Think of times when you may have been treated unfairly because of stereotypical thinking.

What stereotypes were being used? How did you respond to the treatment?

Stereotyping happens when people are generalized with an easily noticeable feature that
determines their social identity. The term ‘Stereotype’ was first coined by Walter Lippmann,
who compared stereotype to a green windowpane through which the displayed object can only be
seen in green light. Many experts have explained ‘Stereotyping’ as the “Law of less effort.” We,
humans, are usually lazy to process information, or we have limited ability to do that. So, we
tend to apply some practical rules to understand other people. Now is an era where it is believed
that employees are the makers of their own careers. They can design their own career path
through their knowledge, experience and creativity. Ironically, stereotyping at the workplace can
be a major holdback for employees at this age. As a corporate person with a career of 20 or so
years, I have had situations when I felt that my employer’s stereotypical thinking caused me to
have been treated unfairly. 
Since the purpose of this assignment is to share my experience about being treated unfairly for
stereotyping, I am going to write about one such situation of me being stereotyped by my
employer. 
It was many years back when I was a fresher in my job of marketing. My employer arranged an
orientation program for the freshers. There were fourteen people in the group of freshers. We, the
freshers, were instructed to gather in the conference room for the orientation program. A team of
five people from the management, including the Managing Director of the company, came to
meet us and have an interactive session with us. We were told to give our introduction one by
one before the management team. After the introduction was over, I discovered that fourteen
people have come from five different universities. Six were from public universities, five were
from private universities, and the rest three were from national universities. I was from a national
university, and I was truly excited to start my career with people from different institutions.

However, the orientation was going pretty well as the management team presented before us a
wonderful introduction of their business and company policy. We were eagerly waiting for the
speech of the Managing Director. At the very end of the orientation program, the Managing
Director gave his speech. In his speech, he said about his observation about the freshers.
According to him, those who had come from public universities would outperform others. This
statement hit my ear harshly, and I started wondering how a person can come to a conclusion so
fast! For some moment, I felt awkward and lost the zeal of working in a company where the
Managing Director foresees people’s performance through his own lenses. Honestly, I thought of
leaving the company on the very first day of joining. When the Managing Director had finished
his speech, we were told to express our feeling in few words.

Although I was young and confused at that age, I humbly requested them to follow the Key
Performance Indices instead of the institution from where they had come from to judge an
employees’ performance. From that day, I took a challenge to prove my worth as an employee
through my work. Surprisingly, I outperformed all thirteen freshers and was awarded the best
fresher award at the end of the year. Sometimes we cannot respond instantaneously to a situation
that stems from stereotyping, but we can definitely respond in time.