Week 6: My C of P

Sorry Guys had some Major problems with my blog this past week or so, one inparticular was it was marked as 'spam' when I updated my Security Software.

A meatspace C of P that I’m apart of is working as a Healthcare advisor at Boots. I work there when I’m at home from University during holiday time. We are basically a group or 'community' of Boots the Chemist Employees. As Wenger mentioned, I think that we are some kind of a 'joint enterprise'. We are 'bound' together by not only the Boots brand name, but also by friendship. There are various hierarchies or roles whilst working with this group of people such as a Store Manager, Team leader, Healthcare Advisors/ Dispensers, Sales and Operations Assistants and Pharmaceutical leaders. In my particular store we are a group of 18 ladies of all different ages and backgrounds. Everybody has a certain role to play in the ‘community’ enabling things to word effectively and accordingly. You’re ‘power role’ depends upon what status you hold in the 'community'. The Main ‘power’ is held by the Manager Esther and the Pharmacist Tracy. These two people inparticular have the highest trained qualifications. This can realte to the ideas of Wenger as they mention the idea of 'inspriational leadership' aka "leadership provided by thought leaders and recognized experts" (Wenger '98;7). However it is possible to change your power status in our 'community'. For example I first started as a Sales Assistant, but then trained and took 6 exams to become a Healthcare Advisor which enabled me to go up the . Even though there are various power roles within the ‘community’ we all help each other and work together to allow things to work properly in a day of work. We also know that we are there to help each other if is anything that we are particularly struggling with.

My C of P particularly concentrates around the idea of:

• The Community- One Manager but barious hierarchies of power
• The Practice- the idea of training to a particular standard to provide the best possible service for the customer and to keep the positive reputation of the particular company.
• The Domain/Area of field- The idea of being a part of this community to help the public/customer. Also learn different skills to provide the best service to the best of your ability and to reach deadlines which are set by managers/ line managers in each quarter.
• 'Bootlegged'- in some cases we could be bootlegged as we are told targets and goals to reach to keep our company/repertoire on top against other leading businesses.

The C of P that I am apart of is particularly formal; this is because we have a standard to maintain as we are a well known reputable company. Having this particular standard to adhere to means that we have to have good mannerisms, respect and loyalty to not only our ‘community’ but also to the people that we serve through this community- thus being the customer. I also feel that Boots is particularly strategic as like many businesses they have targets and a specific audience to reach. Whilst working with other employees friendships can occur in and outside of the workplace (‘community’). I personally feel that creating friendships in and outside of this particular C of P community enables things to run smoothly whilst working together, but it is also nice you can have a relationship out of the workplace. Like Boots has done for many years, our store/community enables a professional repertoire providing a good service to our public audience. These have been developed over time and will continue to develop aslong as the high standards continue.