Living in a metropolitan country presents many opportunities to a person. However, some challenges abound. These include sexual harassment, discrimination, stereotypes and crime. Most part of my life I spent at school and I have not encountered much of these diversity issues. The first time I encountered the problem of diversity on a serious level was when I was an intern with a local company in my state. The firm was christened Waterman Company and I they allowed me to intern at the facility for a period of six months. People of various races formed part of the workforce, and it was evident that people liked to work in groups divided along the racial lines. It is essential to mention the fact that the manager of the company was an Asian and he did not seem to care much about the working relationship at the company.
This essay explicates a discrimination incident that I encountered as an intern at Waterman Company.
It was on a Friday, and the workers at Waterman Company were waiting for the weekend. Notably, they were charged with different roles in the firm, and I was working under the human resource where I ran several errands including those that were not under my job description. The department had a huge number of Asians who always worked as a team and most of the time communicated in their language. However, this was done surreptitiously to prevent the manager from noticing. On this one occasion, the manager had left the office early, and I stayed with five other guys in the office. Three of them were Asians and two of us were of different race. The mood in the office was relaxed, and the Asians were chatting actively. After some time, I could notice that they were talking and staring at our direction as we sat quietly in front of our computers. Suddenly, the vigor in their conversation increased. Then, one of them spoke and they laughed emphatically staring at us. We could not tell immediately what the aggressor had said, but both of us felt uncomfortable at that moment. We both tried to accost them, and they all denied vehemently the allegation we had raised against them.
The diversity component in this case is the discrimination against race. This stems from the fact that our colleagues of another race made us feel insecure in their company. Notably, they were talking provocatively and laughed loudly while staring us, which made us feel uncomfortable. Charismatic leadership was not present at the time. When the manager is in the office, all members communicate correspondingly, and such behaviors are not present in the office.
My colleague was so critical of the Asians’ behavior that he admonished them and promised to report them to the manager the following week. Although there was some resistance from those three workers, they eventually apologized and we forgave them. Additionally, they promised not to repeat the mistake again.
Personally I could have cautioned them against using their language in office that we did not understand. I could have encouraged them to promote cohesiveness through using English as the main language in office. I could also promote the use of rules in the office in order to ensure that no one violated the right of another person. This could be done through the introduction of a code of conduct that the employees had to observe while at the company’s premises. I could also promote an environment of brotherhood through ensuring that the employees worked as a team and not corresponding to their races.