3. Assume you are the supervisor of social workers at a hospital. One of your co-workers, a nursing supervisor, asks you to meet with him in his office to discuss a mutual problem. When you arrive at the agreed-upon time, he says, “I’ll be right back as soon as I deliver these instructions to one of the nurses and grab a cup of coffee.”

After you get started 10 minutes later, the supervisor takes several telephone calls, interrupting the meeting for 5 minutes at a time. “Sorry,” he says after each call, “but that call was important.”

An hour into the meeting, you have not made much progress toward solving your problem.

a. How would you feel in a situation like this?

How does your co-worker’s behavior affect your performance? How does it affect his performance?

b. How could you react in this situation to improve your use of time?