This quarter’s Writing Assignment #1 (WA 1) relates to our current Covid-19

situation, and hope for recovery in the next 12 months, when you may be entering

the job market.

Background Situations:

You were talking to your friend, Ravi, who just completed two

interviews with two separate international companies, Starbucks and Microsoft. Ravi

tells you that the interviews were quite surprising. During each interview he was

confronted with unusual situations that he had to respond to on his feet. You ask him for

the details and he tells you the following two interview experiences:

(1) At Starbucks corporate office, Janet, the Human Resources director conducting the

interview asked Ravi to give his opinion on how to manage through the Covid-19 crisis

at a company such as Starbucks. She said that Ravi’s response should focus mainly on

the concepts of “just in time inventory” and “supply chain management” of a company

large globalized company. He was asked to explain to Janet ways to manage through

this pandemic impact in April and May and over the next 12-24 months. Smiling, Ravi

tells you that having read the article on our class website Readings for Week 1, as well

as parts of our textbook, he felt confident answering the questions.

(2) Similarly, at Microsoft, the Human Resources director Caesar, conducting the

interview, asked Ravi to discuss his opinion on a more philosophical question.

Specifically, Caesar asked Ravi how he would approach quantifying, in general, the

value of a person’s life who has a complicated, possibly terminal case, of the Covid-19

virus. Again, Ravi had read the related article on our course website for Week 1 and

had done some independent online reading prior to the interview, so Ravi had thought

about this in advance and prior to the Microsoft interview.

Your assignment:

Choose one of the two above fact patterns, either the Starbucks or

Microsoft interviews, and write a 3-4 page essay. The essay should summarize the

related articles and other articles or readings you can find online or elsewhere and

explain how you would answer the interview questions. The essay should be on Word

or related software, 12 point font, and 1.5 line spacing.

In this class, your instructor is not looking for a Masters’ thesis or a PhD dissertation.

Your paper will be graded both on content and writing style. Make sure that you read

your essay prior to submission and correct all errors of spelling, grammar and other

typical writing mistakes.

Submitting what is, in effect, your first draft won’t work unless you are a perfect writer,

which few of us are. Turn your paper in online to our Canvas site.

Instructions for Turning in Assignment:

1) Please complete your assignment in a word document processing application and

save your document as a Word Document. (DO NOT SAVE IT AS A PDF or RTF or

ANY OTHER FILE FORMAT).

2) After doing so, please upload the assignment into the Writing Assignment #1 Tab,

found on Canvas under the Assignments Tab.

3) Please only upload your assignment once. We are unable see or grade multiple

copies/versions of the assignment.