Field Notes Paragraph
I spent nearly 20 minutes observing the starbucks team in Strozier Library from 2:40 -2:57pm on 2/5/2015. There are seven staffs, including one trainee and her supervisor. Three staffs were making coffees and did not take other responsibility. Since they did not have a large customer traffic during that period, they talked with the customers if the customer initiated the conversation. This “coffee maker” group also chatted a little bit with each other but seldom with other staffs. The trainee was assigned to serve as a cashier and make tea, and her supervisor was taking inventory so had much time to speak to the trainee. Another staff was responsible for shelving, heating food, and cleaning the self-help desk. The seventh was helping make tea during that period but should be the “on call” for other tasks. That trainee, if her supervisor was available, would turn to the supervisor if she had any question. But if the supervisor was out of sight, the trainee seemed have sense about which staff knows what (menu, deal, how to use the system,etc.) and would directly turn to that staff for question. Both the “coffee maker” group and other staff chatted based on the “physical priority”, but the trainee would only response if other staff talked to her instead of initiated conversation by herself. Since I sit pretty close to the counter, I was able to hear how they chatted –usually just small talks or little jokes, no work-related stuff. Although they do not have the written rules, it seemed they have a high degree of agreement about how to coordinate with each other and act as a team. However, they did not have a large traffic during that period, probably less than twenty customers. I assume the group dynamic will be quite different if the customer traffic increases.
Reflection
The difficulty of “unobtrusive observation”, from today’s class, is how to ensure the observation is truly “unobtrusive” (or is it really possible?). During the discussion with Cheryl I know in her case, the “boss” of the Strozier reference desk(her observation group) noticed her and even asked her if she needs any help. In my case, since where I sit is really close to the counter so I (have to) buy some potato chips from them to “pretend” I was a customer doing my homework there. Although I think they didn’t notice me, since I already watch the counter, probably some of them still felt I was a “strange” customer( the “real” customer who sit besides me always focused on his textbook). Their behavior may be a little bit different (especially that trainee) if they noticed me.
Another difficulty for me is since this is a relatively large and dynamic group, I was not sure what I should “observe” when several things are happening at once. I choose to focus my observation on that trainee since she was the “outlier” in that group which may cause the change of atmosphere, but the cost is I was able to pay much attention to other sub-group(s) like the “coffee maker”. Also Tim’s observation reminded me that I probably should pay more attention and document the conversations between the staff and with the customers.