Andrea McCoy
November 12, 2015
Paper #3
Target of Prejudice Paper
Last summer I had an internship focusing on marking and sales. For the
internship, in short, I was basically a saleswoman at a kiosk in Sams Club. The
prejudice I was shown all summer during this internship from customers was
reflected on my job title, saleswomen. I was thought of as a sleazy, manipulative
saleswoman whom simply looked at customers as a dollar sign and just wanted to
take their money. This prejudice I was shown wasn’t fully true. Yes, I was selling skin
products but it wasn’t my goal to just make the most money off people.
An experience during the summer really made me notice how my job upset
some people to a dramatic level. Later that summer, a woman in Sams Club came up
to my booth and started making under her breath, rude comments while I was
talking to a mother. The rude lady continually murmured, “pshh” “pissht” at what I
was saying to the mother interested in the skin care products. Eventually the mother
left the booth, and the other women came back around the aisle and said, “Go get a
real job!” and explained to me how my job wasn’t real. I mostly ignored the lady
because it wouldn’t be worth any conversation. She didn’t even know my name or
anything about my job, so it was just complete ignorance. Countless amount of
people assumed that I would be taking their money and the product doesn’t work
anymore and that they were ripped off, but before people assume that I will take
their money they think that I would not let them leave my booth until they
eventually bought something. As if I had a way to hold them hostage until they
agreed to buy my skin care products.
I think about how this prejudice came to be, and to the best of my judgment, I
believe that the prejudice is very board. The same characteristics that con men have,
I was believed to posses. Another source of these prejudice are T.V. commercial ads
because multiple times family, friends and other people have all admitted to being
‘tricked’ into the deals and buying something that did not look as the product did on
the television. Overall I believe that the source to this prejudice is social. There is a
statistic stating that people tell twelve others of a bad experience and only three
