Case Study: The Botched Bathroom Remodel

The case study that I chose from Thought, Experience, Sense by Gwen A. Hullman was case study two, “The Botched Bathroom Remodel”. This case study was about a young man, Jeremy, who worked as a bathroom remodeler and was helping his uncle remodel his bathroom. He came into some problems with his boss, Gwen, because his uncle kept changing his mind multiple times, which was starting to cost the company unnecessary money. Jeremy didn’t know how to approach his uncle about the situation because he didn’t want to upset him. Also, he didn’t bring anything up the first few times that his uncle had made changes. Jeremy had a hard time separating his communication with his uncle on the bathroom remodel from family to professional. Message planning

190).

This situation could have been avoided entirely if Jeremy would have used professional communication from the beginning with his uncle. His family communication that leaked into his professional life caused many problems for not only him but his uncle as well. Since Jeremy didn’t use his professional communication, he didn’t stress the importance that his uncle needed to make up his mind when he first started to waver in his decisions or else it could end up costing him twice as much. In the end when he finally switched to a more professional tone he was able to fix the problem at hand by offering other solutions. His use of family communication in the beginning caused a problem for him at work as well as a potential problem in his relationship with his aunt and uncle. Once he regained his professional communication skills he was able to redirect his focus to his job and not just giving his uncle unrealistic treatment that could potentially hurt his job and relationship with his employer. Jeremy quickly learned that distinguishing between the two types of communication styles is vital when you are working with family or friends. He had to find the right balance between giving family special

When in a more professional atmosphere it is important to think about what to say before saying it. Hence needing to think about message planning, as to not say the wrong thing or have it come across different than intended. This is not the only thing that Jeremy was thinking about though; he was also thinking about message reception and how whom he was talking to was going to take the news. When he was planning his conversation that he was going to have with his aunt and uncle, he focused greater on message reception than on message planning. He was fixated on how they were going to react instead of trying to figure out the best way to convey the message to them. Hullman (2015) stated in the study “…Jeremy wished that he never would have started on this project with his uncle and dreaded talking with his aunt and uncle about the cost of these changes and the change-form signatures required to make them” (p. 191). He was focused on how his aunt and uncle were going to take the news, when he should have been focused on how he was going to tell them, because he had to do it one way or