Week 4 – Detroit Community-Engaged Research Program

Week 4

Culture is something that’s difficult to put into words, but I know that I’ve observed it in order to fit in my workplace. I feel pretty at home and settled in at work. I feel like I can joke around and relax in a way that I might not be able to in a more strict setting. My workplace culture is obviously one that wants to help people and the community. It’s definitely silly, and you can see that in the icebreakers we do at office meetings. I think that’s something that comes from working with kids. It’s accepting in the way that it doesn’t make assumptions- of people’s pronouns, etc- and the workplace definitely acknowledges that not everybody comes from the same background. My workplace culture is also pretty relaxed and trusting. Everyone trusts that you will get your work done, and it doesn’t really matter how. Also, because there are two locations and a lot of the staff go between both locations, it means that you don’t see all of the staff every day because they are in the other location. Most of the people at my workplace are pretty young- not fresh out of college young- but there’s nobody who’s old there. That definitely makes me feel pretty comfortable, but I wonder if that’s reflective of all non-profit work, as I’ve heard people mention burnout due to low salaries and hard work. My workplace is also mostly white, which brings up an interesting point as to our place in the community. Our students have brought it up, and we discuss how to navigate that question in our volunteer training sessions.

3 thoughts on “Week 4”

  1. It’s interesting what you said about the burnout rate of non-profit work due to the lower pay and harder work. It’s disheartening to think about; that the work that goes into helping other people and trying to better the community you are part of is the work that gets the least amount of recognition or pay, while companies that do more detriment than good to our society have the biggest pockets. :/

  2. Brandon David Meinders

    It seems as though the workplace culture at your organization is very similar to mine. While everyone likes to joke around and is pretty casual with everyone, it’s also understood that we are there to work and fight for our cause.

  3. Brenda A Harvey

    That is really great that you can feel relaxed, I think having a comfortable place to work can really have an impact on overall well being. I wonder how the students feel about having most of the volunteers be white.

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