Case Study

Miranda signed out a company vehicle, as usual, on Monday morning. She was going to the grocery store to pick up creamers and coffee for the staff room, and then making a stop at a local deli for a tray of sandwiches, cookies, and bottles of water for a day-long meeting. She liked this part of her job because it meant she got out of the office while everyone else was adjusting to being back at work for the week. Miranda had a very good relationship with the deli, which always made sure that her trays were created to her exacting specifications. She was equally particular about the other aspects of her job, and well respected for her results as an Executive Assistant.

Andrew Smart was Miranda’s manager. He was having a rough day on this particular Monday. He’d had words with his wife before leaving for work that morning, he had a stack of e-mails and paperwork to look after, and he was chairing the meeting that day with some Very Important People. This meeting had put a lot of pressure on him, and he was coping about as well as he usually did; he’d get mad at someone in the office and let them deal with it. He noticed that the normally reliable and very efficient Miranda was late. Sometimes her ability to manage competing priorities and always meet her deadlines irritated him. He looked at his watch several times as the meeting got underway, and wondered where Miranda was with the coffee and creamers. He didn’t like starting a meeting without coffee, and was also mildly irritated that there was none in the office on the weekend when he had been in doing some preparation work.