right about one thing, removing all of the filters, a 10-minute job at most, would Things seemed to be going quite well for George on the ensure that they could get everything cleaned up and he job-until a few minutes ago. The problem first surfaced out on time. when the milkshake mix that was being run started spew. As George walked to the first filter joint, he felt a knot ing out of one of the joints in the overhead pipe network. forming in his stomach as he thought of kids drinking all The pumps were shut down while George disassembled of the milkshakes they were about to produce. He had al- the joint to see what the problem was. George removed ready decided he would not have another milkshake for > Chapter 10: Organizational Culture and Ethical Values 425 at least a month, in order to be absolutely sure that this this mix. As he picked up his wrench and approached the batch was no longer being served at restaurants. After all, first pipe joint that contained a filter, he still could not help he did not know exactly which restaurants would receive wondering if he should do or say something more