Page 156 - The Disneyization of Society

CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE

behaviour of cast members. This means that theme park employees are being
watched to ensure that they follow rules and procedures properly and that they
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exhibit emotional labour in the expected way and to the correct degree. Any
departures from appearance norms are also checked. Supervisors may be in uni-
46
form or dressed as tourists. In addition, Disney uses ‘shoppers’, that is, employees
who are dressed as tourists and interact with cast members in order to provoke
them into a non-Disney response and then report (i.e. ‘shop’) them. One Disney
cast member is quoted by Kuenz as follows:

I was shopped one day. She gave me a good report because I’m always friendly to people. I had no
idea who she was and still don’t know. They come in. They buy two or three things, Disney gives
them the money. 47

The effect of such a form of surveillance, which is clearly known about among
Disney staff, is that all visitors become potential ‘shoppers’. Cast members must
be on their toes, since the irritating guest who is being difficult in a restaurant at
its busiest time could be trying to provoke them into an inappropriate response.
The implications for failing to live up to Disney standards of service delivery are
clear. According to the Disney Institute: ‘Fulfilling the performance guidelines is
a condition of employment at Walt Disney World. Cast members who do not use
them are subject to progressive disciplinary actions.’ 48

Surveillance of frontline service workers
Frontline service workers generally are frequently subject to surveillance to ensure
that service norms are followed. There are four major forms of surveillance. First,
and most obviously, managers and supervisors check on the behaviour of service
workers. For example, the behaviour of supermarket checkout staff is often moni-
tored. Ogbonna and Wilkinson found that the staff were regularly monitored by
checkout supervisors. A supervisor at one British supermarket company told the
researchers: ‘We are able to detect when a checkout operator is not smiling or
even when she is putting on a false smile … we call her into a room and have a
chat with her.’ 49
A second form of surveillance is by mystery shoppers, that is, ‘customers’ who
are hired by the company to check on the behaviour of its staff. They are like the
Disney ‘shoppers’ referred to in the previous section. At the Californian super-
market chain studied by Tolich, ‘company spotters’ were employed to check on
how far the checkout staff conformed to a list of required features of the transac-
tion, including appearance and ‘a pleasant greeting’ and ‘a pleasant and sincere
thank you’. 50 Similarly, in the British context, according to Ogbonna and
Wilkinson: ‘Random visits by bogus shoppers and head office managements rein-
force the threat of sanctions for undesirable behaviour or expressing one’s true
feelings to difficult customers’. 51 In April and May 2003, the British supermarket
chain, Sainsbury’s, printed the following message on one side of its plastic bags: