Browsing by Subject "facework"

This thesis examines what kinds of comments customer servants receive as well as discusses how they react to them. The comment types have been divided into positive, negative or uncomfortable ones and they are either work, persona or appearance-related. The focus in on the differences gender might cause. The theoretical approaches to this thesis are multifaceted: pivotal theories from the fields of sociology, linguistics and gender studies are used. Customer workers must balance emotional labor, performativity of gender and facework in their work life, and these phenomena shape their experiences as customer workers. The data for the study was collected by a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked questions about language use, workplace circumstances and policies and customer interaction. There were all in all 35 questions. Some were closed, some open and some multiple choice questions. The requirement for answering was to have worked in customer service. Most of the 458 respondents identified as women. The gathered data was analyzed mainly quantitatively. However, the open answers enabled the responses to be analyzed qualitatively as well, which gave more insights to the experiences of the customer workers. The results indicated that customer servants receive gendered comments and also respond to them according to gender norms. Female service workers receive more appearance-related comments than male service workers. The feminization of the customer service industry limits the ways to react, which results in submissive behavior. First and foremost, the customer worker needs to protect the customer’s face, because the customer has more power in the encounter. Besides gender, also the workplace affected the comments the workers receive. Workers in grocery stores receive more uncomfortable and negative comments than their colleagues in other workplaces. The workplace affects the way the workers react to the comments, too. However, the reasons for these differences between workplaces need further research. While gender and workplace have effects on the comments and the reactions, experience level impacts the feelings of the workers. The more experienced workers feel they are good at their jobs and they feel more respected by the customers than their less experienced colleagues.