During my summer vacation, I worked as a barista at a small cafe near my old high school. I was an employee and therefore the victim of “power play” with my boss. I was working for minimum wage and had simple duties to do at first. These responsibilities included making coffee, tea, other beverages, food, and cleaning the work station. Over time, I was forced into bigger responsibilities such as signing deliveries, opening and closing shop alone. This can be stressful and tiring when you stand for 8-10 hours a day. The threat of replacement looms in the air every time I complained or ditched work. Since I was paid in cash, there were no liabilities if I was injured or replaced. Every day, I also faced the requests of customers. Most of them are fun to talk and joke with. However, there were occasions where the unpleasant ones would make a ruckus and complained. This side of the service was unsightly and made me dislike customer service. This experience of mine showed me the displeasing authority of both the employer and customer. The only authority I had was quitting the job. But since it was the summer, finding a new job was difficult and so my authority was limited.
4 Responses to Assignment 3
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I read your post, and I see that in some way, your situation and mine are similar in a way that we both talked about how employers have a lot of authority over employees, or in my case, potential employees. Getting a job is very difficult, as I can tell because I am searching for one now, and maintaining a job is also still difficult because one can’t upset the employer by showing up late, do the job wrong, or any other reason that makes the employer upset he/she hired someone. In any case, employers always have the power because they have the authority to fire or hire you, to get you a paying job or internship, or to keep searching for one.
I work as well so I can relate to your situation. I work as a intern at a small accounting firm since the summer of 2015. My boss is a nice person and all but he still has authority and power in assigning what my tasks are. For instance, most of the time my job includes scanning forms, creating invoices and letters and bookkeeping. Occasionally, my boss would sometimes task me to deliver a mail or package to another firm. Even if it’s cold or windy outside I cannot refuse because this is part of my job and I am getting paid. As you mentioned, capability of being replace plays as a source of power because it installs fear in the employee. Also money is the source of power for the boss since he or she is paying the employee for the job.
Your post goes hand in hand with the post I have written and observed. It is very clear to see that the employer has authority over the employees, with threats of replacement at any given moment. I do agree, this type of threat can bring a lot of pressure when performing the job, as if you are not good enough to continue the hard work you are already doing. This is definitely a great example of power play, showing how the employer has total authority over the employee. Both striving for a better and brighter future, but are at different positions. One with a better standing able to have authority over several.
– Alisha Alex
I talked about my place of employment as well. Power in the hospitality industry never to seems to be on the side of the workers but only on the side of the managers and the customers. The only form of power I’ve noticed I wield as worker is the right to quit and it is something I have held over my manager’s head before when I was scheduled for too many closing shifts throughout the school. It is an interesting dynamic as the workers are needed, but they must be forced into submission almost to obey the managers and listen to the customers.