Formal & Informal Social Control & Deviance

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.