Reflection Paper on Who Stole My Cheese

The Sniff in Me

A situation as to when I behaved like a Sniff was when I was a project head for the year-end senior send-off event back in sophomore year.

At first, I had a hard time because the previous project head was not able to document anything that she did the previous year, which means that I needed to come up with how I am supposed to tackle the event the moment it was awarded to me. After consulting the officers of the organisation, I agreed to recruit core members and volunteers for the event during our first General Assembly. I was able to come up with a full line-up of heads and volunteers for the different pertinent departments, I started calling in meetings so that we would be months ahead of the plan. However, a few meetings into the school year, I started to notice that around one or two of the core members have been failing to attend meetings, or have not been giving acceptable excuses for their absences. After missing out on the next meeting, I contacted them and confronted them as to why they were missing in action. After finding out that they were having a hard time balancing their academics and extra curricular activities, they resigned from the job. I expected them to do so from the track record of their attendance, I already started asking around for others who might be open to replacing the others, and already had people ready to replace them. Being in an organisation that was small served as a challenge, because I had no choice but to resort to people who were not as qualified but was eager to work.

At the end of the day, the planning and event went smoothly, and the event was able to attain a record number of attendees in the organisation’s past few years. A lot of people congratulated me for the successful event, even though there were a lot of bumps along the way. Being able to notice the fact that people might not be able to deliver early on in the school year allowed me to anticipate the changes that I needed to execute, and doing so allowed the rest of the preparation to move forward and end up with an event this successful.

The Scurry in Me

A situation as to when I behaved like a Scurry was when I was in my internship last year, and was tasked by my superior to invite and schedule interviews with people that we were trying to profile for the position that we were eyeing them for.

Being someone who is organised and wanted to impress my boss, I was able to make myself learn how to screen through profiles quick, and develop and eye for what kind of people I believe that my boss would want to interview. After this, I would be scheduling them during the days he told me he was free, and allot them 30 minutes apart from one another. During the first few days, I noticed that a lot of them were not as responsive as I thought they would be, and quickly developed a system as to make the process more efficient. I would go to work earlier than the call time, and make sure that I get to schedule all of the interviews that is for the day after the next. If they are able to respond in the next few hours online, then all would be well. If they do not respond, I make it a point to text them at around 3 in the afternoon asking if they have received our invitation. If they do not reply within the hour, I would stay a bit after work ends after 5:30 to call them one by one, due to the fact that they might not be able to check their phones during work hours. Once I get their confirmation, I would text them afterwards, and remind them through text on the day of their interview to make sure that they appear. The goal here was to get as many accepted invites as possible, so that my boss would be able to maximise the time that he allocated to interview these applicants.

At the end of the day, behaving like a Scurry was able to help me get to my cheese faster. I just kept on going forward and pushing more to invite more people, get the confirmation out of them, and fill in the position that we needed to cover. Otherwise, I would have just waited for my boss to order me around, but I can confidently say that being a Scurry was able to make the most of our time and resources while getting the job done at the same time.

The Hem in Me

A situation as to when I behaved like a Hem was when I was preparing for my exam for my accounting class back in junior year.

Ever since I was in grade school, the study method that I have developed was to go through every single topic/chapter/handout/notes that I was able to accumulate throughout the semester when preparing for exams. It proved to be effective until high school, so I thought that it is something that I could bring into college as well. It was more or less effective until I encountered my accounting class. I have been told again and again that when I study for exams, especially if they are exams for SOM, I would have to study smart. I tried again and again to study smart, but