Characters: Public Identity Negotiation and Managerial Reaction

Abstract

The Wellbread salesmen are trapped in an organisational dilemma. Whilst they have no realistic alternative but to make money on the side, doing so is sometimes punishable by the very people (the management) who demand the practice in the first place. As I have just shown, there are also several minor organisational problems. The salesman has to walk a narrow tight-rope between customer trust and the continuity of sales; the visibility of fiddles and the continuity of sales; the profitability with the transferability of fiddles; and between the risks of various fiddles and their entrapment consequences. Obviously, some form of practical organisation is needed: technical competence in fiddling, stealing and dealing skills is not enough in itself. Sometimes salesmen solve the practical problems thrown up by these difficulties by simultaneously practising several ‘part-time’ crimes.