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Eric Nordin 10/24/13 ENG106 Halliday

Cover Memo For this project, I wanted my research to be as observational and passive as possible. I chose to conduct my research this way because I didn't want to interrupt my co-workers while they were trying to do their jobs or take time out of my work as well. Consequently, this created some problems. The largest issue was that I couldn't take notes during my observations, so I had to write pre and post notes. This also meant that I couldn't get as in-depth information as I would have gotten if I had asked questions. However, I still got informative results, and was lucky that we had so much going on over that weekend, especially with two new staff members joining. Project Outline: Community: I will be observing the janitorial staff that I work with in Earhart Hall on the weekends. Why: I already have a good idea of my co-workers schedules and what they usually work on. Type of Research: Mostly observational. I will take pre and post notes about how many hours my co-workers have worked, what they do and how they react to certain situations. I will also record any previous information I had gathered during the past few weeks of working with them. Fake names will be used so that they can remain anonymous. I will explain the language we use as well as some of

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the documents or rules we follow. I will not be asking any questions or taking pictures as I want this to be a passive and observational study. Timeline: 10/18/13: Write pre-notes on what I will observe during the weekend. 10/19/13: Work from 7:00am to 11:00am in Earhart Hall. Fill out some of the post-notes afterwards and add more pre-notes if I think of anything else for the next day. 10/20/13: Work from 7:00am to 11:00am in Earhart Hall. Fill out post-notes and finish first draft. Draft 1 The discourse community that I observed was the student service staff at Earhart Hall. Since most of the fulltime workers get the weekend off, the hall hires students to clean over the weekends. There are one or two fulltime staff members there who direct the students as they work. The students choose their own hours in between 7:00 am and 3:30 pm. Observations were made on Saturday, October 19th and Sunday, October 20th, 2013 from 7:00 am to 11:00 am. Previous Knowledge: The weekend staff consists of a total of twelve people including me. Three are adults that work full time, the rest are students. Fake names will be used in order to protect the anonymity of the service staff. The three full time workers are Amanda, Barbara and Mary. Amanda and Mary work on Saturday with us, while only Barbara works with us on Sunday. The student staff consists of Eric (me), Brian, Jack, Trisha, Catherine, Sarah, Vicki, Tara and Anne. I usually work from 7:00 am to 11:00 am on both days. Trisha, Catherine, Jack, Tara and Anne usually work the

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full eight and a half hours. Brian and Sarah occasionally show up a day at a time because they are busy with schoolwork. Language/Texts: As a community, we have a few words or phrases that might be unfamiliar to others who do not work as janitors. For example, DMQ is the name for a substance we use to clean tables, sinks and other surfaces besides glass. I'm not sure what it stands for, but that's what it's called by the company who produces it. When we're asked to "pull trash", that means we go up to all the floors on one of the sides of the hall and take any garbage out to the big dumpsters in the back of the building. We nicknamed our radios "Walkies" which is short for walkie talkies. The East side of Earhart is an all boy's side, except for the eighth floor, while the West side is all girls. As a discourse community, we don't need many texts or documents in order to get work done. We do have a checklist on our cleaning carts for when we go up to clean the bathrooms. The checklist helps us know if we've missed anything. When we have to rearrange any furniture, we occasionally use a layout picture given by the full time staff to help us. Other than that, everything that we needed to know was explained by Barbara and Amanda, and we talk to them on the radio if we need any help. Observations: Saturday, October 19th. Catherine, Jack, Sarah, Anne, and Amanda were here today, as well as two new student employees whose names are Vicki and Tara. Amanda introduced us all and got us started on two central, which is the main lounge in Earhart. Sarah showed them all the tasks we usually do, which include vacuuming, cleaning the tables, doors and bathrooms, take out any trash or recycling, dust mop the floor, rearrange tables and pick up any garbage. Sarah seemed glad to

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help out the new staff members, but mentioned to me earlier that she doesn't like how many people have joined because we now get all of the main work done quickly. I vacuumed carpets while Catherine, Jack and Anne cleaned up and rearranged tables. After we were all finished and were taking trash out, Tara and Anne, who are from the same floor, talked for a while. Tara had previously worked a similar job cleaning a larger hall, and needs the work here now because her parents are only paying for her food. Anne said that she used to work is a restaurant, and that she likes this job much better. I'm guessing that Anne invited Tara to come work with her. Afterwards, Jack, Anne I went up the floors on the East side of Earhart and took out the trash and recycling. We did this for about an hour, then moved on to start cleaning the bathrooms of the East side until 9 am, which is our fifteen minute break. During the break, Sarah said that she had to leave at 11:00 am because she has a research project to start on and Catherine said that she is leaving at 1:00 pm. After learning that some homework was due through a text message, Jack said that he had to leave at 11:00 am as well. After the break, the rest of the day involved Anne, Jack and I cleaning the East side bathrooms until it was 11:00 am. Overall, people were more lively today because of the new workers. Anne especially because she already knows Tara. The pace stayed about the same though, as we usually finish soon after we're done cleaning the bathrooms. Afterward, Jack and I went to lunch together, him and I are frequently the only male staff members, so we both do the boy's side and sometimes talk while we work. He told me he's a sophomore in Computer Engineering, and I'm guessing he needs the money for college since he usually works as long as possible. Sunday, October 20th Today we had Jack, Tara, Anne, Catherine and Barbara. Barbara is very kind and understanding with us, and usually brings in something for us to eat. Today she brought candy

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for us and spent most of the day buffing floors around the basement. To start out, we all went to two central to clean up. I vacuumed again, Jack mopped, Catherine took out trash and Tara and Anne cleaned up the tables. Tara and Anne seem to work as a team, most likely because they know each other well. Afterwards, Barbara had Jack and I go pick up trash around the building outside while the others worked on cleaning the West side of Earhart. After that, Jack and I took out trash on the East side. Barbara told us we could go a bit slower today because Jack was staying until 3:30 pm. The reason for this is because Jack and I are usually the only two guys, which makes cleaning the East bathrooms easier because all the floors except eight are boys only. Jack and I cleaned all the bathrooms on the East side except for the eighth floor after we were done with trash, and by then it was time for me to leave. While Barbara was saying goodbye, she mentioned that Tara was getting "cocky". I hadn't really been around Tara much, so I'm not sure what this entails, but I'm guessing Tara doesn't like some of the things we do as compared to her previous job. Conclusions: As a community, we are all comfortable with each other after working together for a couple months now. We know what is expected and what we have to do, and are familiar with the language and behavior of the community. However, the two new students changed this, and we are just starting to get to know Tara and Vicki. They are still learning how we operate and what language we use. Vicki seemed to be understanding everything fine, but Tara was apparently having issues with Barbara. I'm not sure on the specifics because I wasn't there to see it, but she may be having trouble adapting to how our community works. Another problem we have sometimes is only having 2-3 males on the staff. Consequently, there are a few issues with this fact. One is that sometimes the teams get split

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unevenly when we break up to go to the boy's and girl's sides of the hall. Another difficulty is that some days there aren't any boys at all on the staff, and the girls have to wait until the bathrooms are completely empty on the boy's side in order to clean them. However, these issues are not serious nor frequent, and only cause minor setbacks when they do happen. Aside from that, we all work well together and are starting to get the hang of all the different tips and tricks that we use daily. It will be interesting to see how the new students will learn the language and methods the rest of us have adopted as normal. Media Component Name Amanda Barbara Mary Anne Catherine Sarah Trisha Tara Jack Vicki Brian Eric Hours Worked 10/19/13 8.5 0 8.5 8.5 6 4 0 8.5 4 8.5 0 4 Hours Worked 10/20/13 0 8.5 0 8.5 8.5 0 0 8.5 8.5 0 0 4

Note: Some information is assumed from how long each person worked during previous weeks.

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Research Log For this section, I couldn't take notes during while working, so I will use my pre-notes in their place. For these pre-notes, I wrote down some questions I wanted to answer and what other things I should look for while observing. Previous knowledge (when they usually work, brief description of work environment) Who is working each day and how long they work Short, summarized timeline of events (some details will be missed) Who I'm working with and anything they say How everyone reacts/attitudes towards a situation General notes of anything interesting. Final Draft The discourse community that I observed was the student service staff at Earhart Hall. Since most of the fulltime workers get the weekend off, the hall hires students to clean Earhart over the weekends. There are still one or two fulltime staff members there who direct the students as they work. The students choose their own hours in between 7:00 am and 3:30 pm. The observations were made on Saturday, October 19th and Sunday, October 20th, 2013 from 7:00 am to 11:00 am. Previous Knowledge: The weekend staff consists of a total of twelve people including me. Three are adults that work full time, the rest are students. Fake names will be used in order to protect the anonymity of the service staff. The three full time workers are Amanda, Barbara and Mary. Amanda and Mary work on Saturday with us, while only Barbara works with us on Sunday. The student staff

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consists of Eric (me), Brian, Jack, Trisha, Catherine, Sarah, Vicki, Tara and Anne. I usually work from 7:00 am to 11:00 am on both days. Trisha, Catherine, Jack, Tara and Anne usually work the full eight and a half hours. Brian and Sarah occasionally show up a day at a time because they are busy with schoolwork. Language/Texts: As a community, we have a few words or phrases that might be unfamiliar to others who do not work with us. For example, DMQ is the manufacturer's name for a substance we use to clean tables, sinks and other surfaces besides glass. When we're asked to "pull trash", that means we go up to all the floors on one of the sides of the hall and take any garbage out to the big dumpsters in the back of the building. We nicknamed our radios "Walkies" which is short for walkie talkies. The East side of Earhart is an all boy's side, except for the eighth floor, while the West side is all girls. As a discourse community, we don't need many texts or documents in order to get work done. We do have a checklist on our cleaning carts for when we go up to clean the bathrooms. The checklist helps us know if we've missed anything, but we've never had to use it after memorizing what we have to do. When we have to rearrange any furniture, we occasionally use a layout picture given by the full time staff to help us. Other than that, everything that we needed to know was explained by Barbara and Amanda, and we talk to them on the radio if we need any help. Observations: Saturday, October 19th. Catherine, Jack, Sarah, Anne, Mary and Amanda were here today, as well as two new student employees whose names are Vicki and Tara. Amanda introduced us all and got us started on two central, which is the main lounge in Earhart. Sarah showed them all the tasks we usually

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do, which include vacuuming, cleaning the tables, doors and bathrooms, take out any trash or recycling, dust mop the floor, rearrange tables and pick up any garbage. Sarah seemed glad to help out the new staff members, but mentioned to me earlier that she doesn't like how many people have joined because of how quickly we get the work done. I vacuumed carpets while Catherine, Jack and Anne cleaned up and rearranged tables. After we were all finished and were taking trash out, Tara and Anne, who are from the same floor, talked for a while. Tara had previously worked a similar job cleaning a larger hall, and needs the work here now because her parents are only paying for her food. Anne said that she used to work is a restaurant, and that she likes this job much better. I'm guessing that Anne invited Tara to come work with her. Afterwards, Jack, Anne I went up the floors on the East side of Earhart and took out the trash and recycling. We did this for about an hour, then moved on to start cleaning the bathrooms of the East side until 9 am, which is our fifteen minute break. During the break, Sarah said that she had to leave at 11:00 am because she has a research project to start on and Catherine said that she is leaving at 1:00 pm. After learning that some homework was due soon through a text message, Jack said that he had to leave at 11:00 am as well. After the break, the rest of the day involved Anne, Jack and I cleaning the East side bathrooms until it was 11:00 am. Overall, people were more lively today because of the new workers. Anne especially because she already knows Tara. The pace we worked at stayed about the same though, as we usually finish soon after we're done cleaning the bathrooms. Afterward, Jack and I went to lunch together; him and I are frequently the only male staff members, so we both do the boy's side and sometimes talk while we work. He told me he's a sophomore in Computer Engineering, and I'm guessing he needs the money to help pay for college since he usually works as long as possible.

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Sunday, October 20th Today we had Jack, Tara, Anne, Catherine and Barbara. Barbara is kind and understanding with us, and usually brings in something for us to eat during break. Today she brought candy for us and spent most of the day buffing floors around the basement. To start out, we all went to two central to clean up. I vacuumed again, Jack mopped, Catherine took out trash and Tara and Anne cleaned up the tables. Tara and Anne work as a team now, most likely because they know each other well. Afterwards, Barbara had Jack and I go pick up trash around the building outside, while the others worked on cleaning the West side of Earhart. After that, Jack and I pulled trash on the East side. Barbara told us we could go a bit slower today because Jack was staying until 3:30 pm. The reason for this is because Jack and I are usually the only two males, which makes cleaning the East bathrooms easier because all the floors except eight are boys only. Jack and I cleaned all the bathrooms on the East side, except for the eighth floor, after we were done with trash. Just as we finished it was 11:00 am. While Barbara was saying goodbye to me, she mentioned that Tara was getting "cocky". I hadn't been around Tara much, so I'm not sure what this entails, but I'm guessing Tara doesn't like some of the things we do as compared to her previous job. Conclusions: As a community, we are all comfortable with each other after working together for a couple months now. We know what is expected and what we have to do, and are familiar with the language and behavior of the community. However, the two new students changed this, and we are just starting to get to know Tara and Vicki. They are still learning how we operate and what language we use. Vicki seemed to be understanding everything fine, but Tara was apparently having issues with Barbara. I don't know the details because I wasn't there to see it,

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but she may be having trouble adapting to how our community works. Sarah worked here last year, and guessing from her reaction on the amount of workers we have now, there were a lot less students on the weekend staff then. Another problem we have sometimes is only having 2-3 males on the staff. Consequently, the teams now and then get split unevenly when we break up to go to the boy's and girl's sides of the hall. Another difficulty is that some days there aren't any boys at all on the staff, and the girls have to wait until the bathrooms are empty on the boy's side in order to clean them. However, these issues are not serious nor frequent, and only cause minor setbacks when they do happen. Aside from those issues, we all work well together and are starting to get the hang of all the different tips and tricks that we have developed. It will be interesting to see how the new students will learn the language and methods the rest of us have adopted.