Our classroom discussion on our ideal workplace has got me to think that everyone has a very unique way of their work environments and what is most suitable for them. The most suitable workplace environment that I have discussed would be working as a open office member. I want to be able to travel around and to meet new people to work on projects. I dislike experiencing the feeling of being trapped in a boxed-like cubicle.Being able to travel around and yet representing your own company is better than staring at extensive amount of papers everyday.
In the beginning of chapter 7, Tony O’Driscoll, an African American, who knows that once people have caught themselves in a unproductive pattern, it is much easier to help them find ways to break that pattern and find a better one. He then gave an example of a women names Lawanda who is the head of a human resources department in a midsize corporation. As Lawanda enters the room for a session, she is automatically seen as being invisible. Even though, she sees everyone being acquainted among themselves, she discovers the real reason to the ignorance. The reasons were, body size, gender and cultural background. During her research, she has found out that being overweight in business is how it lowers your chance of being hired or promoted. Women executives are paid less,promoted less and given less credits compared to man executives and being African American are 50% less likely to be contacted for a job interview. (210) Workplaces are a place where you are able to develop as a person and discover new talents in which you never knew you had before. Workplaces are not meant to be a place where there must be perfection or a place in which they are told to hire specific people of one kind. I was surprised to see how a workplace could have that type of environment where everyone who was hired in that office had to be slim or non African American. I could imagine how a person would feel if they were put in a position where everyone was the same but yourself.