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.

Jobless Young Adults

The New York Times states that young adults find their voices while fighting to be heard by potential jobs. Millions of college graduates sends out numerous amounts of resumes to potential jobs and rarely get a call back even for a unpaid internship. With that being said it makes me wonder what is really going on? Are companies scared to take a risk with a young adult because they don’t have faith that the young adults can handle the workload? But employers say they will hire 10.2 percent more college graduates from the class of 2012 than they did from the class of 2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Even so, joblessness among the young remains at crisis levels, economists say. (Seligson 2012) Given the fact that I am a young adult this fact worries me. I am concerned about my future because it seems as if no one wants to give the young a chance. Even if you are a high school graduate and have some college experience you are still worse off trying to enter in the job field. It is understandable that jobs want people with more education but even when they are well educated it’s still not enough.  The question comes up, “What can we do to change this?”  There are many people working to try and change this problem. The fact is that it is still a working progress and it is something that can take years to turn around. Young adults have to be serious and focused about their future to be able to overcome this issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/for-jobless-young-people-new-advocacy-groups.html?_r=1&ref=jobs

Tattoos

In this time you see people of all races, sizes, weight just different in their own way. Tattoos are even different on different people. Body art, which is what some people call them became more popular nowadays. People get tattoos for a numerous amount of reasons. I’ve seen portraits done of people’s love ones that have passed on, pets, guns, and cartoon characters and even celebrity tattoos. Most would say that it is unprofessional to have a sleeve of tattoos on your whole arm or tattoos on your neck. I would agree that they can be a little distracting and misleading but that should not be the reason we are judged. I have two tattoos and both have meaning behind the artwork I am not the type of person to just put anything on my body because I was bored at the time. My hummingbird on my neck represents how I would want to be free like a hummingbird just be able to fly freely and chirp that’s music to my ears. I am a music lover and love to sing so If I had a choice in another life I would be a hummingbird. Plus I think they are beautiful birds, sounds weird but that’s the truth. The one on my arm represents my culture it’s the sun and stars off of the Filipino Flag and under it is written in cursive beauty in tagalog. Some people just get anything without thinking about it just to have more tattoos than another person.They say criminals and thugs have tattoos and that it is gang related. Most of the time it is true but not all the time. Body Art can tell a story in some cases. You can learn more about a person by looking at their tattoos and that is also a way of making small talk with someone.    I can see how it would be distracting in the work place and I agree they should be covered if possible just to look presentable. I think it could go both ways, if you have the skills to obtain your job your appearance shouldn't matter. I think it just depends on the company. Nowadays companies are becoming more open and modern with time.

It’s A Set Up

In my neighborhood, it’s the usual “hood” set up. There are food shops, hair shops, barber shops, liquor stores and convalescent homes every three blocks. Luckily my block isn’t so bad but up the hill and down the street about three blocks away is a whole different neighborhood. There are no shootings going on in my area but shootings have occurred several blocks down. Compared to other cities like Richmond I live in a nice neighborhood with less violence and shootings. Living in the “hood” makes things harder for me. Every time I leave the house or come home I’m always aware of who is around and what cars are parked on my block. If I notice guys hanging outside on my block I call my mom or dad to open the front door if they are home. So that way they know someone else is home. If it happens to be no one home, that’s when I have to think on my feet and use my best judgment. Either wait until they clear the area before getting out of my car or getting my taser out ready for battle. Living in an urban neighborhood you have to always assume someone is going to try something with you!

A neighborhood can teach you so much if you really pay attention to everything that happens on your block. If it’s just knowing what time your neighbor takes out there trash every Friday, or knowing when another neighbor is usually home from work. Little details can save your life one day. I do believe a neighborhood can affect who you choose to become in both good ways and bad ways. I am who I am because of the neighborhood I lived in. Because of the struggles within my neighborhood, the crime my family tries to avoid, the poverty we experienced together as a community that what makes me strive above all that goes on in my community and become a better person. The only thing that my neighborhood is doing for me is keeping me prepared for the real life struggles and pushing me to be successful!

Egregious Advertisement

Every day I am surrounded by some form of advertisement. Whether it’s on a billboard, bus, Bart, newspaper or on my phone! Advertisement is everywhere I am, you would think it would be hard to ignore.  Usually I ignore billboard ads as big as they are I don’t tend to look up at them. Most are annoying to listen to and to see like the Pandora advertisement. While you’re listening to your music an ad pops up after a song and starts talking about something boring like insurance. Not the best advertisement while people are listening to a station it’s an interruption. Tampon commercials are foolish to me like the Playtex commercials when they have the women dressed up in all white saying it works. The women are smiling and in good moods because the tampon is comfortable? Commercials that are over the top like the Verizon commercial with the thunder and lightning coming from the store insinuating that Verizon has the best service connection. Yes they have the best service connection compared to others but they are very expensive!

I would like the Covergirl commercials if they would use a regular girl instead of a Pop singer or actress! Rihanna and Drew Barrymore wear Covergirl so I’m going to buy cover girl! Maybe I just don’t understand their message but in my opinion state the actual benefits for using cover girl products other than this celebrity wears it. The Progressive Insurance Commercials grasp my attention every time. The point of the commercial is that Progressive values their customer’s and they beat other competitor’s prices and deals. Advertisement that gets straight to the point is usually what grasps my attention. Most advertisement has ideological reasons why you should buy their product or why their product is better than competitors.