Imagine carrying a bag with different costumes and a set of instructions for each costume. We will call this bag the Discourse bag. Before walking into the school building you open up your Discourse bag and pull out a professional uniform with glasses and an apple. The directions for this costume read: "Take attendance, open computer file for next lesson, teach lesson, eat lunch during break, be kind and respectful to students by valuing their opinions and time, smile." After you finish the school day, you drive over to the bistro and pull out a different outfit from your Discourse bag and change into your all black uniform with directions to serve customers wholeheartedly in order to get tips. According to Gee, with the appropriate costume you can take on a role that others will be able to recognize (Gee 7). At school, students call you "teacher" and at the bistro, customers call you "waitress". Just as Professor Erin addressed in her blog, she wore business attire instead of her normal casual attire when in a different setting performing a different role.
I've had a few moments in life where I had to "fake it 'til I made it". Dress the part, look the part, act the part, speak the part. Not so much be someone I'm not; rather, looking like I know what I am doing because life doesn't slow down for me. When I became an intern at Jewish Family Service, I dressed professionally for my orientation and I am glad that I did because the building and its workers all dressed up business to business-casual. I continued dressing business/business-casual (which is currently the type of attire I normally go for now) whenever I was in the office and presented myself to my clients. My clients were 1st or 2nd generation Holocaust survivors, so they had different forms of trauma whether first-hand or second-hand trauma. The case workers from JFS (Jewish Family Service) conducted professional services with their clients and I tried following this standard as well. While tagging along with the case workers to visit different clients, I tried imitating the way the case workers spoke to the clients. I knew that this was not only to help me learn how to speak to the clients while wearing the hat as the intern, but also because I was representing Jewish Family Service as a whole. The internship was unpaid and I was required to do my internship for 16 hours per week, so it was the matter of focusing on my personal experience and growth to intern at JFS rather than focusing on keeping the job for money.
I had about 3-4 clients I would see on a weekly basis. Since my clients were all much older than me and had lived out their entire lives, I had no clue how to help them with their life problems such as helping them cancel their credit cards used to pay their insurance, compiling a file of dental insurance issues for one client, helping another client with her worker's compensation case that she had been working on for 20 years, helping 2 clients publish their stories, attending court with 2 clients, and sending out a mail (I forgot what to write on an envelope to mail out items because I have only done so once in 3rd grade). I just had to roll with the punches - accept the mission, research what I had to do, and provide my clients with the help they need. It was definitely an interesting semester interning at JFS, not knowing what to do at all; but coming out alright.
You made it!I think everyone is faking it and the rest are sociopaths or worse, genuinely happy. I love the tie-in in your post to the reading materials. I'm going to use that from now on too. I think it really helped keep your post focused. I've heard what you're talking about called "matching" and its highly suggested in sales to dress or use the same words as your clients. It makes people feel like you know them better than you do and they're more likely to open up to you quickly. When I worked in hospitality I had to wear a full suit on the East Coast, but a polo and slacks at the South Western golf resorts.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
I would have been TOTALLY out of my element doing everything you were doing! At least I had observed teachers for ages. Because of that I had at least some idea what I should be going.
ReplyDeleteRolling with the punches, yes. What else can you do?
Erin
Hello Jina,
ReplyDeleteI think we are hit a time where we have to "fake it until we make it". Sometimes we are put into situations where we have no clue or idea how to act or what to do but we have to play the part and just roll with it. It's pretty cool how you just keep things going and even though you didn't fully know what to do you still winged it through. Sometimes you learn from others such as coworkers and you figure out what works for that doesn't work for them. It's good having coworkers that are willing to help you out or allowing you to shadow them for a day until you get a hang of what you are doing. You dress the part and talk the part then you become the part that you are trying to play. It's all an identity and you just have to fit that identity for that certain job.
"Fake it until you make," is a sign of empowerment that should allow individuals to live life to their full potential, and you are doing that, Jina. (Kudos to you)
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