Abstract:
"Dr. Jekeyll and Mr. Hyde" was a term used by an
informant, a grocery store cahsier, to assess accurately how
a cashier's attitudes, actions, and self-esteem change with
each customer. Every day a cashier will have to deal with
many customers. Each customer is categorized, defined, and
serviced differently; most importantly, each customer has a
different effect on the cashier's self-esteem. The research
explores the means by which service sector employees,
cashiers in a grocery store, maintain their self-esteem when
interacting with customers. As cashiers interact with
customers, they categorize them emically and redefine their
identity vis a vis each customer. The ethnographic
research was conducted at a mid-size chain grocery store, in
a college community, in the southeastern United States.