The stories "A&P" and "Orientation" are two very different stories. For this blog, I'll not try to compare them both in entirety, but rather I'll compare the role of a bosses in each of the stories.
The boss in A&P isn't around much, from how the narrator describes it. "Lengel comes in from haggling with a truck full of cabbages on the lot and is about to scuttle into that door marked MANAGER behind which he hides all day..." This sentence suggests that the manager of this supermarket is always hiding in his office. But once he sees the girls, "improperly dressed" he cracks the whip. Lengel goes from being a push over, uncaring type boss, to a hard ass in less than :30 seconds.
The boss in Orientation is completely different. This boss is the all knowing type. You can also assume that this boss is the hard ass type, since he always repeats the phrase "Ask too many questions, however, and you may be let go." He doesn't seem like he's the pushover, or hide-in-his-office type. This boss knows all. He can tell you anything about all of his workers, even adding in that one is a serial killer. "He is a serial killer, the one they call the Carpet Cutter, responsible for the mutilations across town. We're not supposed to know that, so do not let on. In any case, when Kevin Howard gets caught, act surprised." The fact that he knows all about his employees suggests that he is all knowing.
I liked how you explained the differences between the two bosses and how one always hides and the other isn't like the other and doesn't seem to hide in his office much.
ReplyDeleteThe instructions ask you to point out THREE (3) points of comparison as related to work. You've got one comparison here. One other thing to think about is: do we as readers know that the person giving the tour in "Orientation" is the boss? Is there anywhere in the text that says that? Or could this be another employee who has insider information that a boss wouldn't? Or could this be an HR Representative?
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