Response to Orientation by Daniel Orozco In Daniel Orozco’s Orientation, a nameless character is shown the ropes of the inner office workings as a new employee. The conflict is the surprising contrast between what appears to be normal, monotonous office procedures with the disturbing insights into the personal lives of the employees that work there; professionalism versus unprofessionalism. This conflict affects everyone in the story by the sheer discomfort of everyone knowing everyone else’s businesses, while maintaining the facade of not knowing or “you may be let go” (Orozco). The main characters in the story are the narrator and the new employee being oriented. The narrator speaks in first person, “That’s my cubicle there” (Orozco), yet the reader is the new employee the narrator is speaking to, “…and this is your cubicle. This is your phone” (Orozco). Thereby, the narrator moves the reader through the office in first person and the reader sees the story through the employee’s eyes in second person. Both are static characters, showing no change or growth in the story. The narrator or the character giving the orientation is disconcertingly professional as he moves through the office describing protocols and disquieting, personal information on each employee. The theme of the Orozco’s Orientation is there is a story behind every person in the work place, yet it is no place to draw attention to one’s self or allow personal tragedies, choices, or emotions to interfere with the work life. Delving into Daniel Orozco’s background, one can discover some aspects of his life that may have influenced his writing. Orozco grew up in the San Francisco (Kevin). Used to city life on the coast, it is not surprising Orientation takes place in an office building with a view of “A segment of the bay” (Orozco). In addition, Orozco was an office assistant for about ten years, in an office complex near the Bay, until he decided on a career change (Kevin). He was thirty-years-old when he decided to return to school to work on his Master’s Degree (Kevin). His background of working in an office would have given him the knowledge of office protocols and the dynamics of office protocol and relations. Not to mention,
During a meeting, Ehrenreich expressed her complaint about the vacuum; however, when she looks towards the other employees, she notices the silence of the other employees. Ehrenreich looked towards the other employees for some support in the concerns expressed in the meeting, but instead finds them silent in their own world. She describes one of her fellow waitresses, Gail, as her role model, but at a meeting, she “stares sorrowfully at a point six inches from her nose” (pg 131). Though Ehrenreich viewed Gail as someone she can look up to and model after in her current occupation, Ehrenreich observes a moment where Gail is detached from the meeting’s concerns. Ehrenreich uses her observation of her fellow employees to strengthen her appeal to pathos. She builds her focus on pathos by describing the situation where she experienced the lack of support from her coworkers. Ehrenreich looks for support from her coworkers to help enforce the concern amongst everyone, but finds that everyone impartial to what is being discussed. Even her coworker Gail, who she views as a role model, did not offer her support for the concerns
Office Space is a modern, Hollywood-driven adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1853 short story “Bartleby.” It revives Melville’s story by imagining modern equivalents for the major themes and characters of the original. Whiling comparing the works of Office Space and “Bartleby”, many similarities and differences are shown. Although years passed between the creation of the classic short story and the film, they both possess similarities in plot, theme, and character development.
Individuality is essential to expressing our desires, passions, and talents to those around us, and the lives of Turkey and Nippers, two of the lawyer’s other scriveners, possess none. For example, in describing Nippers, the narrator includes he suffers from “a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs.” Since the characters never express themselves, they can never begin to understand each other, a process that is essential to forming meaningful relationships. Furthermore, the lives of Turkey and Nippers, are dictated by submission to the rules and expectations of the Lawyer. Turkey even begins any questions addressing the narrator with the preface, “with submission, sir.” Working in an environment requiring one to solely follow the orders of a superior inevitably initiates dissatisfaction with one’s inability to ever voice their opinion and feel they’re a meaningful part of their community. As a result, the breakdown of the office community, or the nonexistence of community altogether, is
In John Updike’s short story “A & P”, a dynamic and round character expresses his subjective attitude towards his views, a plot twist causes him to realize his future. Sammy an opinionated cashier at A & P grocery store does not agree with his Lengel, his manager after he reprimands a particular group of customers at the store. Sammy’s further actions cause him to face the true reality of his future.
The novella tells the story of a young migrant worker who is faced the the responsibility to help care for her family not only financially but in a manner of leadership as well. Throughout the story the character of Estrella changes drastically from a timid outcast to an outspoken leader. In the beginning Estrella is portrayed as a quiet young woman who is defined as an outsider. When looking at the character of Estrella she is characterized in the category as powerless. One reason that we can attribute Estrella’s state of power is her socio-economic circumstances. Coming from a family of five, Estrella assumes the role as the oldest daughter as well as second mother due to her father’s recent abandonment on the family. It is because of this abandonment that Estrella resents her mother’s older boyfriend Perfecto, who in return has gotten her mother pregnant.
In the story, Orientation, wrote by Daniel Orozco, he captures the true spirit of the stereotypical workplace, by using the lack of dialogue, humor, and repetition. The story conveys a sense of workplace alienation. This story is all about the tension between people’s essential identity, crucial interconnectedness, and collaboration required of workers. He shows a new employee the ropes. It features a deadpan mix of senseless instructions. Orozco describes the absurd work environment, and he shows the readers to see the wide variety of social absurdities that employees can find in the workplace. Orozco gives a lot information about the work expectations and his co-workers’ private life; he also implies some perspectives about bullying in his workplace. He brings out the typical office affair to reflect human relationships.
The case is about Melissa Richardson, middle manager (sales manager) of the multi-cultural organization, who’s been promoted and is challenging a number of factors at the workplace, that affects her and her team’s ability to perform well.
In this text, Rose eloquently utilizes pathos to create an emotional connection towards the blue-collar workforce. Rose also writes about his family members to try to establish a connection between readers and his memories, so that the reader could relate and begin to understand the requirements of such careers. These experiences demonstrate how passionate workers like Rosie and uncle Joe are about their careers, and how their passion encourages them to seek further ways to learn and improve. Throughout his article Rose vividly recalls the stories for the audience, “Rosie took customers’ orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food. She walked full tilt through the room with plates stretching up her left arm and two cups of coffee somehow cradled in her right hand” (Rose 3). The reader is better able to grasp the fact that blue-collar careers require more intense cognitive abilities than other social classes give them credit
The TV series, which I have chosen, and believe to be one of the best examples of interpersonal communication behavior, is the American television comedy series called The Office. This outrageously hilarious comedy TV series portrays the everyday lives of office employees located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company and is filmed in a documentary type style by a team of film crew members. The plot of this TV series revolves around documenting the lives, interactions, and interpersonal relationships of the manager, Michael Scott, and the employees that he manages, which include Jim Halpert, who is a sales representative and prankster, Pam Beesly, who is a receptionist, and Dwight Schrute, who is a high-ranking salesman devoid of social skills, as well as Stanley Hudson, Kevin Malone, and many other minor characters who play the roles of office workers, working in a variety of positions throughout the office.
And yet Gittes is at the mercy of the young man working the front desk. Gittes does not like the shift in authority from himself to the young records worker. Consequently, as a viewer you can feel the awkwardness of the situation, as tension begins to rise as the battle of authority seems to weirdly escalate between the men.
This book does a great job of informing the reader of the challenges that Alfredo Lubrano faced while moving from a blue to white collar situation. The interviews that accompanied Alfredo Lubrano’s own story are very informative and shed light on a situation that some people will never have to go through.
The reader sympathizes with Enrique as he is making his seventh attempt to reach his mother. It is this small glimmer of hope that propels him through his treacherous journey all though he, yet again, fails. The author uses “pathos,” the emotional appeal, heavily throughout this chapter in order to grab the audience’s attention. She wants the reader to empathize with Enrique, an archetypal martyr with heroic behavior. The narrator describes the cruelty and suffering of the gangsters, bandits, “la migra” and others. “Enrique thinks of his mother…she will never know what happened.”(Nazario) Nazario uses stream-of-consciousness reflections such as this to cause the reader to subsequently reflect on their own families, and how one would react to this circumstance. Although Nazario uses pathetic writing, she does not make a fully-pathos driven argument such as that of Leslie Marmon Silko’s “The Border Patrol State.” In fact, Enrique’s Journey is written in exposition mode with anecdotes within narratives, which purports as journalistic rather than objective, or biased, writing. It is through this writing style that Nazario builds her credibility, or “ethos.” The exposition mode lays out the effects throughout Enrique’s path as well as brings extent of the hazards to fruition for the
From a reader’s standpoint, how a character develops throughout a story is one of the most intriguing parts of reading. In Susan Glaspell's A Jury of her Peers, the narrator, Mrs. Hale, obsesses over how Minnie Wright changes since she was a girl. Similarly, in Everyday Use by Alice Walker, the narrator awaits her daughter’s arrival, to find that she is radically different from before. One of the core reasons for these changes in the characters are the relationships they are a part of. The two characters’ significant others each have a unique influence on the returning characters (Wangero and Minnie).
The movie “Office Space,” which was directed in 1999 by Mike Judge, examines and critiques the various organizational
Her lack of response to the clerks advances along with her depiction as “hardly aware of her departed lover” (250) reveal how sex is not associated with love in her mind. Perhaps most importantly, the action shown in the phrase “smoothes her hair with automatic hand” (255) epitomizes this detached and passionless sexual encounter. With this automatic hand we know that this encounter is not anomalous, but routine--as everything in the typist’s life has become mechanized. The degrading effect of this mechanization is the loss of meaning in life which has extended from her job as a typist to her relationship with a lover. No thought is put into these actions, just as no thought is put into a meaningful connection between the two.