Reflecting on culture. Write about cultural cues that you’ve received at your community site. Think about culture broadly defined (ex. workplace culture, age, race/ethnicity, etc.).
Workplace culture in the Green Garage is what I expected it to be in essence, as a nonprofit-ey community of organizations, but I couldn’t have envisioned it in any detail. There’s a great mix of middle aged people and younger people, which I don’t think happens often. If it does I feel like it would be the younger people in more entry level positions, which is definitely not what it feels like here. The environment here is very respectful and everybody functions as peers. I particularly enjoy interacting with the younger people working here, like everybody in DFA and Fresh Corner and more, because they all serve a role model position in some aspect. Not that I’m modeling my behavior super deliberately after them all, but I’m surrounded by a group of passionate young people doing work that I can see myself doing and living lifestyles I can see myself wanting to live. It’s as if I’m interacting with a bunch of people who I could ‘be’ in a few years, and I want to pick their brains about how they got there and what their plan is and how fulfilling life is. Then take that information so I can see what I would need to do in the short term to end up there / like that eventually. Anyways my point is Green Garage culture is very granola, respectful, and passionate about causes.
Between Fresh Corner and DFA, interns included, many racial backgrounds are represented. The whole of Green Garage is pretty diverse, to the point where it’s rarely something on my mind. It just is, it’s just people happily and peacefully coexisting in the same office. I’ve heard from other interns that this isn’t always the case at their sites and sometimes there is tension or drama in their workspace. I’m thankful there’s none of that over here. The only thing I have to worry about is keeping my voice down in the main space (we all essentially work in an open space with desks and half cubicles and tables spread through it).
The pop ups are a bit different because they aren’t held in a comparable space. I have mostly been at the pop ups at a community center in Northwest and a hospital somewhere. The people who come to the pop ups are friendly and genuine and I like to speak with them. However, I get the sense that it would be rude to speak from the pop up to people minding their own business. I think that’s more an environmental rather than cultural influence because the hospital isn’t the happiest place, and at the community center we are next to a DTE bill-pay kiosk which can be stressful for people. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with Hassan and Julian, the guys who work pop ups, as they are friendly Detroit’s who are our age. Will and I have had a great time connecting and hanging out with them at pop ups. We all interact casually and professionally as peers. Here’s a picture of Will, Julian, and I at a pop up.
I thought that your take on the age range in the GG is interesting. I hadn’t thought about that in terms of work culture for this blog post!