Yet Another Discourse

My first job was one that many people have. I worked in retail after my freshman year of college for Macy’s. It was an interesting experience, where I learned a discourse that was completely different from the one that I had as a student. Some parts of the job were easy, and some parts were more difficult. The easier ones for me was learning how to work the register and putting clothes back on the floor. The harder aspects were going to retrieve items for customers, as I was considered a floater. I bounced around departments between the women’s store and the men’s, kids’, and home store, so it was harder for me to learn where the stock was kept, because each back room had its own security code and the layout of the departments constantly changed, so sometimes items were on different sides of the floor, or just on a different floor completely. The other more difficult aspect was that I had to learn how to interact differently with different customers. Some were really nice and it was easy to communicate with them, others were a little more challenging. I had to learn to adapt to dealing with the more difficult customers. I also had to learn how to communicate with customers where there was a language barrier.

In the work environment such as retail, or in any other work field, you have to be able to “read” your coworkers and clients/customers. You have to anticipate what they will want or need, and be able to come up with a solution that satisfies their desire. In a different setting, I would need to be able to “read” what would appeal to clients and the target demographic. Such things would include the wording of advertisements, the colors and images used, the font of the text, even the media outlets used to promote the product or service being offered.

I think people tend to stereotype restaurant servers, because it doesn’t seem to be a job that could become a career. It is seen as a job that many young students have on their way to better things, or a job that people have because they don’t have the skills, education, or motivation to do something more with their lives. In the article by Mirabelli, he debunks this stereotype by giving examples of people himself included to worked as servers in restaurants as a way to help them financially while they were pursuing higher education, or because they liked the customer interaction.

All career fields have a stereotype that is attached to it. A stereotype that a job in business marketing has is that anyone can do the job, you will be stuck in an office, it’s a job just for money. People do have respect for this job, because it is one that will ensure financial stability, and one that can lead to higher social status. One way that people can avoid stereotyping is by actually looking at individual jobs within the field, not just the field as a whole. Not all marketing jobs are the same, because they often overlap with other sectors of the business field as well as other non-business fields, such as the medical fields and the non-profit areas.