Saturday, May 3, 2008
Gossip in the workplace doesn't succeed on the net.
As someone in the service industry, I completely connect with the concept of waiterrant. If you've ever waited tables you know how irritating and just plain dumb customers can be. Without a doubt, the gripes and gossip of fellow employees are a constant part of the job environment. Creating an online community for this exact purpose presents a intriguing version of this very real subculture. However, as much as I enjoyed reading waiterrant, I can't seem to shake the notion that it takes away from the actual experience of a restaurant job. For me, one of the greatest attributes of the service industry is the community created by it. The social environment is inseparable from the work environment when it comes to waiting tables or bartending. I feel like waiterrant is somehow a false community - taking something special away from those in the industry. I think gossip in this kind of workplace should remain inside it.
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2 comments:
I agree with you on some level. After reading a lot about these online communities so far this quarter, i wonder why don't people just talk about it instead of posting web blogs. Is there no time to chat about that rude customer during a cigarette break. Are people consciously thinking after encountering a rude customer, "i am going to post this experience to the blog." It seems as if we have almost gotten ourselves into a new mode of communication that allows a different type of socialization, different creativity, and a necessity for literacy both technologically and on some level reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I agree with Lucy when she says that we are getting into a new mode of communication. I use to be pretty active in a forum that one of my friends created and I remember reading a post by a man in his late 20's. He talked about how his infant child passed away when his wife and he were coming back from Europe. This post was made the day after this tragic event. Of course I felt bad for the guy, but why was he posting such personal things especially the day after it happened? People definitely use the internet as an alternate way to express their emotions. It is a way to express your emotions without showing your emotions.
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