Definition Essay

Vuong Lam
Professor Dubro
ENG 111
January 26, y
Workplace Discrimination Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially based on their skin color, race, sex, religion, or disability. In an ideal world people would have the equal rights and opportunities when they apply for any kind of jobs. But the fact is that we still constantly face a lot of neglect based on our differences. The worst case is that it’s still happening in this century and it’s happens in many places that everyone think that people should be free of discrimination. Workplace discrimination is one type of this phenomenon; treating employees unfair at work that usually based on their nationality, sex, or race. But, What really is workplace discrimination? It’s not just a normal denial of a person rights or their work achievements. It’s more than that; it’s a worst denial that might cause the person to be stress, scare, or even death. An employee can get discrimination in every single day at work from their co-workers or by their boss. You might ask why didn’t he/she say anything? It’s because they’ were scared. Scared to lose their job, scared of not having health insurance, or scared of not having money to take care their children. And because they were not stand up for their rights, discrimination keep happening which result into severe psychological consequences. Workplace discrimination can become a threatening form, which will not only result in the victim’s mind but also their physical body. A good example to illustrate discrimination in the workplace is the study from Lei Lai and Linda C. Babcock. They both did a study on workplace discrimination to Asian Americans. They did an experiment that had about 100 participants that they will go to an interview for a junior partner to head one of the satellite offices in the Midwest. This interview will based mostly on social skills, but not limited to first impression, identify candidate’s race, and dimension of competence. The result was clearly, it showed that Asian candidates are less consider than the White candidate because of their lacking on social skills as well as their first impression. After the study, Lai and Babcock concluded that lack of social skill is one of many barriers that hold Asian American less likely to move forward in their career. A personal experience about workplace discrimination that I had faced was my very first job at Sweet-frog Frozen Yogurt. I got an interview with the manager and I clearly see in his facial expression that he did not want to hire me because of my lacking experience. He even told me that the end of the interview that the store just only hire people with great experience in customer service and asked me to give him times to think about my application. I got the job at his store but couldn’t be in the front to interact with the customers. The manager kept telling me to work in the back, such as cutting fruit, making yogurt, washing dishes, and cleaning the floor. At first, I thought it might be because the manager wants to test me out my willingness for the job and that’s why he wants me to do the hard job first. After 3 months, all of my co-workers got raised, except me. Even a girl who came in the same time with me got raised. I asked him about it and all he said because they’re all work hard with the customer but you’re not. I was mad but still tried be professional after the discussion with the manager. The next day, I gave him 2 weeks notice of resignation with the reason of school schedule conflict. Clearly that I didn’t get treat fairly at the workplace and it’s just not fair that raising salary based on how many time an employee interact with customers. Workplace discrimination is a nightmare to everyone because of its effect on the victim’s mind. Dealing with it might get more stress but if dealing with it in the right way will make a lot of differences at the workplace and the victim life as well. Some of the great strategy to deal with workplace discrimination is stand firm under verbal attacks, remain confident about your own abilities, stay calm in all situations, and communicate with someone about the problem. We, unfortunately, do not live in a world with all perfect people. Many people still facing unequal opportunities and rights in everyday at their workplace and can not tell anyone about it. Employees can be discriminated because of certain features they posses, such as their skin color, race, sex, religion, and disability. To stop this problem at the workplace, the company should educate all their employees about the effect of discrimination as well as write harassment and diversity policies to distribute to all employees.

Work Cited
Lai, Lei, and Linda C. Babcock. "Asian Americans And Workplace Discrimination: The Interplay Between Sex Of Evaluators And The Perception Of Social Skills Asian Americans And Workplace Discrimination: The Interplay Between Sex Of Evaluators And The Perception Of Social Skills." Journal Of Organizational Behavior 34.3 (2013): 310-326. Business Source Complete. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.

Cited: Lai, Lei, and Linda C. Babcock. "Asian Americans And Workplace Discrimination: The Interplay Between Sex Of Evaluators And The Perception Of Social Skills Asian Americans And Workplace Discrimination: The Interplay Between Sex Of Evaluators And The Perception Of Social Skills." Journal Of Organizational Behavior 34.3 (2013): 310-326. Business Source Complete. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.