Starbucks Social Group Observation

The social group I observed was the people I work with at Starbucks. I started this job in January and I chose to observe my coworkers because I spend most of my time at work and it was a new environment. At Starbucks, employees are called partners to give them a sense of belonging and involvement in the company. The store I work at is at Pawnee and Seneca and there are fifteen partners. However, since I often only work in the afternoon I do not have a chance to observe everyone. The partners I observed most often are Vanessa, Jordan, Logan, Emani, Hailey and Danny. The first person I met was Danny and for my first week he was the only one I really got to know because he was my trainer. Danny plays bass in a band and recently got promoted to …show more content…
After living in Hawaii for about a year Jordan and his fiancé had to move back to their hometown of Wichita, Kansas due to insufficient funds and the high cost of living in Hawaii. I am unsure of Jordan’s age but aware he dropped out of college for unknown reasons. Though Jordan has called in and had to miss more shifts than Emani his intrinsic motivation does not contribute to the reason he does not pick up shifts in order to make up for his lost income. Instead, Jordan is unresponsive to extrinsic motivation. Defined by The Science of Psychology, extrinsic motivation “involves external incentives such as rewards and punishers,” (King, 2008). Between himself and his fiancé, Jordan does not bring in the money that supports his household that was needed when living expenses were higher. Extrinsic motivation for Jordan would be money and keeping his job. However, since he is not the primary source of income this renders the extrinsic motivation ineffective. Without the pressure of car bills and mortgages Jordan have little extrinsic motivation and can be used to explain his reluctance to pick up …show more content…
When describing his visit to St. Olaf Logan mentioned that the majority of students are either music or theater majors and many happen to be gay males. With a larger selection of prospect boyfriends Logan will be able to experience relationships in a different way (more of a long-term relationship than an awkward hook-up). While Logan develops relationships with others, simultaneously he will be able to focus on himself and his own desires and interests more than ever. For example, Logan’s passion is music and since he can pick his own major he will be able to almost exclusively study music at his dream school. However, because Logan’s dream school is about nine and a half hours away from his hometown and family he will encounter a variable amount of instability; especially moving so far away from home and for the first time. He will also experience this instability during winter and summer break when he moves back to Wichita. Another result of moving in and out of home frequently is the feeling of in between adolescence and adulthood. While away at college Logan will live more independently without curfew restriction, freedom to eat junk food daily, and to skip class whenever he desires. When I moved back in with my parents it felt as though I had regressed back to before I had lived on my own and I have a feeling it will affect Logan in a similar fashion during winter