Counter emotions : emotional labour in the lived life of the shop assistant

Abstract

This thesis explores the lived experiences of shop assistants in clothing stores and the techniques they deploy when serving customers, especially when confronted by difficult and/or bullying customers. My central objective has been to investigate the arguments made in two strands of emotional labour research: that enjoyment experienced in workers from interaction with customers nullifies any emotional labour a worker might experience, and that emotional labour/occupational stress results from a worker's lack of autonomy during the service encounter. Attention is paid to the impact of an enforced toleration of bullying by customers on the professional and broader lives of these shop assistants. The research reworks insights from Arlie Hochschild's (1983) study on emotional labour. Hochschild's contention that emotional labour on the part of frontline service staff is implicitly demanded but otherwise unrewarded by employers and customers alike is confirmed. More broadly, this thesis examines the formal recognition of occupational stress and workplace bullying in the recent amendments to the New Zealand Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 (HSEA 1992). These amendments have made it possible to bring emotional labour issues into this nation's research and debates on occupational health and safety and understandings of workplace stress. My research reinforces the findings of recent studies in the United Kingdom which found that many employers of front line service workers do not provide a safe working environment for their employees. The research used qualitative methods of data gathering and analysis, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with nineteen shop assistants employed in a variety of Auckland clothing stores. This primary data was integrated with analysis of the academic literature on emotional labour, the service encounter, department stores, occupational health and safety, emotional abuse and workplace bullying. An autobiographical element also informs the research insofar as the author worked as a fulltime shop assistant/customer service worker for a period of sixteen years.