A practice in Negotiation Class

You are a partner Tax Department of a big law firm named A&B based in Seattle. You have worked there for about 13 years. You have got accustomed to the work and life there and you like it. Recently, due to your standing and reputation, you were nominated a member of committee of the Bar Association of Seattle whose responsibility is to investigate sexual harassment in big law firms in Seattle. You accepted it and you felt honored to get such a position. But you thing relating to this position made you feel headache. While you were interviewed by a news paper on sexual harassment situation, you said: I do know whether the sexual harassment problem is severe or not, that is what we are going to investigate. While the report of the interview was made public, you were reminded by your colleague that what you said would make the public deem that in your mind sexual harassment in big law firm is not severe. This could be misleading and you contacted the paper to try to correct it. But by now the paper did not consent to do that.

You are a family man. You love your wife, your kid and your family. And you think your family is very nice. But recently you found that your wife got addicted to alcohol, which made you quite uncomfortable. You asked her to get some cure from doctors or even advised her to take some psychiatric therapy. But it does not work, or she did not want to do. Her addiction became more and more severe. Finally you said that if you do not control it, you will move out of the home. Your wife did nothing, therefore you lived outside. 

Then problems came. You could not sleep at night and you felt quite lonely. Then you found that an associate colleague named Anne was very attractive and talked to her quite often while you have time. Sometimes you even invited her to have lunch together outside. You got to know that she faced the same problem as you. So you two had a lot of chat and you even recommended her to reconcile with her boyfriend. Finally Anne reconciled with her boyfriend and you got less time from her. And you found that she talked more with another partner on another floor of the building, you felt somewhat lost.

Luckily you found another associate named Mary from Tax Department who was quite friendly. She specifically reminded you of your first girl friend in your college. Shy, beautiful, smart. You do not have any further thought on her. You are just fond of talking to her. But while you offered to have dinner with her, she declined repeatedly. Later on she told you that she declined because she did not want her boyfriend felt unhappy for this. It is Okay for you.

As the economic recession is ongoing, the law firm decided to reduce 4 headcounts. Ann i among them. You are a member of the committee to discharge those employees. For you, you know if you say something good for Ann, probably you would convince other members of the committee to make her stay. But you know the fact is that Ann is least experienced staff of the four. You would not to let your personal fond affect your professional judgement. Therefore you voted to consent to let Ann leave.  Though you felt quite sorry for that.