Tag Archives: co-workers

Three Weeks In, or, The White Girl’s Burden

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A couple weeks into my internship, and I officially feel like I have a feel for this place. I know how to use the key fob to turn off the office alarm; I know how to work the coffee machine and how to grind the coffee beans; I know what temperature my boss likes to keep the office AC running at. More importantly, my knowledge of Iraq has already increased substantially, which I am quite happy about. I can name several Iraqi provinces off the top of my head–Nineveh, Kirkuk, Anbar, Salahuddin. I know that from the start of January 2014 to May 7, 2015, 2,966,844 Iraqis were internally displaced. I know what an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) actually is: someone who has fled his/her home but, unlike refugees, not crossed the international border. Also, I now know how to use Twitter and TweetDeck, which is apparently something that social media savvy people use A LOT to network and get their brand out.

My counterpart, Neel, and I have gotten to know each other pretty well. I know that he is from the autonomous community of Kashmir, attended various schools in India, and received a scholarship to complete his final two years of high school in the U.S., followed by another scholarship to attend college here. I know that he prefers business vests to jackets, and that he is known to be quite the spiffy dresser on his college campus.

Aside from Mark, who is frequently too busy running in and out of meetings and making important decisions to be in the office for very long periods of time, Neel and my’s immediate supervisor and Mark’s second-in-command is a man named *Tom. Tom is a refugee from Baghdad. In 2008, he came to the U.S. with a program that helps youth complete their undergraduate studies in the country. After graduating college in 2012, he was hired here.

Neel and Tom are two of the most impressive people I have ever met. It is astounding to me the circumstances that they have had to overcome–both being from a war torn region– and the necessary resilience they have had to embody from those experiences. Sometimes at work, because these two individuals actually know first hand what it’s like to be a refugee or to come from a war-torn area–the type of circumstances our organization addresses–I cannot help but feel…like an unhelpful burden. A nuisance. Like if only I had been exposed to these same circumstances, I would be a more knowledgeable asset to the team. I feel like an annoying little white girl, an outsider, inserting myself into the situation to try to fix things. In some sick, twisted way, I wish that I had a story to tell of the war torn area that I had just came from, but alas, Rhode Island will most likely never be that land. I just wish I didn’t feel like such a privileged upper-middle class outsider. I wish I wasn’t so goddamn…white. This is my White Girl’s Burden.

This isn’t to say that I don’t have things to say or add to the organization’s work.
I’m intelligent, I like to think I work pretty hard, and I have an eye for detail. But I do still have a part of me that is ashamed of my privilege, and ashamed of where I come from — because it has put me at such an advantage above the majority of the world. I hate to think that I had it “easier” than anyone; I have worked hard to get to where I am today. Yet it would be irresponsible to ignore the edge that my privilege has given me.

I try to remind myself that everyone has difficulties in their life that they have had to overcome, and that I have experienced my fair share of hardships too— parental divorce and a personal health crises to name a few. But every day that I walk into the organization’s office, my White

Girl’s Burden feels more pressing than all of that. Bigger. The guilt is overwhelming, and I find myself wanting to apologize for everything — my being there, my coworkers’ pasts, the inequality of the world.

But that is not what I am here to do. I am here to learn what I can and to help this agency grow so that there will be a little less world inequality in the future. And honestly, that is all I can do at this point. My guilt will get me nowhere. But proactive action will. I cannot do anything about where I come from, and it is useless to apologize for it. But I CAN try to make a difference for the future. So for now, all I have to say to this pressing White Girl anxiety is:

*Name has been changed.

“Can I Help You Find Something?”: Learning about life and work in Target

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I thought to make this post a “Thanks-giving,” but each time I brainstormed a list of the people I could/would/should thank, it became a might unwieldy. I know I could never choose only a few from the mountain of people who have made me.

But, there is another “holiday” this month that got me thinking. Black Friday.

I wasn’t aware of Black Friday until I was sixteen. I was a junior in high school and I had started working at Target the month before, in preparation for the holiday season. I was assigned to come in at 6 a.m. and work the registers, even though I was normally a “soft-lines” team member, meaning I worked primarily in the clothing sections. I was both nervous and excited. I was wearing my comfortable work shoes with my red shirt and khaki pants. I was at my station and ready when they opened the doors, and customers jogged towards electronics.

Busy days like that were a blur of adrenaline, smiles, and morale-boosting food in the break room.

Target was my first place of employment, and it made a huge impact on me. I never played sports in high school, or participate in typical extra-curriculars like theater or model UN, but the last year and half of high school I was working 12-24 hours a week as a Target team member. Under those fluorescent lights, I had my first experiences with responsibility, diversity and teamwork. And yes, I also experienced the entitlement of American consumers. My job at Target was the first time I witnessed and really comprehended racism.

One of the most important things I learned at Target, though, was the importance of co-worker relationships. Even in retail, a field known for eating minimum wage worker’s souls, the right people can make the job bearable. The right people can make waking up at 6 a.m. for the Black Friday rush fun.

Target has such a high rate of turn-over that in two years, I experienced good, bad and mediocre teams. Good teams create energy, and that energy turns into productivity. They make work fun, even if you are stuck in infants organizing the bottle aisle for the third time that week. Mediocre and bad teams, don’t support each other that way. There’s drama, or maybe just apathy, that drains the energy and makes the atmosphere miserable. You avoid co-workers by taking on the long and unenviable task of organizing the clearance racks by percentage clearance and then by size. Time moves slowly. Bad teams blame each other if one section is taking longer than the others to clean after closing, instead of just helping to finish it.

Changes in management reverberated through the store. I worked best with a supervisor who allowed me my independence, who encouraged problem solving. If something didn’t work one day, or took too long, I could try something different the next. After a year and a half of working there, a new manager would tell me to go by the book, every day, even when it wasn’t working for me or a particular clothing section I was in. That inflexibility to try new things or look for better solutions was extremely frustrating.

Target was my first experience in work-place culture, and it taught me which management styles and team relationships I value most. Retail gets a bad rap. Sure, by the end of senior year I was ready to leave, and it took me a long time to be able to wear red and khaki together again, but as a first job I could not have asked for better.