The First Shift

Sierra Minatre

Professor Beth Saur

Narrative Inquiry

Writing 1

14 March 2020

The First Shift 

Miscommunication occurs all the time it seems, at least, I have had a lot of awkward experiences with miscommunication personally. Some of these situations are more serious than others, and some are even funny. Well the situation of miscommunication I plan on telling you about, was not fun for me. This story is going to be about the time I received an accountability at work. 

Let’s start this story from the beginning, during fall quarter I received an email that I had gotten the job I had interviewed for, three days prior. Well the entire next week I had to go through training, in order to start working real shifts. The training went by great and I felt I was going to be able to do the job effectively. There was a lot to memorize so at first the job seemed daunting. The work system at this job was separated into a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid we have Assistants, which is what I was. Next came Specialists who were also students who had a little bit more authority than the assistants. The top student position on the pyramid was Supervisor, who oversaw daily operations. At the very top we had career staff, these people oversaw the department on a long term basis. My last training was with the director of the facility, one of the career staff, the day before my first shift. So I asked him when I should be at my shift the next day. 

He responded, “Be there fifteen minutes before your start time.” 

I nodded and asked, “My start time is at three thrirty correct?” He went onto our online scheduler, WhenToWork, and confirmed that I started at three thirty.  

So I went on with my day regularly, and planned the  next day out. I had morning practice which ended around eleven, and we would all get brunch after at Carillo. My team also had an event planned at one o’clock, which included team bonding. The team bonding event is called Nametag, an annual event, in which you wear a costume or photo of something representing your name. This event is a way for all the teams in the club to get to know each other, and remember each other’s names. I told myself I needed to leave Nametag by three o’clock to get to work by three fifteen. 

The day of my shift went by quickly, and before I knew it, it was three o’clock. I jumped on my bike and got to work within the next ten minutes, so I thought I was early. I walked in feeling great and ready to start my first shift. My shift that day was at the front desk working with another person, Jake, who also thought I was on time. Jake had been working there for a year prior to this, so what he thought felt pretty valid to me. Well about thirty minutes into the shift the front desk phone rang and I answered, it was my specialist.

She said, “Oh, you made it to your shift.” 

I was very confused and responded, “Um….. yeah?” 

She said she’d be up to the front in a few minutes and hung up. As expected she and my supervisor came up to the front. 

The supervisor, Nathan, asked irritatedly, “Why were you late?”

I did not really know what was going on and said, “Well I wasn’t late, my shift was supposed to start at three thirty.” 

He did not like my response, and basically told me, no and that I was supposed to start at three o’clock. He then asked if I had a phone, still super confused I said, “Yes.”

He rudely responded, “Well it’s not working and you need to talk to your phone provider.” 

Apparently he tried to call me five times, but I had no calls come through to my phone within the couple hours before. To test his theory of my phone “not working”, I had my coworker Jake call me after our shift and it immediately went through.  He also said he would have to write me up with an accountability for being late, and then he walked away. I was so shocked and embarrassed that I just stayed quiet for the next hour. My co-worker tried to cheer me up and say that it was not a big deal, but I was still upset for a while after. One of the main reasons I was so upset was because this shift was my first real taste of what the job was going to be like. Ironically this shift foreshadowed how I would feel working here after a while. I actually just put in my two weeks’ notice of resignation at this job. . 

Now I can look back at the experience, shake it off and laugh, but right after it happened, I felt like the world was ending. I am a huge overthinker and was so scared that career staff was gonna yell at me and that I would not be eligible for a promotion, but after time passed I realized it actually was not a big deal, like Jake said. The experience taught me to always, always check times of events, shifts, meetings, etc. at least a couple hours before, and always know that times are susceptible to change. After I had been working there for awhile I had a permanent set shift, and I still checked what time I was scheduled to work because of the experience I had. The experience also taught me to not just rely on what someone says, always double check. 

Miscommunication can happen in person, on the phone, over text and even with body language. One of the most important things to someone is their communication with others, so when a mishap happens it is super embarrassing and frustrating. When I am ever in a situation that involves miscommunication I always try to sympathize with the other person and see where they are coming from. Very often people are judged based on one miscommunicated situation, which can ruin everything for them. This was the case for me and this job, which ended up being an awful six months.