Discourse Community Case Study

A majority of people believe they could just walk into Sheetz on any day and know how to perform as an employee. However, it is not that simple because a discourse community like Sheetz requires much practice to actually know what to accomplish. In the Sheetz community, it is required to learn how to perform tasks from managers and other employees by observation. We also learn by watching training videos and going through PowerPoints about how to present good customer service. As for the employees who actually love working, they put all of their effort into keeping the environment for customers as enjoyable as possible. For instance, they pick up extra shifts or do tasks without having to be asked. In this discourse community, I have seen and

In this situation, literacy acts as a threat to any employee who does not follow the rules. When an employee does not meet with these requirements, they will be written up. If their actions continue, they will be terminated. The power relationship that controls who gets access to this literacy are part of the management team in each store or a part of the headquarters. These people enforce the rules and tasks that need to be abided by. Managers control who gets hired by deciding whether or not they will be a valuable employee. The district manager is the one who controls situations that involve incidents, and he or she determines what actions need to be taken based on the report that a manager filled out. The ones who oversee a specific shift, and make sure all tasks are being done so the customers can be happy is the job of the shift supervisors. The headquarters make the rules and regulations in accordance with the consumer services and department of agriculture. If stores are keeping the sales floor clean and making food correctly, a secret shopper reports back to the district manager about how well the store is doing. Literacy also acts as ritual when codes and the temperatures are checked every shift, and sanitizing is done. Literacy acts as evidence when an employee

Cleaning the bathrooms and taking out the trash needs to be done frequently. As the bathroom is being cleaned, the employee needs to know what each type of cleaning product does. When trash is being done, the employee needs to know the locations of each trash can and where to put it once it is collected. The cleaning of gas spills is a dominant literacy that is learned from a manager or shift supervisor, and it has to be done with extreme caution. Literacy acts as a ritual when the ice cream, frozen yogurt, and FUB (frozen non-carbonated beverage) machines need cleaned every four hours. After any one of these tasks are done, the employee is then required to initial the task that was