Microcomputers, Inc. (B) (Bill Simpson)

After a short conversation with the person in your doorway, you find that it is a maintenance man named Al Bemus, whom you. have not met previously. Al has a work order signed with your name on it (but it is not your signature). It is a request to have six tables set up in your main training and conference room. The work order called for the tables to be left in the room for five weeks. The five weeks are over today. Al tells you that the tables are being taken out of the room at this very moment. You have an ongoing training session which meets twice a week for twelve weeks in that room. The new tables for that room have not arrived. Your class is scheduled to meet tomorrow. If the present tables are taken out of the room, you will be in a difficult situation, since the class cannot continue without them and there is no other room like this one available. This problem arose when your secretary signed the work order for you (which is all right with you normally). However, in this case, since the new tables haven't arrived, you need to keep these tables for at least another month until the new ones come in.

Talk to this maintenance man and try to convince him to let you have the tables for another month.

Microcomputers, Inc. (B) (Al Bemus)

Now you find after some conversation with Simpson that the work order requesting the tables to be first set up and then removed five weeks later is somewhat outdated. He still needs the tables to remain for a while longer. As he tries to convince you to leave them, be either cooperative or stubborn, depending on how he treated you in the first part of this exercise. If you feel that he was not treating you as you like to be treated, give him a hard time. Tell him you can't do what he is asking you to do. If he was effective in communicating with you in the first part of this exercise, and if you like the approach he is taking now, then give him what he wants.

Disclosure Game

The immediate object of Hatha Yoga is to master the various asanas. Each of these is a specific position which one's body assumes. A novice begins to assume one of these positions and finds that his or her muscles "protest:" The means by which one fully enters an asana is to enter it up to one's limit and then to press gently at that limit. There can be no forcing, no cheating. The novice enters a position no further than has been "earned." One can view authentic dialogue as a kind of interpersonal asana. The ultimate in dialogue is unpremeditated, uncontrived, spontaneous disclosure in response to the disclo­sure of the other. The following is an exercise aimed at helping a person discover his or her limits in ongoing dialogue. The first person discloses himself or herself on the first topic until both partners are satisfied there is no more to be said. Then, the other person does likewise. Then, on to the next asana, or topic. The rule is complete honesty, respect for one's own limits (as they are experienced in the form of embarrassment, anxiety, and so forth). As soon as this point is reached, the person declares he or she is at a limit. The partners can then discuss reasons for the reserve, and the person may overcome it.

PART 1: DISCLOSURE

1. My hobbies, interests, and favorite leisure pursuits.

2. What I like and dislike about my body—appearance, health, and so forth.

3. My work—satisfactions, frustrations.

4. My financial situation: income, savings, debts, investments, and so forth.

5. Aspects of my parents I like and dislike; family problems encountered in growing up.

6. Religious views, philosophy of life, what gives meaning to my life.

7. My love life, past and present.

8. Problems in my marriage or in my: dealings with the opposite sex at present.

9. What I like and dislike about my partner on the basis of this encounter.

PART 2: PHYSICAL CONTACT

The same rules of respect for one's own limits, and one's partner's, apply.

1. Massage the head and neck of the partner.

2. Massage the shoulders of the partner.

3. Give a back rub.

4. Rub the stomach of the partner.

5. Massage the partner's feet.

Sample Speeches

MINGLED BLOOD

PALPH ZIMMERMANN

"Mingled Blood" won first place in the men's division of the 1955 Interstate Oratorical Contest. Later that year, Mr. Zimmermann graduated from Wisconsin State College at Eau Claire; in the fall, he entered law school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; and the following spring, in March 1956, he died, a victim of hemophilia, the blood disease he describes so eloquently in this speech. That year's edition of Winning Orations of the Interstate Oratorical Association made the inclusion of "Mingled Blood" especially poignant, for it was dedicated to his memory. The speech was also printed and distributed by The National Hemophilia Foundation of New York City.

In this speech Zimmermann relies upon compelling personal narrative, which he occasionally supports with scientific and historical data. In this way he seeks to make the problems created by hemophilia real, painful, and tragic. Which portions of the speech do you find especially effective? Do you feel that Zimmermann's descriptions are so realistic at times that they might be too painful to a listener? Does the speaker's ethos derived from personal affliction mitigate this problem?

Zimmermann's conclusion is worth special attention. It brings the speech to an emo­tional climax and simultaneously creates admiration and respect for the speaker as a hemophiliac. Note those aspects of the conclusion that you think are instrumental in bringing the speech to such a moving end

1. I am a hemophiliac. To many of you, the word signifies little

Startling statement or nothing. A few may pause a moment and then remember

gains attention and that it has something to do with bleeding. Probably none of establishes personal you can appreciate the gigantic impact of what those words credibility. mean to me.

2. What is this thing called hemophilia? Webster defines it as "a

Definition adds clarifi- tendency, usually hereditary, to profuse bleeding even from

cation and quotes an slight wounds." Dr. Armand J. Quick, Professor of Biochemistry

authoritative source. at Marquette University and recognized world authority on this

topic, defines it as "a prothrombin consumption time of 8 to

The question adds a 13 seconds." Normal time is 15 seconds. Now do you know personal touch to a what hemophilia is?

clinical definition 3. It is by no means a 20^th century phenomenon. Ancient writings reveal the Jewish rabbis, upon the death of first born sons from

Historical information. bleeding after circumcision, allowed the parents to dispense with this ceremony for any more sons. Family laws of ancient Egypt did not permit a woman to bear any more children if the first born should die of severe bleeding from a minor wound. How odd it seems to link the pyramids of the 4th dynasty with prothrombin consumption of 1955. 4. Hemophilia has had significant influence on the pages of history. Victoria, the queen of an

empire on which the sun never set, was a transmitter of this dread ailment. Through her daughter, Alice, it was passed to the Russian royal family and Czarevitch Alexis, heir apparent to the throne of Nicholas II. Alexis, the hemophilic heir apparent, was so crippled by his ailment that the Bolshevik revolters had to carry him bodily

Adds a bit of "news" to the cellar to execute him. And through Victoria's daughter,*

and human interest Beatrice, it was carried to the sons of the Spanish monarch, Alfonso XIII. While this good queen ruled her empire with an iron hand and unknowingly transmitted this mysterious affliction, my forebears, peasants of southern Germany, worked their field, gave birth to their children, and buried their dead sons. Hemophilia shows no respect for class lines. It cares not whether your blood be red or blue.

mixed with metaphors for greater impact.

.

of 5. For hemophilia is a hereditary disease. It afflicts only males, but paradoxically is transmitted only by females. The sons of a victim are not hemophiliacs, and do not pass it on. However,

Technical terms are all the daughters are transmitters. Of the transmitter daughter's children, half of the girls may be transmitters like their mother, and half of the sons may be hemophiliacs. Thus the net spreads out and on. Theoretically, it follows stria Mendelian principles. But because it is a recessive characteristic, it may lie dormant for generation after generation. As far back as my ancestral line can be traced, there is no evidence of hemophilia

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 690