'You Just Don't Know that You Like Gin': Classifying Consumers among New Elite Service Workers

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Consumer Studies Network

Abstract

In a postindustrial era of shifting stratification systems for cultural products (Johnston and Baumann 2010; Peterson 1992) and the expansion and segmentation of the service economy (Kalleberg 2011), some traditional occupations have been recoded from being low-status, “dirty” jobs to “cool” jobs that involve cultural taste-making. These workers, such as bartenders at high-end cocktail bars, barbers at upscale barbershops, and whole animal butcher shop butchers and counter workers, aim to inculcate a rarefied sense of taste and style for their customers and clients through interactive service. Based on six years of ethnographic research and interviews, in this paper I examine the important step in this performance of “service teaching” of placing consumers in a certain frame. They base these frames on their initial interactions with them and the frame they choose influences how their exchange will proceed. And workers can switch frames during the course of an interaction. Frames that I have identified include “experienced consumers,” “curious consumers,” and “lost consumers.” Much of the research on consumers examines how consumer identity shapes consumption experiences. I argue that we must consider the attitudes and behaviors of workers towards consumers to get a more complete picture of consumption experience.

Author

• Richard E. Ocejo, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY