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Telling tales: online comic and gripe story‐sharing by service workers about difficult customers
Author(s) -
Sayers Janet Grace,
Fachira Ira
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
new technology, work and employment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.889
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-005X
pISSN - 0268-1072
DOI - 10.1111/ntwe.12047
Subject(s) - comics , resistance (ecology) , sociology , entertainment , generative grammar , social media , public relations , identity (music) , service (business) , social work , media studies , psychology , social psychology , advertising , aesthetics , visual arts , business , political science , marketing , computer science , art , world wide web , ecology , artificial intelligence , biology , law
The article extends previous research on the storying practices of service workers, workplace humour as resistance, and workers’ autonomous use of social media. Discussion strings from two hairstylist forum storylines, exemplifying comic and tragic story‐sharing about difficult customers, were analysed using Gabriel's notion of story‐work. Processes of coping, entertainment, identity‐construction and learning are clearly evident in the discussion strings and social media is confirmed as a ‘new’ terrain for the enactment of employee agency. Findings emphasize that service workers are engaged in contradictory and ambiguous relations of resistance and accommodation as they learn how to deal with difficult customers. The article's contribution is to show how service workers share their fears and anxieties about difficult customers through storying and humour in generative dialogical poietic processes in social media. Further research is suggested.