Friends and Business Partners?

This week’s online journal reflection is all about friendship. Friendship: “a voluntary relationship characterized by intimacy and liking. I currently only have about six genuine friends. This is not a bad thing, but I do wish I had a couple more. With these friends we have a communal friendship which is, “voluntary relationships focused on sharing time and activities together,” (McCornack, p. 357). One of my friends Hena, we go out to dinner and the movies, plus work and college together. My other friend Caitlyn, we usually hit the gym and get coffee once a week, my third friend, Jessi, we visit Washington DC together once a month. My fourth friend, Dasiy, and I actually run a business together and my fifth friend, Rachel, we talk a lot about Disney and hangout occasionally. However, my final friend, Jacob, is a cross orientation friend which is “friendship between lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc and straight men or women,” (McCornack, p. 366). Jacob, being a gay male while, I am a straight female. I wanted to give a slight backstory of the friends that I do have, so you as the reader can see how they compare to one another.

With my friend that I run the business with, it is hard to maintain a friendship with that person and run a business. While she accomplishes all of the “friend rules” (McCornack, p. 369), she does not hit all the business rules parts. Since she is a friend, it is hard to confront her about aspects about the business because I do not want to ruin the friendship. One instance that I have recently had with her pertains to a recent order. To give some backstory, we sell scrunchies {hair accessories} as a side business. We allow up to a week for orders and we have one order nearing a week. Now my friend responded with the woman that had placed the order and told me that she was going to complete the order because she had the fabric and I am currently completing other orders that we have. Now a week later, I texted her about the order and she has still not completed it. In this scenario, I am unsure as to text her back as a business partner or as a friend? I guess when people say see you see the worst qualities in a friend when they become a business partner, it really is true.

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Meme Generator. (n.d.). Futurama Fry[Photograph].

Reflect & Relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/9781319116910/cfi/6/2!/4/2/2/2@0:0.00

Workplace Drama

When I turned 16, I thought it would be a fun idea to get a job and earn some cash. Turns out it was not as fun and adventurous as I thought it would be. I disliked my very first job. I worked at a pizza establishment where I, unfortunately, met the worse people I had ever known in my life. They were rude, disrespectful, self centered and quite honestly disgusting. For some reason I worked at this job for two years and finally decided to quit after a situation of workplace bullying. Workplace bullying is “repeated unethical and unfavorable treatment of one or more persons by others in the workplace,” (McCornack, p.A-17). This situation was with one of my assistant managers at the time. She was upset and angry with my manager and decided to take her anger out on me. She exclaimed to me in front of customers and other employees that I was “worthless at my job and as a person.” That was the final straw. I knew that I did not need to be at a job that bullied their employees and made them feel unwanted on the job site. However, that was not the one instance of workplace bullying that I experienced at this job. I had been cussed at, talked down too, and given tasks that no one wanted to do because of how bad they were such as cleaning the cracks in between the tiles. My other assistant manager would every night would scream at me about something such as customers ordering or needing his assistance with an order. He would cuss me out over things out of my control. I am not sure what more I expected from a manager who would come in drunk and high every night at work. Why did I decide to stay at this job for two plus years? I honestly couldn’t answer that. I do know that after that time there, and finding a new job, I definitely know that any job is lucky to have me because I am a hard worker and do everything to the best of my ability.

C. (n.d.). Stop the Madness! Putting an End to Workplace Drama in Your Practice[Photograph].

Reflect & Relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/9781319116910/cfi/6/2!/4/2/2/2@0:0.00

An Inside Struggle

A couple of weeks ago, I was diagnosed with PCOS which is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. It’s a diagnosis that thousands of women receive. Having PCOS is a big deal to an extent. Depending on how your body reacts to having it is what makes it a significant deal for young women. When I received the news that I had this syndrome, I was driving home from school. When the nurse had told me I was only selective listening after she had stated that I indeed had PCOS. Selective listening meaning, “listening that takes part in only those parts of a message that are immediately salient during an interpersonal encounter and dismisses the rest,” (McCornack, pg.178). I had gone to the doctor beforehand and knew it was always a possibility. I was devastated for the fact that I want kids when I am older but with this, I could have hardships with fertility. A couple days later I had suppressed my emotions about the diagnostic. Suppression is “inhibiting thoughts, arousal and outward behavioral displays of emotions,” (McCornack pg.114). Till this day I am still suppressing the feelings. I do not like to think about what could happen when I am older and try to start a family. Instead of thinking about the diagnosis, I try to create a communication plan of what I am going to say to the doctor, at my next visit. Communication plans are “mental maps that describe exactly how communication encounters will unfold,” (McCornack pg.214). I try to plan the actions of what questions I should ask the doctor such as, what could I do to reduce the side effects and what medications are available for treatment. I also plan out the contingencies of the conversation I will have. I think about what the doctor will say back and if she’ll state that it is worse than we had expected or that it is more controllable that we had initially thought it would be. At this time, I just have to take it one step at the time and focus on having a positive outlook on life.

L. (2010, March 09). Struggling[Photograph].

Reflect & Relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/9781319116910/cfi/6/2!/4/2/2/2@0:0.00

Customer Service

When working in retail you constantly deal with misunderstandings with customers. A “misunderstanding is confusion resulting from the misperception of another’s feelings, thoughts, or beliefs as expressed in the other’s verbal communication,” (McCornack, Pg. 207). Misunderstandings at work are anywhere from why a coupon isn’t working to trying to figure what fabric they should use for a project. A recent misunderstanding I had with a customer occurred the other night at my place of employment. I was called to assist a new cashier with a customer and her transaction. The customer’s coupon was not deducting the discount. She wanted to purchase five items that are always excluded from coupons. When I explained to her that these items are excluded from any coupons, she had then used “you” language, blaming me for it not working. “You” language being “communication that states or implies the pronoun you to place the focus on blaming others,” (McCornack, Pg. 207). I then explained the coupon details on the application and she then become defensive but understood that I was telling her the truth. She had a misunderstanding of the coupon and started to use “you” language when the transaction was not going her way.

However, not every interaction I have at work has been bad. That same night I had encountered a man trying to buy three items. These items were not scanning the price that a sign had said that they were. When I asked if he could show me the sign, he was indeed correct that there was a sign and another coworker had forgotten to take it down. In that instance he had used the cooperative principle. Cooperative principle is the “idea that we should make our verbal messages as informative, honest, relevant and clear” (McCornack, Pg. 205). He was informative about the price, honest that there was a sign and relevant on showing me where the sign was at. I believe that you learn key communication skills when working in retail because you learn how to communicate differently depending on how the customer responding. I know that ever since I started working when I was sixteen years old, I have learned some valuable lessons about communication.

D, J. (2017, April 27). Fabric and Crafts[Photograph]. Dallas.

Reflect & Relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Retrieved June 2, 2019, from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/9781319116910/cfi/6/2!/4/2/2/2@0:0.00

My Hidden Mask

Throughout my time in high school is when I wore my deepest mask. I realized that it was a mask now from learning the meaning in my communications class. A mask is “public self-designed to strategically veil your private self,” (McCornack, p. 50). I was not happy, and I hated school. I was the new girl at school and knew absolutely no one and I believe that is when I began to wear my mask. To everyone else I appeared to be happy but also very shy. In class I would be anxious because I did not know anyone, and I was afraid that no one would talk to me or like me. Little did I know, by my senior year I would have the greatest group of friends. My freshman to junior year, I was just depressed. The biggest part of my mask would be if you had looked at my social media. Viewing my site, it looked like high school was the greatest time of my life but inside it was not. I suppose that was the face I let the world online look like. A “face” meaning “the self we allow others to see and know; the aspects of ourselves we choose to present publicly,” (McCornack, p. 50). However, by the middle of freshman year, I couldn’t bare who I was behind the mask. I went to the doctors to see if they could help but all they did was prescribe me medication. Then I became dependent on the medication as a safety blanket but felt it was doing nothing for me. That’s when I looked into therapy and started going to it. There I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

I wasn’t too keen into telling some stranger my life story, but by the third time meeting with my therapist, I learned to open up and it was okay. She gave me different tools to use in my everyday life, so I wasn’t just walking around as a ball of stress and anxiousness. It was after a few months there that I began to be myself again, the me before my mask. However, it was always peachy keen, I had some ups and downs with my time in therapy. I can finally say that I no longer wear that mask as much anymore. I wear it sometimes when I begin a new class or have, I have to present, but after another class period or two I will be fine. I would encourage anyone and everyone to go to therapy. Therapy is a place to go to talk to someone without judgement and a safe place of peace.