Business Communication & Career Preparation
Section editor: Dr. Puyan Taheri
The Businessmen
Jacob Lawrence, 1947
I Saved My Company Money and Was Almost Fired
David Karkut, Assistant Professor
ACSS Department, UCW
Early in my career I worked as a manager for Western teachers in an office in Tokyo, Japan. My boss asked me to look for ways to improve operations, and I found one.
Teachers were reimbursed for train travel, with each trip paid separately. While checking receipts, I noticed discounted ticket booklets existed. They were about ten percent cheaper, which across a year meant over $20,000 could be saved.
So, I introduced the idea at the next staff meeting as I knew the company owner was going to attend. I wanted to impress him. I was hoping for praise (and maybe a bonus). I explained my suggestion in front of all staff and the big boss and expected wild applause, but the room went quiet. Nobody said anything, and the meeting moved on to the next agenda item without discussion. I was shocked, confused, thinking, “What had just happened?”
Afterward my manager spoke to me privately. He said introducing such a change publicly was his responsibility, not mine. He said I was being disrespectful and said he had even considered firing me! I just saved the company thousands of dollars with a new idea. I thought he was being egotistical and ungrateful. That’s conflict!
I understand now that both of us assumed bad motives or personality traits to the other. In reality, it was a misunderstanding based on culturally-set priorities. I had assumed efficiency mattered most. In that office, role order mattered more.
I see the same pattern when students begin working in Canada. Many try to be careful by waiting for instructions, avoiding questions, and finishing work before showing it. They believe this shows professionalism. Managers often read something different: waiting looks passive, no questions look like lack of engagement, and finished work arrives too late to adjust.
Both sides are trying to do the right thing, but they are protecting different priorities. Workplaces see patterns not effort or intent. Conflict is part of coordination, and cruelty begins when we decide the other person should have known better.
Before starting a task, ask one simple question: what matters more here -independence or confirmation? Find out how your workplace works – what’s most important there. Getting that answer early prevents many misunderstandings from becoming personal and leads to more success.
It Helps If You're Already Smart.
Dariush Daraee, Assistant Professor
ACSS Department, UCW
It Helps If You're Already Smart.
We've all fantasized about it.
A pill that unlocks your full brain potential overnight. Removes all human limits. No more mental fog, no more self-doubt, no more wasted capacity. Just pure, accelerated intelligence.
In the 2011 movie Limitless, a struggling writer takes exactly that. He finishes his novel in one sitting. Masters multiple languages in days. Becomes a financial powerhouse on Wall Street.
It's an intoxicating idea. And Hollywood made it look very convincing.
But here's what the movie actually got right, and it wasn't the pill.
When someone asks the dealer about the drug, he shrugs:
"It helps if you're already smart."
The pill amplifies what's already there. Without a foundation, there is nothing to amplify. The shortcut only works if you've already done the work.
That's not a movie detail. That's the whole point.
We've all seen this pattern before, just with different tools.
In the 1970s, calculators made math faster, but only if you understood the logic behind the numbers.
In the 1980s, CAD let designers work in 3D, but only if they already grasped design principles.
In the 2000s, project management software generated schedules in seconds, but if you didn't understand that construction depends on equipment arriving on site, and that equipment depends on engineering documents being ready, the software simply gave you a beautifully organized wrong answer.
Every tool amplified the judgment you brought to it. Every era rewarded the people who showed up with something real underneath.
Now the tool is AI.
We can generate presentations, analyze problems, and draft solutions in minutes. The technology is genuinely extraordinary. But the real test hasn't changed.
At the end of the day, you're still presenting your work to people. And people aren't buying your AI-generated slides. They're buying your judgment about what actually matters. Your ability to turn complexity into clarity. Your ability to earn trust in the room.
Those capabilities don't come from software. They come from doing hard things in real contexts, deciding under pressure, interpreting ambiguous situations, negotiating difficult conversations, and finding your footing when no one is telling you what to do next.
If you're a student right now, that's exactly where you are. And it's a more valuable place to be than it might feel.
You have something that can't be downloaded, time to build the foundation before the amplification begins. The students who will thrive alongside AI aren't necessarily the ones who learn to use it fastest. They're the ones who bring something worth amplifying to it.
So the question worth sitting with isn't how well you can use AI.
It's what you're building underneath it.
AI will accelerate your work. But only human judgment can steer it somewhere worth going.