SOCIOL 2V06 : 2V06 Tuesday October 9th Lecture.docx
9 Apr 2013
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A life insurance subsidiary of a diversified financial conglomerate selling various types of insurance. Customers generally are working class people living in small towns & rural areas. Low-paying ( 000 per year), low status job. Door-to-door sales, with agents on the road 40% of the time and covering 2 000 miles each week. Consequence: high turnover of inexperienced, male, lower-class agents. Two keys: first, since sales agents cannot be supervised directly, job routines cannot be enforced directly. Second, agents encounter resistant clients (unpredictable task specifications). So unlike mcdonald s, combined insurance uses flexible routinization (to handle resistant clients) and applies it to workers selves on and off the job (to handle indirect supervision). To win over resistant customers, combined requires detailed memorization, recitation of scripts, and more, while allowing for some flexibility. Such scripting reduces agent skill and decision-making while enhancing agents, power over customers.
