Work Life

The best job I ever had was Jamba Juice believe it or not. Before attending Year Up, I use to work at Jamba Juice and working there was always easy and fun. I worked there for nine months, it was very easy to get hired because my friend was the assistant manager there and she referred me to her manager. The team members were nice and welcoming when I first started. They were always willing to help which made our job easier because everyone helped even our manager. Even if there was a task not assigned to me, my coworkers and I would do each other’s task just to help each other out. Jamba juice is really big on customer service and quality, there I learned how to be a fast pace worker and efficient while working with the customers by making sure their order is corrected and listen to all of their needs. The lesson I learned while working there is that no matter where you working, you still have to deal with different type of people every day. I came to realize that working at Jamba Juice is not a lucrative job if you are just a team member and not a corporate partner.  

The worst job I ever had was working as a waitress in this retirement home in Downtown Oakland.  Every day I had to work, I never felt exhilarated about going to work. The residence and staff were rude all the time like they didn’t want to be there. Throughout my experience working at different jobs, I learned that each job is different and it’s what you make it. It will always be something or someone that irritates you or bothers you but you have to just deal with things in a respectful manner.  

Nonfiction Book Review

From my understanding the book “Freakonomics” was about different social issues. Social issues based on facts and statistics. I believe the authors’ wrote this book to open people’s eyes and perspectives on different social issues. Mainly everyday issues topics like crime, cheating, income and incentives. I am not sure what the writers’ are trying to say exactly because I feel the book was all over the place. The structure was a little hard to follow and remain interested. Chapter two left a bad taste in my mouth when the authors explained that simply crime went down because the criminals simply weren’t born because of abortion. That chapter left a bad taste in my mouth because it was like saying everyone who did get an abortion was an unfit parent, low-income and uneducated. Mainly minorities get abortions so they were saying that minorities grow up to be criminals? I don’t agree with their so called research or opinion about crime rates. My colleagues did not agree with that research as well and thought it was more of an opinion than a fact. I don’t believe I would care to read any other publishing’s by the authors’ or do any further research for that matter. I agree the authors’ opened my eyes and made me think differently of certain situations. The outcome of situations always seemed to be a negative outcome or take. I have to admit the book was not an easy read and at times was difficult to read because of unfamiliar terms and concepts.  I would recommend this book to a person that likes a lot of facts and statistics. I would not recommend this book to a person that barely reads often because it would be too much to grasp and pay attention to.     

Process Of Reading

The process of reading can be quite lucid at times especially if you are not a big reader. I am almost a shame of saying that I am not a big reader but it is true. Growing up, the only time I was force to read was in school and for homework assignments. Other than reading for school purposes, I was not force to read. I was a play outside kind of child. Maybe if my parents forced reading upon me, I would have grown an interest for it. I believe being able to understand different readings became a challenge for me growing up in high school. I really didn’t like the assigned books because I wasn’t exposed to reading at all. Now at Year Up, I notice I have a problem retaining information I don’t find interesting and I have trouble remembering certain key points in books. I started to realize that I just retain information differently than others. Annotating helps a lot while reading books or even a page of information that is crucial. Usually while annotating, I underline a word I don’t know or an important sentence. Annotating helps me put bits and pieces together and remember key points and important facts. Usually while reading, I’ll read about five to six pages more if I can. Then I would take a short break. I truly believe you have to discover what type of learner you are so you can know how your process of reading can be determined. In the future, I am going to start reading more because it is knowledge waiting for people to retain the information. Anything that will help me to grow as a better person and become more knowledgeable, I will definitely give a try.