QUALITY OR QUANTITY. You manage the evening shift at the GoGo Motors assembly plant in Gotown. Like the day shift, your shift has had trouble meeting the quota set at headquarters. You even wrote headquarters a memo explaining why you could not average more than 200 chassis an hour. You were informed in writing (1) that the assembly line is capable of producing up to 220 chassis an hour and (2) that the company cannot run the plant profitably on 200 chassis an hour.

Claim (1) is true in a sense. The assembly line can produce 220 chassis for an hour or two, but only by exhausting the workers (and provided no machinery breaks down). Rut the only way to get even 210 chassis an hour for much longer than an hour or two is by counting "chassis assembled" rather than "chassis fit for shipment," that is, chassis without significant defects. Defective chassis are either rebuilt (at considerable cost) or scrapped.

Claim (2), in contrast, is more a threat than a statement of fact. It's a polite way of saying that if the assembly plant doesn't meet its quota, it will be shut down and you will be looking for another job.

You ask the plant manager what to do. His response is chillingly simple, "Do the best you can-and then inelude enough defective chassis in your shipment to bring the night's work up to quota. If the bastards in headquarters cared about quality, they would check for quality. They check numbers. They leave quality to you. Figure it out for yourself."

The plant manager will say nothing more explicit and will put nothing in writing. He answers all such requests with a smile at once kindly and contemptuous, as if to say, "Come on now, I've said what I said as a friend, not as your boss, and I've already said more than I should. You know that managers sometimes have to do things they cannot talk about. Don't worry, everyone here will understand what you're doing and why you're doing it."

Then, just as you are sure he will say nothing more, he adds, "Remember, in the long run, the market will take care of everything. You can't fool the consumer."

Do you take the plant manager's advice? Why or why not? If not, what do you do instead? Why?

SEARCH AND DESTROY. You are a manager of a small division of a large corporation. You have just been informed by one of your assistants that a buyer seems to be receiving substantial gifts from suppliers (a clear violation of company policy). But the operative word is "seems."

You wonder what to do. To ask the buyer outright would simply invite a denial (whether she is guilty or not). You therefore consider putting the buyer under surveillance, that is, monitoring her office phone, going through her desk each night, and perhaps having a detective watch her house, obtain bank records, and so on.

You like this plan. There is no telling what might turn up. But, if nothing does, the buyer will not know she has been under surveillance. That is important, not only because there is no reason to ruffle an employee's feathers unnecessarily, but also because this employee can be quite unpleasant when her feathers are ruffled.

Actually, you would like to get rid of her on any pretext whatever, and you are pretty sure your assistant feels the same. Both of you are tired of her complaints about discrimination, about the safety of products you sell, and generally about your lack of social conscience. What should you do? What shouldn't you do?