Draft July 29, 2002 Chapter Two

LO 2-1

Click-thru animation with mouse-overs of line art or stock photos as panels in what may appear to be a comic strip.

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Title: Opening scene: Bill drives to work and things of the ethical situations, problems and dilemmas he faces that day: a typical day in the life of a public relations manager.

Explanation: Panel looks like LO 1-1 and all the other opening-vignette Learning Objectives for the other chapters. This panel depict a man in his car driving to work.

Panel #1:

Bill shifted gears and accelerated as he entered the stream of highway traffic. It was Monday morning, and the weather forecaster on the radio said the week’s weather looked fine. This was Bill’s daily 45-minute commute one-way from his suburban home to his office downtown, and despite the distance and time involved, he liked it. Unless he turned on his cell phone and someone called him, it gave him some time alone to listen to music and think.

Panel #2:

This day he found himself thinking about the pressures building on him at work, where he was director of public relations. They were not overwhelming. Some were big; some were small; all were just part of the job. He liked the company, and he had been with it ten years. It was a prosperous, regional real estate development firm with lots of good people to work with. He liked his job, and he was well paid.

Panel #3:

One bit of pressure he had to deal with later this afternoon would be getting the feature story for the company newspaper cleared through the research lab manager, who always spent too much time on stylistic issues. Bill always yielded to specialists when it came to the facts, but the writer in him resented anyone who capriciously edited his copy. He punched a button on the radio and thought about the editorial review board meeting later this week. Here was something he felt proud about because getting clearance on copy for the annual report had been a problem for his predecessor. The report used to be dull. Now it was packed with timely, even controversial issues. Bill had formed a small committee of top people, including the corporate lawyer and the chief financial officer. They were meeting this week to go over the table of contents he and his staff had prepared for next year’s report. Bill knew the group’s discussion would be lively and would focus not only on what to include, but also on what spin to give each bit of information. He liked the group, primarily because someone always resolved hot topics by asking, “What do our most sophisticated stockholders want to know?” He jotted a note on a pad next to him. A car honked nearby.

Panel #4:

What really bothered him this morning was the way the head of marketing had suggested in a recent meeting that the lack of sales in the new territory was the fault of a public relations campaign. It irritated him the way the marketing fellow always had to find someone to blame. Bill was going to have to sit down with the man today, if at all possible, and discuss the situation. There were more than a half dozen explanations for why the new service had not been received well in that one market. It made him angry to think about the petty, backbiting ways of the other manager, but he knew what to do about it. First, they would meet one-on-one. Then, he would arrange for the two of them to sit down with their boss, the CEO, to discuss the matter; but later, not today.

Panel #5:

He had bigger things to discuss with the CEO today. Corporate security told him last week that they had a group of workers under surveillance in the warehouse and expected to bring in police to make arrests this week. They wanted no publicity on the matter, even though, according to corporate security, the stolen equipment had ended up in the low-income housing projects that were being built by a well-known business associate of the city’s mayor. Bill didn’t see how the arrests could possibly stay out of the press. He definitely didn’t think it wise to downplay the situation. He thought they should do the opposite and take lots of pictures, maybe even invite the media to witness the arrests. He would take up the issue with the CEO at their regular weekly meeting this morning.

Panel #6:

The biggest issue he had to discuss with the CEO was the proposal from the head of the architectural group to increase profits by cutting back on the cost of certain building supplies and on the time spent to install certain sections of homes. Bill thought the short-term profits would be offset by a decrease in long-term sales, especially when the poorer quality construction began to wear thin and home owners began to consider remodeling or moving. He wouldn’t talk to the CEO about it this morning, though. There was a managers’ meeting later this afternoon, and he thought it best to raise the issue there. He considered the best way to frame the issue. What he wanted to say was that he knew damn well that they weren’t in the business of building cheap homes. However, he also knew that a more productive way to get the answers he wanted was to ask, “Are these short-term strategies to save money consistent with our long-term goals? What are the consequences in five or ten years of our cutting a few corners today? What’s the best way to estimate these long-term consequences?”

Panel #7:

As he pulled into the office parking lot, he felt better about some of the ethical situations, problems and dilemmas he was facing because he had visualized how he would deal with them. As he parked his car, he remembered the prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Then, he made a mental note to call the corporate attorney.