Real-Life Decision Making
You're working the night shift on a computer system that your boss wants repaired for the following morning. As you unscrew the back of the machine and pull out a few wires, the phone rings. "That's odd," you think to yourself. "The shop closed long ago. Who could be calling?"
The voice on the other end of the receiver is panicky. "We've had a malfunction! Something's wrong with the system!"
You don't even know who's calling, but you can tell from the sound of her voice that something has gone seriously wrong. After calming the caller down, you start to understand what has happened.
A small shipping company across town recently automated their systems. Electronics engineering technologists at your company designed the system that was going to make their shipping and receiving data entry much simpler. You helped install it.
Something has gone wrong, and they aren't able to document their shipments. The morning deliveries are scheduled to go out in five hours.
It sounds like the job may take the rest of the night to fix, but you already have a job to do here that your boss said he needed for tomorrow morning.
You have a decision to make. You could go to the shipping company and fix their problem. It sounds serious. However, you're not sure if the work you're doing right now is urgent.
You could call your boss and ask him what to do, or perhaps have him call in another electronics technologist. But your boss is most likely sleeping at this hour, and even if he isn't, he expects you to be able to make tough decisions.
What do you do?