Week Eight

At Dial America, some hazards that could possibly injure employees could be not cleaning up a spill on the floor and someone slips and breaks a hip. Or someone could trip over an unseen cord on the floor and twist their leg or foot. If people aren't responsible for cleaning up after themselves or looking out for potential hazards, others could be the ones to suffer by getting injured for careless people.

After looking at the OSHA website for safety issues that apply to workplaces and my particular workplace are the mandatory OSHA publications that must be displayed in Spanish. In order to have everyone completely informed of regulations and emergency policies, having OSHA posters translated into Spanish and a toll free number with Spanish speaking operators are the best way to ensure that everyone is properly informed. Even if a Spanish speaking person understands pretty good English, if there are even one or two words that are not understood, this could result in misunderstandings.

So far in my job at Dial America, I have learned to project my voice to sound pleasing and friendly over the phone and to improve my customer assistance. What I have learned about working with the people at Dial America is that they are always willing to help and all they want to do is help the customer. If you have a question, people at Dial America always have the answer because they have most likely worked on that program for a couple of years and have taken thousands of calls on it.

So far I have had a few negative experiences on the job because I have little old ladies trying to buy wigs and they get mad at me when they have a question that I can't answer. I tell them that I have to transfer them to customer service and the get huffy and take my name sand inform me that when I transfer them they will tell customer service about me. But then again, I do come across some very understanding and patient ladies who tell me that they appreciate my assistance and wish me a good day. What I look forward to in the coming weeks is learning the programs better and being able to perform at my job more efficiently. My learning style is an asset to me in this career because I am a hands-on learner and I learn best by actually doing something. With taking phone calls, you have to learn alot on you own. There is only so much your trainer can teach you.

Week 7

One skill that I posess that I think is unique to me is that I am nearly fluent in the Spanish language. I think that by using this skill it will be useful in the career path that I would like to pursue. I am interested in the medical field and would like to become a Paramedic and some day a doctor. If I had fluent Spanish speaking skills I believe that that would be very useful to the field, myself and to the community. In my daily life I will continue to study Spanish and try to make myself as diverse as possible so that I may make myself useful to my employer and to the community that I want to help. As long as I study hard and work hard to achieve my goals I will aquire many skills that I will be able to add to my resume.

Week Five

The personality type that I discovered today in my career search does relate to my service learning placement. I am a social personality type and that means that I like to give information and help people. When working at Jittery Joe's I help people by making coffee and assisting in completing orders. I also give people information about the products at the store like food and what types of coffee we have. This job fits into alot of my social personality of wanting to help people.

In the coming weeks I look forward to getting more customer service and coffee shop experience. The last few weeks of my placement at Jittery Joe's, I have had more positive experiences than negitive. The times that I expected people to get mad they were actually very nice and patient with me. Then the times that I am doing good with a customer they of course are fine and not snotty.

Week Six

Time Saving Tips

1. Prepare things like outfits, and the next day's lunch at night so that when you wake up in the morning, you can get ready without worrying about rushing around trying to prepare lunch and what clothes you want to put on.
2. If it can be done at night, do it at night. Anything you can do to prepare yourself for the next day the night before, do it. Obviously you can't put on make up and get dressed the night before, but you can lay your clothes out.
3. In the mornings, I have a two minute rule. If it can be done in less than two minutes, do it. This keeps my dawdling down to a minimum.
4. At night, I put my books and purse close to the front door so I wont have to look for them when I leave, I can just grab and go.
5. I like to set my alarm clock an extra 10 minutes early, this way I can use them any way that I want, I can snooze through them, accomplish a quick chore, or watch TV before I leave for the day.

If I were to become overwhelmed with obligations I imagine myself being a little stressed out but trying to remain positive. Even if I was overwhelmed with obligations, I would try to keep my day as organized as possible so that everything would run smoothly. There will be times in life when things will be overwhelming but them important thing is to work through it and try to remain on schedule and focused. My strategy would be staying on schedule and staying organized.

Week Four

Task Five - My Experiences In My Service Learning Placement



My service learning placement is at Jittery Joe's, which is a coffee shop. My position in the shop is a barista. While working there I have learned how to run it and assist the customers mostly by visual learning. I learned best by watching employees make drinks and use the cash register. When I was stumped on how to make a drink by myself, I referred to the drink instruction chart that was posted inside the shop. The chart helped me the most because it broke down the information in a simple way that I could remember.

My second best way of learning at Jittery Joe's was through some trial and error. When I made drinks, I would find myself monitoring myself step by step to keep myself from rushing and messing up. As I was monitoring myself I would see how the resulting product would turn out and later see if I could do something different to make the process easier and better. The important thing is the satisfaction of the customer. Therefore, when changing my steps in the drink making process, I would observe the satisfaction of the customer and judge my decisions based upon their reactions. If they seem impatient, I will probably not use the same process. If they say something like, "Wow! That was fast! The coffee tastes really good!" I know I was time conscious, but careful, and delivered a good product in a timely manner.


My most positive experience so far while working at Jittery Joe's has been getting used to handling equipment, learning the drink menu and prices, and having satisfied customers. I look forward to making more customers happy in the future and making my job run more and more smoothly. The people in the store have been very helpful in teaching me the things necessary to do my job well by allowing me to watch them while working.

Week Three

Task 1

The first and most important study skill that I think that I need to improve about myself is procrastination. I have the tendency to put things off until a later date for silly reasons like not "feeling" like it, or other excuses. In reality, I could have a lot less to worry about if I just knocked out assignments when I am sitting around doing nothing. Not procrastinating is not only rewarding in the stress category, but usually people who keep their procrastinations to a minimum have better grades as well. Another study skill I could improve is the "getting started" skill. Sometimes I just have a hard time focusing myself on getting started on an assignment. It is almost like I dread the work ahead of me and I distract myself from what I have to do. I think that if I were to concentrate on improving these skills I would have a lot less stress and a lot better grades.


Task 2

Five Things I Can Do To Take Better Notes

1. Take quick notes instead of lengthy notes. When I take long notes information tends to get foggy.
2. Write down questions during class, if they aren't answered in class answer them at home. This well help me be prepared for the next class.
3. Rewriting my notes after class not only helps me have more organized notes, but also helps you review what was taught in class.
4. Using symbols helps because you have more time to write more important information and listen rather than writing out entire words.
5. Listen for key points. Writing EVERYTHING the teacher says will not help, this will only leave you fogged and flustered.

Five Things I Can Do To Control Procrastination

1. Motivate myself to get the task out of the way so I can do something more fun. In other words, work before play, no fun stuff until the task gets done.
2. Get all of the tasks that are most difficult out of the way so that way I will feel more relieved and can do the easy stuff.
3. Instead of trying to knock out a whole project in one sitting, break it up and set goals to complete one manageable part at a time.
4. Once I get started on a task work my way through it and it will be finished quicker than expected.
5. Make an agenda, this will help keep me on track and paced for tasks that need to be completed.

Service Learning Weekly Journal (Week Two)

My Experiences in Service Learning
My experiences in my Service Learning class has helped me specify goals and things that I need to work on myself to become a better person and have a sucessful future. This class is a positive experience and think that is very helpful in taking the steps to help enhance learning and putting it into perspective in the future. The work that I have done in this class has made me focus my thoughts on the future and what I can do now to make it better for myself.
In this class I have also been able to take the time to learn more about what I want to do and the skills that I would need to possess in order to be sucessful in that career. In the coming weeks I hope to have more assignments that will help enhance learning from life experience. I hope to learn how to better use what I do and learn now and apply it into the future to earn success.