Work is a very subjective concept. People derive satisfaction from work in various ways which gives rise to discrepancies between expectations and reality. If we take the example of “The Devil wears Prada”, Andrea really wanted to work for magazines like Vanity Fair or any other New York based publication but certainly not a fashion magazine. Nevertheless, she got placed in the magazine ‘Runway’ as Miranda Priestley’s assistant- a job “million girls could kill for…” Even if she claimed to have an idea of fashion, her sense of dressing up did not validate her stance. Andrea considered fashion a shallow profession to be in but she knew that the prospects of meeting with a famous editor was high and took the job anyway.
On the first day of work, Andrea Sachs described her resume but Miranda had minimum interest in it but ended up appointing her. She found her ‘smart’ when compared to the girls she usually took in. Andrea had no idea what she was getting into, she had no clue about the magazine or Miranda, she expected it would be like any other clerical job at any other company like taking notes, arranging meetings, etc. As it turned out, she had to dress up in a stylish manner, be more efficient and hardworking than usual. Andrea had to abide by the whims and fancies of Miranda, run errands from booking a flight for her during a hurricane to arranging unpublished manuscripts of the new Harry Potter book for her daughters. She had to exert herself by waking up really early, get food and beverage for Miranda, walk her dog, deliver her dry cleaning and other official work like getting fashion attires and the ‘Book’, talking to designers on her behalf and more. Besides these, she had to deal with an extremely tough, sassy and punctual boss and colleagues who made life even more difficult for her.
Andrea was getting sucked more and more into the world of fashion, something that was not an option to begin with. In order to become successful, she had almost given up her personal life with her boyfriend Nate and got involved with an established writer and editor, Christian Thompson.
Amongst all this the protagonist learnt a lot. She had to take decisions for herself that costed the dreams of a fellow colleague, Emily. Her experience in ‘Runway’ only enriched her skills and made her realise what she really wanted from her career. She asserted that she was not like Miranda and could not be as heartless as she was when Miranda very ruthlessly gave away Nigel’s post to Jaqueline Follet to save her own post as the editor in chief of ‘Runway’. But Miranda made her realise how she had already turned into an undesirable expectation of herself by choosing her benefit over her colleague’s aspirations. Andrea was trying to deny her will by saying that she had no other choice, however, she was unaware of the fact that no matter what, one always has a choice to pick.
Therefore, Andrea chose to walk away from the fantasy world of glamour and shimmer and finally could resort to her dreams. Now she could look for a job that would really fulfil her expectations. Miranda did recommend Andrea for her dream job at a New York publication where she finally got placed. She knew what Miranda had taught her was the reality of the world, everyone tries to cross and forego one another and she was now ready to deal with it.
The expectation and reality of Andrea’s job role were poles apart but she did gain knowledge and experience and learnt from her mistakes. She acquired that no job was trivial enough to be mistreated as every occupation needs a certain level of enthusiasm and commitment. One needs to take things as it comes to them, the crux of the matter is being whole-heartedly participative and cooperative in the work space and develop the existing skill set.
If I have to give my experience of a workplace expectation gone wrong, I would like to give an example of a PR job that I had taken up back in my hometown. The internship in the graduating years are mostly unpaid and so was this one. In spite of that I was very eager to do my work there. I had a completely different (rather bookish) idea of the job description of a Public Relations executive. I knew that I had to increase the reach of the page in whichever way possible. Over time besides doing my prescribed work, I had to go around selling tickets for their event as well as collect sponsorships. I had not signed up for it but it turned out to be a good experience. There were many lessons I got to beginning from on field work to crowd management to guest handling.
To sum it all up, never mind the job description, there is something or the other to take away from every opportunity which furthermore helps us in the future. It helps us in dealing with numerous unforeseen situations and crises.
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