Work and the Self: How The Constructed Self is Maintained

Inequality and Self: Understanding Social Stratification

What are the real life implications for the everyday functioning and psychology of social actors; how do people manage affronts, insults and other situations as they go about their everyday routine? (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  This is a primary concern that can be looked at through a symbolic interaction lens.  According to the symbolic interaction perspective, people act based on symbolic meanings they find within any given situation; we interact with the symbols and form relationships around them.  The goals of interactions with one another are to create a shared meaning (Vannini, 2005).  It is said that, “the way people seek and give attention and the amount they are likely to receive is significantly shaped by their social roles and their status within the major institutional hierarchies” (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  Power and inequality are manifested in everyday lives and the self-concept can be seen as an internal measure that reflects external social structure and institutionalized hierarchies.  Anderson and Snow argue that the relationship between the self-concept, identity and others is a much more complicated relationship than earlier assumed and they cite Goffman’s concept of “identity work” which may include forms of role distancing, role embracement and storytelling with the ulterior motive to confirm a positive self-identity (2001).  The lived experience and agency of actors is what constructs reality, and everyone shapes their own reality uniquely, which is what can make symbolic interaction exceedingly complex and intriguing.

Methods and Data: Methods Employed

Qualitative casual interviews with employees at Food Idol created the data for this study.  The interviews initially took place within a two week time span, but as I am too an employee at Food Idol I added more interview data, for a total of four weeks of sporadic interview research in order to expand my study and talk to as many employees as possible.  All but one of the interviews were conducted at Food Idol.  The one that was not conducted at Food Idol was done in my car as I drove a co-researcher home after a lunch shift.

         Accessing the participants included in my study was relatively easy as they the participants are also all co-workers of mine.  All participants involved in the study were absolutely guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity, had the right to choose the extent which they wanted to contribute, had the right to refuse to answer any particular question, and were able withdraw from the study at any point.  The participants were aware of the nature of the study and were able to ask questions at any time.

        The interview process was unstructured non-standardized (Denzin, 1989) in which there was a causal setting.  The method used was a conversational style and the participants did most of the talking with myself acting as a listener for the majority of the time.

        Not all employees at Food Idol were available to contribute to the study; there were two employees on holiday, and there were other employees who I simply never saw and did not take outside steps to contact in order to participate in the study.  The participants who are included in the study are the co-workers I had shifts with during the time-span that I conducted interview process in.  In total I conducted fourteen interviews, lasting from three minutes to twenty minutes in length.  The lengths were varied due to the level of interest and seriousness of the responses.  All participants included in the study are either full-time employees or full-time students (further referred to as full-time employees or part-time employees respectively).  Out of the fourteen interviews that were conducted the participants consisted eight that were not in school and have not been in school since high school.  Six of the eight are female, and two are male.  The other six participants consisted of part-time employees currently enrolled in post-secondary education at either a College or University campus in Victoria, BC.  Out of the six part-time employees, five are female, and one is male.  

The Difficulties of Data Collection:  Keeping Focus on The Topic

        During the interview process I encountered few difficulties.  All interviews were conducted face-face, in groups of myself and either one or two participants.  There was nothing coercive, or hidden from the participants as they were aware of the nature of the study and were able to ask questions or ask for clarification about the topic to ensure that their response would be accurate.

        However, one problem that I encountered during the interview process was that in some instances the tension between employees rose due to the nature of opinions expressed.  An example would be when those in school said they would never want to be a “lifer” in the business while some of the full-time employees had expressed that they wanted to advance themselves and make a career out of their current position.  However, the tension was fused as I directed the conversation in another path, as I did not want my study to construct any further tension between employees.  

        Another testing complication that arose was the seriousness and depth of answers and the variation between those who seemed to want to express a clear a opinion and displayed a stronger degree of seriousness when voicing responses and those who accepted to be part of the study but lost interest more easily and often tried to change the subject towards something completely off topic.  For example, I tried to interview Jessica, a full-time female employee twice, both times she lost interest quickly and wanted to talk about going to Vancouver to go shopping, or how her boyfriend had taken her out for dinner the night before.  In both the mentioned instances it was hard to restore focus on the topic and the interviews ended, after the second interview with Jessica I decided that although she had said she wanted to be included in the study she did not put forth any relevant information so she was omitted as one of the fourteen participants.  In all of the other interviews I conducted if the focus of the interview became sidetracked I was able to re-direct it back to the topic or I was able to manage to relate what was said in a new way I hadn’t thought of to my study.  Thus, the more I responses I came across the more my research expanded beyond my original topic of choice.

The Different Status’s of Sub-Cultures: Employees Divided

As Hughes (1997) suggests within professions that require speed, energy, and to some extent physique, there are limits to how long one can stay in that particular business.  This is very true of the restaurant serving industry.  Servers only make minimum wage, it is their tips that make their job worthwhile.  In order to make decent money in tips, the server must be able to take on many tables at once and remain constantly busy, often this requires speed walking, constantly being aware of your surroundings, checking up on tables to see how guests are doing and if they are enjoying themselves and perhaps most importantly concealing any negative thoughts you may be having with a smile.  However, there is more to being successful server and that depends on the working relationship that the server has with the kitchen staff and the bartender.  There is a consensus among the part-time employees that because the full-time employees know all the staff better because they see them so much more that they get the quickest service and are treated with more respect.  Many of the part-time employees also felt out of the loop with the going-ons of the restaurant and could be referred to as what Hughes may call an “out-group.”  This may also be due to the fact that all of the part-time employees identified themselves as students, not servers, and the full-time employees identified primarily with being full-time servers.  At Food Idol it is more prestigious to be a full-time worker and know every item on the menu, and know all the ingredients in drinks off by heart, than be a part-time employee who always seems to have a question or who always seems to “need time off for exams.”  Not surprisingly, and in accordance with Hughes (1997) it is the “in-group” of employees at Food Idol who move-up in the company, interestingly none of the current management at Food Idol has a diploma or degree.  They all began as dishwashers, hostesses, servers, and then day, night, weekend managers, and one general manager.  One of the male full-time employees, Anthony, remarked in an interview,

“What’s the job to you if you’re preparing for your future and it’s not in this industry?  People in school don’t care as much about working here.  They always want to leave early to study and barely ever pick up shifts because of exams.”  

Personally what Anthony said is absolutely true for me.  Working at Food Idol is not what I want to do forever, and I barely ever can do more than two or three shifts a week because I always have to do some reading, write a paper, or study for an exam.  

The Self: How Employees Maintain a Positive Self 

I asked the participants in the study what they thought their customers thought of them and this is what some of them had to say about how they feel they are portrayed:

        “When I am at work none of my tables know I am working on my major in political science, and sometimes it feels like they think they are better than you because you are just a server.”

        “I don’t know, most the time people seem nice, but I guess sometimes it seems like they treat me like I am lower than them.”

“Carrie sells more than food, she is always flirting with customers” someone else adds “yeah but she always sells the most!” 

These excerpts are typical of most of the responses that I received from my participants.  It seems the audience servers face claim a higher worth than the server and more often than not are able to implicitly insinuate that they are “better” or “more important.”  Due to the limitations of this study I cannot go into the reasons “why” customers act this way and I am sure that there are multiple reasons, but I can interpret the reactions of the servers.  Being a part-time employee I am too treated like I have innately less value than some of my customers, sometimes it bugs me but I get used to it.  I can think of one time I had a table and they were talking about the “Greatest Canadian Competition” on CBC, and I said that I thought that Dr. Banting, the Canadian founder of insulin should win.   And the two of them at the table just looked at me in shock as if they were surprised that I could say something other than, “ do you take cream and sugar and in your coffee?”  According to Hughes (1951) that would have been an example of how I felt I had to fight for my personal dignity, and I am not the only one who has felt that way.  All of the fourteen participants at one point have also felt like they wanted to stop being demeaned, this can be seen as a want for some kind of control over their environment (Hall, 1934).  Perhaps that is the reason why all the part-time employees and five of the eight full-time employees do not see a future for themselves within the industry.

        “When I am in school it is my priority.”

        “Once I get married I am quitting.”

        “I am getting my degree so I can get a real job.”

Role Comparison: How Employees Work On Constructing Positive Self-Identities

        It is clear that all of the participants included in the study wanted to portray themselves as having a positive self-identity; this is reflective of Goffman’s concept of “identity work” (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  What was surprising to me was that there seemed to be a tendency for the part-time employees to promote themselves by putting down the full-time employees.  There were a few different ways in how this was done, for example they would make comments like:

        “Even if I wasn’t in school I wouldn’t work here full-time… I would never work full time for $8 an hour.”

        “I am not going to be lifer here, as soon as I get my degree I am out of here.”

This appears to be role distancing (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  And in my opinion it is the comments like the above, although they may be the honest opinions of some part-time employees, that keep the part-time employees classified as part of the “out-group.”  

On the other hand the full-time employees embraced a positive self-identity by voicing comments like:

        “I walked out of here last night with $180 bucks.”

        “I had this one guy sitting alone at a table who stayed for hours… he left me a $50 tip on a $40 dollar tab.”

For the full-time employees instead of role distancing they embraced their roles and told stories in order to confirm a positive self-identity (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  The way that the part-time employees identify themselves as students and most of the full-time employees identify themselves as servers may also correlate with how the two groups work to maintain a positive self-identity.

Conclusion

        The workplace is a complex and intriguing stage where the self and identities are shaped around a constructed social status and prestige.  The sub-cultures of full-time and part-time workers can be aligned with in-group and out-group status respectively and is maintained by employees through self-identification with either group.  The in-group of full-time employees at Food Idol have a higher likelihood of moving up the social hierarchy within the company.  The out-group part-time employees all envision themselves moving on instead of moving up.  This is much reflected in the work by Hughes called “Careers.”

        Aside from the hierarchies that exist within Food Idol, hierarchies from outside Food Idol have their place.  It does not go unnoticed in this service industry that employees often feel looked down on by their customers.  Some employees find it frustrating and feel the need to dignify themselves or show what status and worth they have aside from their identity of “server.”  Given more time, I would choose to further my study and look at the interactions between employees and customers addressing why a power struggle exists and how these struggles could be perceived in a different way.  

        It is also clear from this study the employees included in this research all wanted to express themselves in a positive self-image.  The ways in which these positive images were displayed were somewhat surprising until I put them under the perspectives of role distancing and role embracing (Anderson and Snow, 2001).  Further, I included the primary ways that the two groups used self-identification (student or server) and in doing so I was able to make sense of how the two groups constructed such different positive identities.

        Overall, the research process became increasingly interesting with each interview conducted.  As mentioned if time had permitted there are aspects that I would have liked to have included in the research, and I invite any one to further with those aspects should they wish to do so.  However, upon reflection I realized, that those who I included in the study are those who I work with most, who I am friendly with, and know better than other co-workers.  This may have had an effect on the research process as it is possible that the responses given may have not been what they would have been if an outsider had been conducting the research.  

Acknowledgements

        I would like to use this space to thank the participants who made this research possible.  I would also like to thank Phillip Vannini, who without trying to sound corny he was able to spark a genuine interest in me for the research and writing of qualitative research methods.

References

Anderson Leon and Snow, David A.  (2001).  “Inequality and the Self: Exploring         Connections from an Interactionist Perspective.”  Symbolic Interaction, 24,         (4): 395-406.

Denzin, N.K. (1989) The Research Act.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

 

Hall, Richard H (1934).  The Sociology of Work.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine-                 Forge Press 73-76.

Hughes, Everett C.  (1997).  “Careers.”  Qualitative Sociology, 20 (3): 389-398.

Hughes, Everett C.  (1951).  “Work and The Self” in Social Psychology at the-                 Crossroads by John H. Rohrer and Muzafer Sherif (eds).  New York:                 Harper and Row Publishing Inc.  

Vannini, Phillip (2005).  Sociology 374: Qualitative Research Methods.   Class         Notes.

Endnotes

---