Can you answer the two discussion questions below?
FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONFRONTATION I worked in the foreign exchange (FX) back office, ble. They were discussing female anatomy in where deals done by our 150 dealers were checked, detail in a room with almost all men, and I knew payment instructions were added, and queries my views were in the minority. I was afraid any addressed. My job was to resolve problems arising reaction from me would be ridiculed. Writing from deals. Much of the time this meant going about it now, I also feel proud for having had the upstairs and talking to the dealers. courage to tell him off. Now, you never told a dealer that he or she was The Foreign Exchange dealers, nearly all men, wrong, even when handling dealers who, through- were the most arrogant group of people I have out the whole of my placement, were never right. ever come across in my life. If I had not gradually You just briefly stated what the problem was and come to understand some of the reasons for their asked them to kindly look into it. behaviour, an outburst like the one I have just This particular incident involves Nick, one of described would have come much earlier. You the men who always made mistakes. This time he need to appreciate the fact that the FX department had mixed up the currencies on a deal. The pay- is, at the moment, one of the best departments ment was due in half an hour, so it was important result-wise in this firm, which creates a feeling to get him to amend the deal. I went up to see him, of invulnerability and extreme self-importance but Lee, also from the back office, was already among those working there. I did not feel that talking to him about something else. Because my this was a valid excuse for their behavior; still, I problem was urgent, I waited for Lee to finish. learned to accept it. When Lee left, Nick glanced at me and then, to my The back-office policy was to accept any amount surprise, left his desk and went over to another of rudeness from the dealers, and then let it all dealer, John, from whom we had heard juicy come out afterwards when you were safely back at comments for quite a while. A group of dealers your desk. This policy was no good as it only assembled and I could hear and see from their helped to increase the hostility between the dealers behaviour that they were not discussing business. and the back office. My telling off the dealer meant I went over and discovered that the reason for that I had broken the main taboo in the office. their behaviour was two pages from The Sun news- Over several weeks, I realized that this earned me a paper filled with pictures of posing, naked women. lot of respect. I had done something many of my Something inside me just snapped. I told Nick that colleagues had wanted to do for years, but dared my job was actually meant as a service to the deal- not. The risk was smaller for me as I was only ers, to help make them aware of errors before it there for a short while. So, I achieved respect both cost them money. I explained how much work I from the back office and from some of the dealers. had to do and how much other dealers appreciated And perhaps, even more important, I respected my corrections, so by ignoring me he was not only myself more for having done what I felt was right. wasting my time, but his own colleagues' right to the service the back office offers. And with his error-statistics, I would imagine he had better Discussion Questions things to do than to stare at page three girls. 1. Describe the power bases and contingencies I turned around, left my sheet of paper on his of power held by Nick and the "back-office" desk and departed. person during this incident. My main emotion both then and now is anger. I felt I had been patient and taken much more rude 2 . How did the back-office person's power change behaviour than was acceptable. The way Nick after this incident? Why? ignored me to go and look at photos of semi-clad Source: Adapted from Y. Gabriel, "An Introduction to the women in a newspaper was the straw that broke Social Psychology of Insults in Organizations," Human the camel's back. I also felt helpless and vulnera- Relations, 51 (November 1998), pp. 1329-54
