Four months ago, Ted Banacek completed State Bank'sManagement

Trainee Program and was assigned as assistant manager of the busy Westbury

Mall Branch. Pleased with Ted and confident of his abilities, his manager took a two-week vacation. The first week went smoothly for Ted, but on Monday of the second week a problem developed when a customer asked Ted to refund a

$3.75 fee that was four months old. Complying with bank policy, Ted refused politely. The customer, angry over the refusal, later engaged several branch em-ployees, including a new accounts clerk, Judy Miller, in a conversation in which Judy belittled Ted and inspired ridicule of Ted among the tellers in the bank.

Even though, at age 27, Judy Miller was just a few years older than Ted Ba-nacek, she had been working at State Bank almost five times as long. While Ted

was completing his college degree, Judy married, had two children, and started working at State Bank as a teller. Smart and hard-working, she had slowly but surely progressed up the ranks. She had been a new accounts clerk for a full

year before Ted even came to the Westbury Mall Branch.

Judy went through a divorce not long ago. Needing more income and want-ing a more professional career, she was very interested in being promoted and

thought she was as capable as the next person for a manager'sjob. She also let it

be known to everyone in the branch that she thought that she-and not Ted-should have been given the assistant manager'sjob.

Whenever Ted dealt with Judy, he could detect a resistant, competitive edge to her. However, he never felt that their working relationship was impaired. He couid recall many examples when they worked closely together to solve a cus-tomer problem or complete special project.

Indeed, until the recent incident with the customer regarding the matter of the $3.75 refund, Ted had no reason to give Judy Miller a second thought. If Ted had any insecurity, it stemmed from his lack of teller experience: In the

bank'sManagement Trainee Program, the trainees did not work as tellers. He believed that anyone, including Judy, who had experience as a teller had a real advantage, and he was very self-conscious about this area of weakness.

Late Monday afternoon as he looked out at the bank'sempty parking lot,

Ted wondered whether he should do something to respond to what had hap-pened with Judy and the customer. He decided to let things ride, not rock the boat and see if the problem might simply go away.

20.1

On Tuesday morning, he came to work with a "clean slate." Fortunately, it looked like it would be a quiet, slow day. He diligently got to work. In going through his mail, he spotted a document that Judy had sent to operations-and that had been completed incorrectly.

There were only a few customers in the lobby. He went to Judy'sdesk; she was chatting with a co-worker as they processed some papenrork.

Ted began: "Judy,I just opened this document back from downtown. It'sthe

one you fiIled out yesterday. Unfortunately, you did it incorrectly." He carefully continued, "It'sokay that you made a mistake. It'sa long and complicated pro-

cedure. Let me show you how to do it correctly-"

Ted proceeded to show Judy how to fill out the document, thinking he was helping her. He also considered this his way of saying: "I'mnot letting yester-day'sevents with the customer bother us. Let'scontinue to work together." Yet, as he talked to her, Ted could sense that Judy was uncomfortable and defensive.

Finally, Judy blurted out an explanation of why the mistake occurred: "I was rushed, there were a lot of customers." The other back-office person piped in

that there had been a big rush of people yesterday.

Ted finished the discussion by asking Judy to redo the form and send it back to operations- However, for the remainder of the day, Ted sensed that Judy-along with some of the other employees-was angry at him and avoiding him. By the end of the day, Ted knew that something was wrong with the staff, and his spirits started to sink.

Now it is Wednesday, which picks up where Tuesday ended. By mid-morn-ing, though, the situation has gotten worse. "Something is definitely wrong

here," Ted tells himself. "There'stoo much whispering among the tellers and no one is talking with me." The tension in the branch office is almost tangible. He starts to think that he is failing: "I'mblowing this. If I don'tdo something, I'll lose my job."

He calls one of his friends, Sandy McGill, a manager at another branch, and

explains what has happened. "What should I do, Sandy? I feel like things are out of control. Should I say anything, call a branch meeting, talk to Judy indi-vidually, or what? I need some help."

Sandy can tell that Ted is anxious and very concemed.

1.What kind of problem does Ted have here?

2.What events have occurred to lead to this state of affairs?

3.How should Ted proceed? What should he do now?