Post # 7: Annotated bibliography for essay # 3

The question of my research is " What is the impact of switching from physical labor to service labor on workers in the United States ?"

The documents I'll be using are the following:

2 course texts:

Terkel,Studs."Who Built the Pyramids?" Working (1972),page xxxi-xxxviii.

This article is an interview with a worker in a Steel Mill, Mike Lefevre who does strict physical work. Mike explains what are the conditions in which he works, with whom and how he feels about what he does as work. Most importantly, he explains how the stress of his job affect his personal life, his vision of the future for his children, and how he releases that stress.

I think this interview can help me show what is the effect of long term physical labor on workers mentally.

Hochschild, Arlie. "Exploring The Managed Heart" The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. California:University of California Press,(1983). Page 3-9.

This is a book in which Hochschild explains and compare the concepts of job accomplishment, and how to measure it. She uses interview with several front line agents to have their testimonies about how they perform their jobs and what are the emotions involved in their work. She explains how she came up with the notion of "emotional labor" and how she defines it.

This part of her book can help me I think, define, and explain the historic of the term "emotional labor" in my research.

2 outside sources:

Williams Walsh, Mary. " When May I Help You Is a Labor Issue." New York Times August 12 2000,Pg. C1,14. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 18 May 2010.

In this article, Walsh addresses the issues costumer service agents face while performing their job. The costumer service representatives of Verizon express to her how they are listened to while working by their supervisors, and that they have to follow the scripts designed by the company while talking to costumers on the phone, the big work load they have to face on a daily basis.

This article can help me show the stress costumer service representative endure and what are the consequences of that stress on their physical and emotional being over a long term.

Burling, Stacey. "Faking Happiness Detrimental to Workers." Contra Costa Times December 15 2005, Pg. F4. LexisNexis Academic Web 20 May 2010.

This article is about a recent study conducted in a call center of a telecommunications company by the University of Pennsylvania. It studied what it takes to workers to manage their feelings while on the phone no matter how rude the caller is; what is the impact of the type of pressure they endure on their job performance, and their mood in general. Also it has some examples of this particular company shows it employees how to change their emotions; how the happiest employees were the one that knew that, their managers are more understanding when it comes to their handling of difficult costumers.

The particularity of this study is that it shows the relationship between doing the job "by the book" and the employees emotional being. Bottom line of the study is that people who love this job are better at doing it.