Students

Once again students have appeared extensively in new reports today over the protests regarding the raising of university tuition fees and the cuts in education spending. (Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11829102, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/24/student-school-pupils-protests-walkout) These protests have been largely peaceful, if with some violent clashes which have gotten majority of media attention and sadly distracted people from the actual message that students and lecturers protesting have been attempting to get across. This has, however, brought the stereotype of the student to the forefront of people's minds recently.

There are several different kinds of student stereotypes, (I really rather enjoy this one: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoNiAXxTdczIo6P4RKvYW_FEEq6iWZ36JZTnTX9zMBYidbbW8zNT9zBxWCx4NVTBXCr5EaOnCbEJOKbtodpakcYRSxhtSFp_9SDp285nsCYuQTbuQHR8MvwV_aWszAK57sJRTkO7sDbGtr/s1600/dirty-500x528-1.jpg) however the presiding stereotype of students- oh let me be clear, I'm focusing on university students for this one, rather than primary or secondary school students- is of the lazy, laid back, gets drunk every night, generally rather useless individual who would really be of much better use to society in a full time job moving around heavy equipment in a warehouse then squandering their parents and the governments money every night on 3for2 vodka shots.

Now, I'm not going to deny that these people actually exist. Being a student myself, I've had the misfortune of meeting them in person. However they are by no means the majority of students these days.

Many students, including myself for example, work. I work 24 hours a week during university term time onto of student loans simply so I can afford to live in the insanely priced London area. Seriously you can rent a tiny 1 room in a house here for what would get you a nice small cottage in other areas. Many students volunteer in a verity of areas and it seems the majority of students do seem to care about the level of work they put across, despite the minority of students who simply do not care and cause general chaos and uselessness when it comes to group work.

Going back to the recent news, it seems violence in students has become a big topic recently. Yet we have to remember that the majority of people protesting are doing so peacefully and there is also no proof that the people committing violence are students at all. They are simply at the student protest and it would seem likely that they turned up with the intention to commit violent acts regardless of weather they are students or not.

I think society in general treats students poorly because of the stereotype, which is a shame because I honestly believe that for the majority of people it simply does not match reality.

Call Centre Stereotypes

Good news everyone! You have all been drafted to work to death in a call centre, 24 hours a day 7 days a week phoning up people in the evenings when they have just settled down for a nice roast dinner with the family and informing them of the great phone they have won/been selected to try/been offered on a great new contract just for them and not let them off the phone until they have paid a vast sum of money for the privilege of getting rid of you.

Or, you are an Indian person in a small dark room desperately trying to get the caller who has been put through to you to follow step 2 on your script. You can't understand them, they can't understand you, and step 2 makes no sense to either of you.

Those are the stereotypes of the call centre. And now I am one of them, having just gotten a new job working in the call centre of the lovely people at www.just-eat.co.uk as a Customer Care Agent. Basically this involves dealing with customer orders that have gone wrong in some manner, either from their own mistake or the restaurants usually, as well as dealing with restaurant queries and any support they need. I'm really happy that this is a customer care job and unusually while there are procedures to work to of course, I don't have to work off of a script, which frankly is a godsend. So already they have broken several of the stereotypes of the call centre, along with that it really does seem a nice relaxed place to work with good people and managers to work with (not that I'm saying managers are not people mind you...but you never know..).

The main problem with the call centre stereotype is the feeling that the person on the other end of the phone is simply an extension of the automated process you had to get through to speak to them in the first place. Now you have finally gotten past the several extra telephone numbers worth of answers you had to input to reach the right department (and then, of course, be told that no, you haven't reached the right department after all and have to sit on hold for another 10 minutes while they transfer you to sales or somewhere you equally don't want to go) and are speaking with a human, you don't consider them human. They are just a voice on the other end of the line which won't listen to what you are trying to say.

I've just started in my call centre and as I said, it seems pretty nice. I've yet to get any really abusive customers that I have had to deal with but I expect that will come with time. On a lighter note, I'll leave you with a epic independent short film that was released about call centres, it is simply brilliant an I advise you to watch all of it.





 

The Grammar Nazi

The Grammar Nazi is a serious stereotype which should not be underestimated. Often found lurking around online forums, chat rooms, and even sometimes in your personal presence, they are initially hard to identify but often come out in the open as soon as they spot a chance to correct someone else. So what is a Grammar Nazi?

Urban dictionary says a Grammar Nazi is “A captious individual who cannot resist the urge to correct a spelling and/or grammar mistake even in informal settings. After pointing out the linguistic shortcomings in others, a Grammar Nazi feels a strange sense of twisted and unconstructive intelligentsia delight.”

The Grammar Nazi, as the name suggests, is often pictured as a German Nazi carrying out a campaign against poor spelling and punctuation rather than the armies of the allies. Grammar Nazis can often cause offence, even when technically they may be in the right. However, rather surprisingly, associating the world “Nazi” with people who are a stickler for good grammar doesn’t appear to cause a huge amount of offence.

There are multiple levels of Grammar Nazis, from the publicly over the top to those that prefer to spend their time correcting friends and family. Some people can and do take offence at Grammar Nazis. As well as it being possibility considerably rude depending on the situation at the time, some people with learning disabilities such as dyslexia often take offence at Grammar Nazis, and sometimes are forced into defensive action in an attempt to defend themselves from what can be considered as in the above link, as a “type of bullying/elitism”.

Personally, as a dyslexic myself, I can understand that point of view. It can be extremely frustrating to put a lot of effort into something to have it summarily dismissed due to someone else’s inability to look beyond a few minor grammar or punctuation mistakes. However there are things that both sides can do in an attempt to lessen the amount of fuel being thrown on the fire.

Dyslexics can, and should - along with everyone else actually - use tools such as Word’s spelling and grammar check. While such tools are not perfect by any means, they can assist in correcting some of the basic mistakes that it is easy for anyone to make. When you are writing something of relative importance (as such a dissertation for your university degree), it is extremely important to pay extra attention to how well the spelling and grammar in the text comes across.

Grammar Nazis can help by cooling their temperaments a little. They should bear in mind that not everything is of overwhelming enough importance to risk annoying people, and in some cases even causing rifts in friendships, to go around correcting everything someone else says or writes at all times.  



Of course there is the worst type of Grammar Nazi. When dealing with a Grammar Nazi that cannot achieve passable literacy themselves, there are very few options. I would suggest sterilisation as a bare minimum.

The Gamer

There is, believe it or not, more than 1 gamer stereotype. Gamers have decided that there are many different stereotypes within gamers as a whole, as demonstrated by this image- Link. However the presiding stereotype, especially to people who are non-gamers, is one that has been portrayed by the media and TV shows.

Copyright South Park Studios

In this case, there is no parent’s basement involved, but there often is. The image of a unemployed, overweight, messy, generally useless gamer spending their entire time in their mums basement is one that many TV shows seem to enjoy portraying. In fact, here is South Park again. And there’s a basement!

Copyright South Park Studios

However, there are real life examples of this stereotype as well. Some are more extreme than others, however many follow a similar pattern. This stereotype is very much ingrained within the public mind, despite efforts of some gaming manufacturers to present their products to a more casual audience and attempt to pull in people who do not fit the stereotype and may not have been interested in gaming before. Such as Nintendo and these people.

Scary

Aside from that, this stereotype is one of the major stereotypes that seem to have a considerable effect on people’s lives. Admitting that you are a "gamer" to a "non-gamer" automatically seems to bring in a negative effect in terms of how that person may react towards you. It may be some time until this stereotype changes enough to remove this negative effect.

What is a stereotype?

Hi everyone.

Ill kick off with just a brief explanation of excatly what a "stereotype" is. According to dictionary.com, a stereotype in the form I plan to use is "a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group: The cowboy and Indian are American stereotypes." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stereotype). Oxforddictionaries.com states that it is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing" and "a person or thing that conforms to such an image". 


That's the idea of the kind of stereotypes I will be discuessing, and laughing at, in this blog. There are many, many different kinds of stereotypes, and I will try and cover as many different types as possible.