I used to work at a Nursing home in
Clark New Jersey as a dietary aide. I
was employed there for a little over a year of my life and some days while I
was working, I felt like I was in hell!
I have had many jobs in my life but none could compare to Clark. This job was completely ridiculous and I have
never experienced such harsh treatment in my entire life! The Supervisor and assistant supervisor were
the most ignorant people I had ever met and they treated their workers like
they were beneath them. I hate to even
have to retrieve my negative memories of working at Clark but I chose to write
my paper on Clark because I thought it would be more interesting than writing
it on Kean for my readers. I’ll start by
saying that I was the new girl and I definitely got picked on and I was totally
misunderstood.
One example of a mechanism showing
informal social control on my old job were the fact that my old supervisor,
(“Margaret”) would knit pick to find the most small problem and then she would
be in attack mode and be very unprofessional by yelling at me. Margaret would talk to me in a nasty, loud,
disrespectful tone which would cause me to be embarrassed in front of my
co-workers. This supervisor would bully
people who were too afraid to stand up to her and stick up for themselves. Sometimes, I even had to prove to her that
she was wrong about her assumptions involving my work. For some reason she did not like me and she
made sure that everyone in the building knew she didn’t like me. I am not the only employee who has felt
Margaret’s evil wrath, meaning that former and current employees were well
aware of how nasty this woman was to certain people but no one had enough
courage to complain about her. Margaret
yelling at me and causing embarrassment was an informal social control
mechanism.
Margaret used informal social
control by giving me dirty looks, ridiculing me, slamming objects down in front
of me, (including her fist on a steel counter-top), yelling in my face and
saying goodnight to everyone except me.
At my old job I would get in trouble
for doing things how I was trained to do them and other employees did the same
exact things I did but I was the only one who got written up for things. The write ups I received were formal social
control mechanisms. For example, I got
written up for sending plastic plate bottoms through the dishwasher doubled up. I was trained to double them up and everyone
else doubled them up but I was the one who got written up for doing it. Suspension is also another form of formal
social control. For example, I was
suspended because I needed my brake to take my inhaler for my asthma. Many days I did not receive my brakes at all
but this particular day, I was yelled at and told I could not take my
brake. I went and took my break anyway
because by law I am entitled to it but ended up getting written up for it.
I think that informal social control
is more effective because I felt worse when I was being yelled at and ridiculed
by management. Social control theory
suggests we systematically conform to society’s norms. This is true because while I was
discriminated against at my old job, I just conformed like everyone else did
and I did my work and shut my mouth. “Deviance
is exhibiting behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations
of a group or society” (Pg.165). In the
eyes of society I was being deviant by sending through two bottoms at a time
through the dishwasher but I was not being deviant. Management didn’t even want to hear what I
had to say they just would write me up and suspend me. I always did my job to the best of my ability
and I am an extremely hard worker and did not deserve the harsh treatment and
verbal abuse I received at my old job.
According to society I guess I was deviant but according to me I was
just doing my job as I was told to do it.
At one point, after a year of abuse, I typed a letter to the Human
Resource Department exposing the harassment and the hostile work environment. The
same day I submitted the letter exposing the abuse, I was terminated from Clark
Nursing Home for no reason. According to
society I was deviant by speaking up for myself and typing a letter. According to me Clark was deviant for
terminating my employment simply because I stood up for my rights as an
employee. I’m kind of glad that I experienced
the harsh treatment at Clark Nursing Home when I was working in the kitchen because
it gave me the motivation to go back to College and get a Bachelors’ degree in Psychology.
I already have an Associates’ degree in Business
Management but I still cannot find a job.
