Description
One of the few experiences most people in the United States have in common is shopping in a specialty retail store. Most retailers focus on interacting with, influencing, and subconsciously manipulating customers into making a purchase. Recently, brick-and-mortar retailers have had declining sales and some have closed stores or gone out of business altogether due to the increasing popularity of online shopping. Because stores have to compete with e-retailers, they are becoming even more focused on delivering the perfect “customer experience.” In trying to service customers and make sales, employees are faced with having to balance the demands and restrictions of both their employer and their customers. Workers are using emotional labor to construct performances to meet the expectations of their company and consumers. Unfortunately, participating in emotional labor emotionally exhausts employees and results in the inability for them to fully satisfy either party. This study uses theories of emotional labor and impression management to better understand common experiences and the communicative realities of retail work. Using data gathered from 16 participants, who have all worked in specialty retail, this research illustrates the double-bind between retail companies and consumers that strains and drains retail workers. Additionally, the data reveals that as a result of this double bind, the workplace trajectories of employees change as they (1) transition from giving their all to giving up; (2) progress from being authentic to becoming fake; and (3) form relationships and unite with their fellow employees. Autoethnographic elements guide the emergent themes, further contextualizing the data. This study serves to reveal the way that communication and workplace performances both burden and benefit employees in a specialty retail environment. Keywords: retail, emotional labor, employee performances, role communication, communicative double-binds, dramaturgy, impression management
