April 10, 2022

To: Kate Manager of Coffee shop

From: Savannah DeAguero, employee/barista
Subject: Concern about ant issue

Good afternoon,

Hi Kate I am writing this to bring up an issue about our work conditions here at work. I don't
think this needs to be an issue brought up to headquarters unless you think so. Me and a few of
the staff have noticed how bad our ant problem has gotten. I am very uncomfortable at work as I
get very anxious when I see all these ants crawling everywhere. I get very itchy and nervous
while I'm working. This issue seems to not be getting any better and continues to keep getting
worse. Every shift I notice the issue and each time there are more ants in the same places and
in different places. I have noticed this problem consists next to the syrups and blenders more
than anywhere else. Here are a few questions I have about this concern.

Is there something we can do to fix the problem?

Are other stores having this problem?
How are they preventing the ants from coming and living in this area at their stores?
What do you think about this situation?
Have you noticed it or is this something that you had no idea of?
How can we help as employees to better this situation?

This ant problem can be due to the temperature we are getting right now. Every creature that
lives outside is trying to find warmth or an area to hibernate for winter. Nonetheless I think we
need to come up with a gameplan to solve this problem since we are a food service industry.
We are supposed to provide clean and great service to our customers and we cannot do that if
we constantly have ants in the areas where we make the drinks.

Me and the rest of the employees would greatly appreciate you looking into this and helping us
solve the problem. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you,
Savanah
April 11, 2022
To: Savanah
From: Kate
Subject: Re:Concern about ant issue

Good morning,

Hello Savanah thank you for reaching out to me. I do see your concern on this issue. I did not
know that the situation was that bad. I did in fact know that we had a few ants. I’ve been having
the closers deep clean that area. I thought it would resolve the issue. Since I know know that
the problem has not gotten better I will try and see what I can do. I am not sure if any other
stores are having the issue as well. It could be the time of season playing a big factor in this as
well. What you can do to help the situation is

1. Clean as much as you can

2. Make sure not to leave syrup on the counter if you spill or make a mess after marking
drinks make sure to clean it.
3. Try not to leave the syrup bottles sticky

I do know that this is an important issue as we are in the food industry and need to practice
good sanitary practices. I will talk with my boss to see if she suggests anything that could help
get rid of the ants as we will need to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

As for right now if you don’t wanna work in those areas infected by the ants, I can make sure to
put you in warming or up front. Come talk to me at the beginning of your shift or send me an
email and I'll make sure to put you on the schedule at those positions.

Thank you,
Kate
April 11, 2022
To: Kate
From: Savanah
Subject: Re: Concern about ant issue

Good afternoon,

Hi Kate, Thank you for getting back to me. I am glad that you did notice the situation and acted
on it. I do appreciate you trying to get rid of the ants by having the night crew clean in those
areas.

I will do my part in keeping this store clean. I will make sure to wipe down all the syrups before
putting them away. I will try to be less messy when making drinks, and making sure my work
area is alway clean.

When your manager gets back to you, I would appreciate being notified. I would like to know
what they are going to do to fix this situation. And how we are going to be able to prevent it from
happening again. I'm sure the rest of the employees would appreciate being notified as well.

Thank you for your effort in fixing this issue as it is a very serious issue. I hope we are able to
resolve this issue soon.

Thank you,
Savanah
April 12, 2022
To: Savanah
From: Kate
Subject: Re: Concern about ant issue

Good Morning,

Hello Savanah, After a lot of thought and consideration we have decided to close the store on
Wednesday April 13. I have talked with my manager and we believe this is the right decision to
make for our store and employees. With this, employees working April 13 will have a day of
leave. We want to make sure to get rid of the ants in a timely manner. Me and my boss will be at
the store April 13 with an exterminator. I'm not exactly sure how or what he will do to get rid of
the ants. I do know that for safety precautions we don't want any employees or customers
around.

We have also created a plan to make sure we don't have ants reappearing in those areas again.
I will be sending out a schedule with how we will prevent this to each and every employee once
the issue is resolved. Probably on Thursday the 14th.

In addition I would like to thank you for talking to me about this. I don't think we would have
gotten rid of the situation in a professional way without your help. I want you to know that you
can always come to me about any issue that may arise.

Thank you,
Kate
April 14, 2022
To: All employees at coffee shop
From: Kate(Manager)
Subject: Ant issue

Hello everyone, I would like to inform you that we have taken care of our ant issue in a
professional way. I would like to thank all of you for your cooperation in all of this. I would like to
apologize for those who had to miss their shifts yesterday. If you have a problem where you
need the money for that shift or you're upset about it please reach out to me and I will make
sure to schedule you an extra shift.

Our long term plan to keep away the ants is as follows.

1. We will make sure to not leave bottles sicky. Make sure you clean the bottle if you were
to drip
2. We will now have scheduled cleaning times. These times will consist of morning midday
and night shifts.
3. We are not leaving any caramel or syrups out at night. So night crew will have to clean
and put them away every night
4. Morning crew will have to bring them out every morning.

I will have more details on what you will have to clean on the morning, midday, and night shift.
But it's basically just going to be a deepclean of the store. I will make a schedule to make sure
not only one person has to deep clean every time. I will make it fair to make sure everyone has
to eventually take on this responsibility. With this you I can not guarantee that you might not be
doing it often just to do the availability of your coworkers.

We encourage all of you to to contact us if you see an issue like this arise again. We want to
make sure we are providing the best service to our customers and that we have a clean and
comfortable work area for our workers.

Thank you,
Kate (manager)

Reflection
I found it really easy to choose the situation I choose. This is because I choose a situation that
happened to me in real life. I was very bothered by it and it made me very uncomfortable. It was
one of the reasons I left my job there. I wanted these conditions to be changed because I felt
like they were very unsanitary conditions for us the workers and for the customers. Although the
customers were the ones working in this condition it was a health violation to them as an ant
could easily fall or crawl into their drinks.
The development of events to what really happened in real life to what I wrote was there
definitely was an ant problem at our store. Some of my coworkers had found ants crawling on
them during their shift. I had an ant on my arm one shift which made me disgusted and
uncomfortable. Everything I wrote was the truth. The only thing that was different was that there
was nothing done about the ants. In my emails they did something to get rid of them. In real life
there was nothing done. Another thing was in the emails I said how the other coworkers felt
uncomfortable too but in real life I don’t think they cared about the ants as much as I did. I hate
living creatures, they gross me out and scare me. So when I had to work with ants crawling
everywhere it was the worst thing ever.
This assignment has changed my understanding of the communication processes happening in
the real workplace, by showing me the other side of things. Having to come from a bosses point
of view is hard. I know that it can be frustrating for us workers when something like this happens
but we can’t take it out on our managers. They are people too. They, just as much as us, want
the situation to be gone. This can be a tough and stressful situation for them as well as us. They
want what’s best for their workers and the store. But they don’t always know exactly what to do
in situations, and that’s when their bosses come into the picture. So writing from the managers
point of view was very interesting because I had to understand the issue and come up with a
game plan and explain it to the employee. So this made me see both sides of a situation.
I would like the instructor to know that I used fake names and did not want to expose the
company as it was a real situation at a place I had worked at. I also took this project seriously
because it was something that happened to me. I was able to express my thoughts on the
situation at hand and that was something I didn’t know I needed to do. So that helped. I enjoyed
this project.

SLO’S
Content development:
The types of genres are emails, letters and memos. Emails are for a technical workplace to give
information and ask questions. Letters are for people on the outside, people form not inside the
organization. With letters you can make inquiries or request something from them. You
communicate important information such as accepting something or deny it. And memos are for
people you work with. They are short and get straight to the point. Are usually very important. In
my project I used emails. My emails were designated to go to my workplace boss. In these
emails I expressed my concern on an issue that happened at a workplace. Then I acted as the
boss and wrote back to myself explaining how I would solve this issue. I then wrote an email
back to the boss responding to her email. Then I was the boss again writing about how things
were going to change. Then as the boss again I wrote a memo to the workers of this coffee
shop. This memo was very important as it addressed the issue and how it was solved. It als
addressed what future things needed to be done in order to not have the issue happen again.

Written Communication:
In these emails I had to write professionally. This means I had to make sure to use professional
wording. Making sure to use correct punctuations and have details but also get straight to the
point. When writing professionally you have to make sure to get straight to the point because
the people you are addressing are almost always super busy. They don't have time to read
something that they don't need to or doesn't pertain to them. That is why unnecessary things
should not be on important emails, memos, and letters. You also don’t want to use any special
fonts or add anything distracting. This can take away from the importance of the information in
the email, letter, and memo. Also with fancy fonts it can take longer for the receiver to
understand and read it.

Reviewing and editing:

In my emails I was lucky to have had them reviewed by 2 different people. These people read
my emails and gave me feedback. The feedback was very helpful. I also reread my emails on
multiple occasions. This really helped me find any mistakes in my emails. My emails have now
been reviewed and edited to my liking. I think they sound professional and are overall well
thought out emails.