Phedre was working her first shift at the Hyacinth Burger Bar. She had gone through some training with the owner Melisande the previous day.

She had found Melisande intimidating, despite her politeness and calm demeanor. She felt her bored gaze throughout the training and registered her stiff and unwelcoming body language and slightly condescending tone.

Melisande had also warned her several times to pay attention, saying she wasn’t prepared to waste her time explaining things twice. Phedre felt as though she might already be disappointing her new employer, and she hadn’t even done anything yet!

Despite her social discomfort, Phedre had listened carefully to everything, in particular the instructions for cleanup at closing time. The most difficult part of cleanup was scraping the burger grill and emptying the grease trap. The collected grease from a day’s worth of burgers and bacon was, once cool enough, put into garbage bags and disposed in a special container kept outside the restaurant in the back.

Melisande had been very specific the previous day. She had told her, “Put three scoops of grease in each bag and then throw them away.” The supervisor on shift today, whose name was Joscelin, had told her something quite different though. “Make sure you double up on the bags,” was his first comment, followed by “and make sure you only put two scoops in per bag and no more. If you put three the bags tend to break. A few weeks ago one guy had it break just as he threw it into the container and dirty grease spilled all over him. He was vomiting for a few minutes and then had to go home right away. We don’t want that to happen again. Don’t worry about Melisande seeing you not following instructions. She does get upset about that type of thing but she is hardly ever here. Your training session was the first time I’ve seen her in a month.”

“Wow,” thought Phedre. “Thank goodness Joscelin told me about that or something very nasty could have happened. I wonder why Melisande doesn’t know about this—after all, she is the owner! If I had followed her instructions it could have made me sick.”

Discussion Questions 1. Why do you think the grease trap cleaning issue has not been drawn to Melisande’s attention? Be as specific as possible.

2. What might Melisande do differently to encourage more upward communication? Be specific.

3. Using this case as an example, discuss how the informal communication network can impact the effectiveness of orientation and training. Remember to consider both potential positive and potential negative impacts.