Martha Thomas supervises 40 professionals in eight food chain restaurants, and in recent months, she has noticed a 10 per cent increase in claimed overtime. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, she issued this one-sentence email correspondence to her staff: When the amount of work increases to a level of working extra hours from the regular routine of the employees (35 hours a week), and when the estimated work needs full shift of eight hours or more on two or more consecutive days, the employee's hour of duty shall be changed to include the hours to complete the work, unless the employee's absence has an adverse effect on his previously scheduled assignment. Result: After the 40 copies were sent out, Martha's office received 30 phone calls asking what the email correspondence meant. What the 10 people who didn't call about the email thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy. Questions to think about: Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication? Identify the communication error (poor audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization? Other?)