Gerald Tate Case

Reflective portion

The first narrative event I want to discuss is in the beginning of the TV series. Gerald Tate was a client of the law firm Pearson Hardman, something wrong was happened in the case which he gave to the law firm, so he wanted to realize about the situation. Louis Litt was an employee of the law firm; he reports this matter to the boss Jessica Pearson. Jessica decided to let another lawyer Harvey Specter to solve this matter and Harvey solved this matter quickly. Although the matter has been solved, Harvey used a small trick to solve it. And Jessica did not want to pursue that trick. She was very satisfied with his work. And Louis seemed to think he has the ability to solve this matter, but Jessica did not give him the opportunity to let him finish the job. The next day, Louis, Harvey and Jessica discuss about the issues of recruit new people and Jessica decided to promoted Harvey becomes a senior partner. Louis was dissatisfied for not being promoted.

In this narrative event, Jessica became a cause of conflict more or less. In the beginning, when the firm had problems to be solved, she decided to let Harvey go for it directly without thinking. She might have a great confidence on Harvey because of his talents and abilities, also Harvey have better skills to get along with people. Jessica trust Harvey and she knows that Harvey can make a good profit for the firm. She is not just the boss of Harvey, they are friends in daily life and they believe in each other. She confirms the work of Harvey and decides to promote him and kind of ignore the feeling of Louis.

For Harvey, he is very confident about his work ability. He is not a person who put all his life in the work. He have the talents on his job, he is a very efficient person on working, and have a good reputation. Harvey is very sophisticated whether at work or in daily life, but he always make jokes on Louis, because Louis was his job competitors. Louis thinks those jokes are very ironic. For his promotion, Harvey is very happy and enjoyable. Harvey should be considered that he deserves the position of the senior partner.

Louis is the most formidable opponent for Harvey in a law firm. He is a talent man, but always lives in the shadow of Harvey. When he reports to Jessica about Gerald Tate things, he hopes Jessica able to give this task to him. But Jessica gives this task to Harvey, and ignoring the Louis immediately. This makes Louis feel very unfair. Louis wants power so much; he was very upset after hearing Harvey's promotion. He thinks that Harvey is not very serious about the work and always late for the work, but Louis has the work ability and work very hard, but he did not get the results that he deserved.

In my opinion, Jessica is biased in the distribution of the work, when there is a problem need to be solved, the first person she thought about might be Harvey, Harvey does have the ability to solve problems in the work, but when Jessica always rely on Harvey, Louis will feel that he have been neglected. This will makes Louis have a negative mood.

The second narrative event is the drug tests event. Louis praised Mike that he has a great ability about work and go to play tennis with Mike. In the tennis courts, Louis show the report of Mike's drug test and told Mike that he did not pass the drug test. Louis threatened Mike ingratiate a major client Tom Keller with smoking marijuana, because Mike and Tom are peers and Tom was a drug addict. If Mike refused to do that, Louis would expel him. Mike was forced to promise Louis. Harvey was very angry after he knows this thing, because when he hiring Mike, Mike made a promise that he would never touched marijuana.

Louis is very sinister in this event, first of all, because Mike is a complete novice and there are lot things he needs to learn, but Harvey hopes Mike to complete these tasks on his own. Louis wants to use this point and pull Mike into his side. He praised Mike about his work ability threaten Mike to please a customer for himself. This will not only be able to get his own benefits, but also makes Harvey lost a competent helper.

Mike is in a dilemma in this situation, he have less experience in this situation, so he choose to accept Louis's suggest because he do not want be fired. At that time, he think that he is doing the right thing to keep his job safe and he do not think that Harvey will discover he smoked the marijuana again, or even though Harvey find out, Harvey will understand that he have to made a choice to help Louis and save his job.

When Harvey find that Mike help Louis and smoke marijuana again, he is very angry and disappointed. He is angry about that Louis want to make Mike become Louis's helper, and disappointed about Mike agree to help Louis. He thinks that Mike should be asking him first and that they can try to find a way to handle it. He also believes that there is a better way for Mike to solve this problem, but Mike just let Louis utilize his weakness.

In my point of view, no matter you want to gain profits or get succeeds, it is not right to deceive or threaten others. We should take a proper way to win benefits for ourselves and the company. I think Louis's approach is very incorrect, as a co-workers, people should work together and make progress together, instead of take away the benefit of others and using deceptive methods to achieve their goals.

Conceptual portion

Equity Theory

According to equity theory, employees evaluate what they receive from a job in relation to what they contribute. They compare their own input-output ratio with relevant others, system policies and precedents, and criteria related to the "self," such as previous jobs or family commitments. When inequity exists and they are either over rewarded or under rewarded, people will attempt to correct this situation (from textbook). That means only equitable remuneration can make employees feel satisfied and energized. To find out the reward is fair or not, employees will compare with others, historical situation or compare with their past. Compensation is too high or too low will both make employees psychologically nervous. When compensation is too high, they will increase production, improve quality to eliminate their sense of injustice. When compensation is too low, they will simultaneously reduce the yield and quality to eliminate the sense of unfairness.

In the TV series, Louis is a good example to explain the Equity Theory. Louis is actually a very hard-working lawyer, he work very carefully and hope that the company will have a better performance. He always wants to become an executive