WHAT ARE AMONG THE DISTINCTIVE DEMANDS AND CHALLENGES, FOR WORKERS, IN HIGHLY ROUTINIZED JOBS SUCH AS FAST FOOD AND I

Project description
In this essay, we return to a theme that began our semester: the relationship between work and self, and how it is shaped by social (i.e., cultural, economic, and organizational) conditions. Robert Merton, Everett Hughes, Howard Becker and others address this dynamic. But, their writings from some decades ago did not (and could not have) addressed the rise of the service economy, nor the routinization of service occupations that Robin Leidner documents in “Fast Food, Fast Talk.”
In your essay, draw on Leidners book, as well as on the chapter dealing with “Goffmans Dramaturgical Approach” by Kivisto & Pittman (in the instructors folder) to work/employment. Address the following questions:
1. What are among the distinctive demands and challenges, for workers, in highly routinized jobs such as fast food and insurance sales? Also, how and why are these demands and pressures different, in the two major empirical cases that Leidner analyzes (McDonalds and Combined Insurance)?

2. What do you see as the distinctive contributions–as well as limitations–of Goffmans dramaturgical approach, for understanding how workers experience and manage such demands? (Feel free also to draw on your own work experiences.) Be as specific as possible, in