Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad
The author reconceptualizes the service triangle as a Simmelian triad and draws on 16 months of fieldwork to analyze restaurant servers’ experiences of income and interactional precarity. Precarious work frustrates servers. However, triadic dynamics position customer scapegoats as responsible for se...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Socius |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231204845 |
| _version_ | 1797299562701914112 |
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| author | Taylor Laemmli |
| author_facet | Taylor Laemmli |
| author_sort | Taylor Laemmli |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The author reconceptualizes the service triangle as a Simmelian triad and draws on 16 months of fieldwork to analyze restaurant servers’ experiences of income and interactional precarity. Precarious work frustrates servers. However, triadic dynamics position customer scapegoats as responsible for servers’ frustrations. Employers passively benefit from this dynamic, which continually minimizes opposition to the structure of employment. This is a new mechanism for the reproduction of precarious service work that can explain why service workers consent to exploitation. These findings apply to workplaces in which workers experience low levels of autonomy and encounter customers who are interactionally salient and can control workers’ behavior. In such workplaces, the triadic dynamics identified in this article could weaken the potential for worker-customer alliances and complicate the promise of anti-tipping campaigns. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:51:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c8af920698344d4bb5eb4c45faf57879 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2378-0231 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:51:47Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Socius |
| spelling | doaj.art-c8af920698344d4bb5eb4c45faf578792024-02-23T10:03:19ZengSAGE PublishingSocius2378-02312023-11-01910.1177/23780231231204845Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service TriadTaylor Laemmli0University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USAThe author reconceptualizes the service triangle as a Simmelian triad and draws on 16 months of fieldwork to analyze restaurant servers’ experiences of income and interactional precarity. Precarious work frustrates servers. However, triadic dynamics position customer scapegoats as responsible for servers’ frustrations. Employers passively benefit from this dynamic, which continually minimizes opposition to the structure of employment. This is a new mechanism for the reproduction of precarious service work that can explain why service workers consent to exploitation. These findings apply to workplaces in which workers experience low levels of autonomy and encounter customers who are interactionally salient and can control workers’ behavior. In such workplaces, the triadic dynamics identified in this article could weaken the potential for worker-customer alliances and complicate the promise of anti-tipping campaigns.https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231204845 |
| spellingShingle | Taylor Laemmli Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad Socius |
| title | Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad |
| title_full | Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad |
| title_fullStr | Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad |
| title_full_unstemmed | Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad |
| title_short | Workers and Their Foes: Customer Scapegoats in the Service Triad |
| title_sort | workers and their foes customer scapegoats in the service triad |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231204845 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT taylorlaemmli workersandtheirfoescustomerscapegoatsintheservicetriad |