Home Depot Observation

The atmosphere of any setting is continuously fluctuating in both obvious and vague ways. A hardware store such as Home Depot is a prominent example of this fluctuation. Home Depot has been providing hardware products for both home and business improvement needs since 1978. Home Depot sells products that fall under categories such as: paint, lumber, electrical, plumbing, garden, and more. The diversity among the customer population is wide ranging, from the different ethnicities, nationalities, and gender shopping on any given day. I suspect that the atmosphere at Home Depot would differ from one day to the next as a result of the different parts of the week, the alternating times of day, and the seasonal attributes.

An atmosphere is built

At Home Depot I notice that complexities occur mainly in accordance with one’s self concept or how we as communicators think about ourselves or what we conceive. I notice this especially as a cashier when interpersonally communicating with my customers during the checkout process. During my three shifts of observation I began to organize or categorize customers into the four different windows present in the Johari 's Window. Customers I demonstrated characteristics that would define them as communicators in all four windows (the “Open Self”, the “Blind Self”, the “Hidden Self”, and the “Unknown Self”). Customers that I categorized into the “Open Self” where extremely talkative and open about their lives imperfections and perfections. Customers that exhibited traits linking them to the “Hidden Self”, were the opposite, they were untalkative or rude, (they wouldn’t even exchange small talk) even aware of the communication occurring still choose to disclose little to no information at all. I strongly believe customers exhibited traits of the “Hidden Self” did this because of social comparison (or thinking they are more superior than a “young kid” or newbie cashier and assume we wouldn’t understand nor care about their concerns or comments). Customers categorized in the “Blind Self” were the individuals who demonstrated rudeness or dumbfoundedness to me, but you can tell fail to recognize it or overlook it. Finally those that I categorized into into the window panel as the

I recognized quite quickly that customers demonstrate specific proxemics and the reality of the equilibrium theory (or during communication people will find or adjust to a desirable space). I noticed all four space managing distances of that Edward Hall, twelve feet or greater being public distance, four to twelve feet being social distance, eighteen inches to four feet being personal distance, and zero to eighteen inches being intimate distance. For instance us employees communicate with each other at a personal distance same when we communicate with customers, but I did observe that customers communicate with other customers at a social distance instead. In regards to the equilibrium theory, with all the noise happening at Home Depot (saws cutting lumber, registers beeping, and forklifts moving) both the customers and employees will adjust or find that desirable space mainly in cause to our momentary loss of hearing or when taking a customer to find the specific aisle or product that