OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

Two young African-American men were sitting in the lobby of a Starbucks in

Pennsylvania waiting for a third man to have a meeting about real estate. One of the men
asked an employee for the bathroom and he was told the bathroom was for paying
customers only. They two men were asked to purchase something or leave, and they
denied. The police were then called and arrived on scene after about 5 minutes of
waiting. The police asked the men to leave, and they refused as they felt they did nothing
wrong. The Pennsylvania police then made the decision to arrest the two men and escort
them to jail. My role in this organization is that I am a shift supervisor. I am in charge of
delegating responsibilities and tasks to the baristas on shift, and am responsible for the
cash handling and safety and security of the store while my store manager is not
available.

2) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

A good way to describe politics influencing this situation would be to look at the
behavior from the store manager. They felt as if they had power over these customers to
choose who could and could not be in the store, and they probably felt as if their behavior
was okay because they were not called out on it earlier by a peer or an individual of a
higher ranking in the company. Considering that there was no other employee who
stepped in and said maybe their actions weren’t the best way to resolve the situation, one
can assume something like this had happened before and the store manager was allowed
to pick and choose who was able to stay in the store without purchasing anything.
Starbucks prides itself on being a company that fosters relationships within the teams and
within the communities that they find themselves in, and I think this store manager
maybe did not find themselves with great connections in the store’s community.
Philadelphia is about equal in terms of White VS African American population, so there
would be no reason for the store manager to use race as an issue with these two men. In
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 the end, Starbucks valued their connections with the Philadelphia community and the
general public more than the connection they had with the singular store manager, and
took action and ended the relationship with the store manager by terminating their
employment.

3) Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

This situation happened because there was a lack of connection between the store
manager (and perhaps the other employees at this specific store) and the community of
Philadelphia. If workers had taken more time to focus on building relationships within
their customer base, there would not be a sense of tension between the two and maybe the
policy would have been changed. I argue that you can not change human nature, and the
problem of people experiencing homeless using Starbucks lobbies and bathrooms is not
an easy problem to solve. Given this information, Starbucks as a company could do an
outreach program where they focus on the people and not the problems. They could
bargain some of their lobby area to those who want to use the space as a leisure area, and
not require purchase to use this area. If this was the policy in place before the situation,
there would not have been any issue with the men waiting in the Starbucks for their third
party member to arrive and the police would have never been called for the men
'trespassing’.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

Considering the information that I know now, I would say focusing on using the power I
have in the store to build relationships with customers is the most important priority.
Instead of assuming the two men were just loitering, I would have taken the time to sit
down and get to know a bit about them. I would not use my power over the gentlemen to
have them forcibly removed from the store. If there was backlash I received from higher
management or my peers, I would have insisted that the customers are our top priority,
and nothing we do should ever put them in harm's way. If for some reason the men
decided to start abusing the lobby area and disrupting other customers, I would have to
exert my power in the store to tell them why they were being disruptive and ask them to
kindly stop and then if they decided not to comply I would have to ask them to leave. But
until there is a serious threat to myself or others in the area, there is no reason for law
enforcement to be called.

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 Reference or References

Held, A. (2018, April 19). Men Arrested At Philadelphia Starbucks Speak Out; Police

Commissioner Apologizes. NPR.

Gathright, J., & Sullivan, E. (2018, April 14). Starbucks, Police And Mayor Respond To

Controversial Arrest Of 2 Black Men In Philly. NPR.

About Us: Starbucks Coffee Company. (2022). Starbucks.