JUPITER DRUG CORPORATION: CRYING TIME

Ms. Justina Concepcion has been working for the past three years as branch manager of 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 fore any employee within her branch except
the store manager. To was one morning when she was browsing on various documents forwarded to
her, that she noticed four letter 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 resignation on 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 a written
request two months earlier about swapping assignments with one another. They said that once
approved, their new assignments would bring them within walking distance of their residence. It
appears that the concerned store manager on the request made no