Samuel Jean
ENG Comp 2
Old Navy Crew
The discourse community I will present is my job. At Old Navy we do what every retail store does and it’s to deal with people. Our common goal is to provide the best customer and maintain the store. We also have certain language / phases that we use to talk to each other. For example we have different names for sections of the store like “the floor, fitting Room, Cash wrap, and back of house. When I first started my job it was confusing because I wasn’t really trained properly. Also the managers were called with a different term, so didn’t know how to reach them if i had a question for them.
For this project I observed my co-worker on how they move and they speak to customers vs how we talk to another. I realized, we do a lot of code-switching. For example my coworker Odonai, when he’s talking to customers his tone and language would change to sound clear and professional. It’s different how he speaks to us, he would use slang and joke around most of the time. If he would talk to someone outside our group they would be confused about what he is saying because there would be some terms that we only know.
What makes our group unique is even though we all belong to a big group, they’re still a subgroup we could fit in. For example, all the managers have their own group and the other is separated into whatever your assigned section. I can fit in two other groups which are fitting-room and cash wrap. There’s not much difference between the groups except for the phase/code they use. For example at the cash wrap we have required goals each of us have to meet. One of those goals is to persuade the customer to create an old navy card. If you are successful, you would tell the sales floor manager that you got an ONC. Another goal is for the store to have above fifty percent email capture. If we above or below the goal, the sale for the manager would tell us at the cashiers that, we have this percentage of CIC.
I also conducted an interview with my coworker Cynthia, she the one who trained me on how to do registers and taught me on my first day at work. I asked her a couple of different questions about the community at Old Navy and she replied that we are an interesting and quirky group of people. Since she worked for Old Navy for a good amount of time, she said about every couple of months the community changes. It is either because we have new workers,old one leaves, or the store has a new policy we must follow. I also asked her what we value and told us we value respect for each other. She said the community we have now all way care for each other well being and friendly to everyone.
In conclusion, I really learned a lot and generally impressed how I adapted to the group so quickly. My first day at work I was absolutely confused on what to do but now it is completely different and I never really reflected back on it until I did this project.
Work Cited
Peoples, Cynthia.Personal interview. 23 February 2020.
