CASE 9. JUPITER DRUG CORPORATION: Crying Time Ms.

Justina Concepcion has been

working for the past three years as branch manager of

Chapter 9: Communicating

Jupiter Drug Corporation in Cabanatuan City. As branch manager, she oversees the
operations of five stores located in different parts of the city. The stores open at 8:00 A.M.
and close at 8:00 P.M. Each store is manned by a store manager plus nine other employees
consisting of an inventory clerk, a cashier, a utility boy, and six salespersons.

Ms. Concepcion has the full authority to hire and fire any employee within her branch except
the store managers. It was one morning when she was browsing on various documents
forwarded to her, that she noticed four letters of resignation. Two cashiers and two
salespersons prepared the letters. She thought that she must act quickly on the resignations.
The letters indicated reasons that she found hard to accept. One employee stated that he
was resigning because he would attend to the needs of the family farm.

With Ms. Concepcion's experience with the company, one resignation per year is considered
normal, but four resignations in a month is too much, she thought. She immediately
contacted a trusted employee to seek out the real reasons. She found out that the two
cashiers made written request two months earlier about swapping assignments with one
another. They said a that once approved, their new assignments would bring them within
walking distance of their residences. It appears that the concerned store manager on the
request made no action.

One of the salespersons resigning indicated that she was confused in doing her job. Most of
her time was spent on entertaining customers, but at other times, she was ordered to
perform bookkeeping functions. When the store manager reprimanded her for logging in the
lowest sales record she filed her resignation.

The other salesperson resigned because he thought the store manager was unfair to him
when an amount equivalent to three days absence was deducted from his weekly earnings.
The salesperson objected by saying he only made one-day absence on account of illness. The
store manager, however, was not convinced. Ms. Concepcion is now considering the moves
she will have to make.

Learning Assessment
 

1. Assess the communication barriers encountered in the case. 2. Evaluate the situation and
propose appropriate form and means of communication for the firm. 3. Propose
communication techniques/model for Jupiter Drug Corporation.