Not Even a Day in the Life

Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1997

Not Even a Day in the Life

Candace West

If I squint, I can make out the red glow on my alarm clock: 7:20 a.m.Mentally subtracting the extra 20 minutes this clock runs fast, I realize it'sactually only 7:00. For a moment, I wonder how many other people arecompulsive enough to set their clocks 20 minutes ahead (and their bath-room scales, 5 pounds heavy) lest they find themselves running late (orover). Then, I confront the inevitable question: is this a school day or not?If it's a school day, there's not a minute to spare: I'll need to grab somecoffee, throw on some shorts and jump on my stationary bicycle. Cyclingfor 15 miles while watching CNN news and bolting coffee, I'll have justenough time to wake up before running the dogs and getting things to-gether for school. But if it's not a school day, life can proceed at a moreleisurely pace: I can dispense with the bike until Monday, I can drink coffeerather than bolt it, and I can read the news instead of watching it.

Of course, school days and non-school days don't mean the same thingas they did when I was a student. Whether I have to teach today or not,there are still those 35 letters of recommendation to be written, those 7manuscripts to be reviewed, and that article with a rapidly approachingdeadline. Whether it's Tuesday or Sunday, I can't forget the tasks that re-main once class is over and committee meetings are done with. As EviatarZerubavel (1979) has argued, professional commitments don't disappear atspecified hours on the clock or on designated days of the week. The hall-mark of some professions (e.g., physicians) in comparison to others (e g.,nurses) is that their practitioners are, at least in theory, "on call" aroundthe clock. Zerubavel studied a hospital to reach that conclusion, but heclearly knew a thing or two about the structure of academic life.

On reaching the happy realization that it's Saturday, I (temporarily)banish Zerubavel from my mind, fill a travel mug with coffee, put the two

Direct correspondence to Candace West, Department of Sociology, University of California,Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 96064; e-mail: [email protected].

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© 1997 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

dogs on leashes and head for the park. The dogs are obviously delighted,suffering from no confusion about school days, professional commitments,or days of the week. We stroll rather than run, allowing them plenty oftime to sniff things and me plenty of time to enjoy my coffee. When weget to the park, I note further signs of middle-class "Saturday-ness": fortyand fifty-year-old basketball players, weekend fathers with toddlers, andover a dozen dogs with owners, rather than the usual weekday group offour or five. Here are Bella (a Labrador), Boris and Brandy (two Samo-yeds), China and Max (two Standard Poodles), Lily (a Dalmatian), Paco(a Brittany Spaniel), both Sadies (an English Bulldog and a Heinz 57 Va-riety), Shadow (a Border Collie), Sammy (a Rottweiler), Shiloh (a GermanShepherd)—and, of course, Mija and Feliz (my Afghan Hound and Collie).

As I reach the dog area (so designated by signs admonishing ownersto pick up after their pets), I unleash my two and see a man standing apartfrom the others with what looks like a Labrador-Shepherd mix. "Wouldshe like to play?" I ask, noticing that the man is intently watching the otherdogs run. "She's too old" he replies (as if dogs' sociability had an expirationdate). 'Are you sure?" I ask, then adding: "My Afghan-Who-Died lived tobe fourteen years old and he loved playing with the other dogs right upuntil the end." "Not this one," he answers, making no move to unleash hisnot-so-old-looking dog. "Well, if you change your mind, the others are veryfriendly," I say, turning to join the rest of the owners up by the path.

"He's a strange one" says Anne, reaching into her pocket for the dogbiscuits that Mija and Feliz are already nosing around for. "Look at that—he's wearing a velour running suit and gold chains to walk that dog!" (Therest of us are dressed in our rattiest jeans or sweats, to protect our RealClothes from paws, claws and mud). I nod, saying, "That's not all. Heclaims his dog is 'too old' to play." Several of the owners shake their headsat the same time, thinking, perhaps, of the geriatric canines we haveknown—dogs whose sole reason for going on seemed to be their daily rompwith other dogs.

After twenty minutes or so of watching our dogs at play, the strangeman approaches, his Labrador-Shepherd still on a leash. The other dogsare busy chasing one another across the grass, so they don't notice thisnew arrival. As the man comes abreast of us, he asks, "You folks live aroundhere?" This makes me a little nervous: none of us has ever asked anotherowner for such personal information on first making their acquaintance.In fact, we who are "regulars" got to know all our dogs' names very quickly,but we didn't learn one another's names until we'd been coming to thepark for several months (and then, the reason we came to exchange nameswas a petition to have the City Council formally approve a dog area inthis park). Despite the man's intrusive question, several owners reply "Yes"

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and nod politely, some pointing vaguely to streets beyond the park. "Anddo you come here often?" the man continues, setting off alarm bells in myhead. Again, several people respond affirmatively, pointing out how wellthe dogs get along. "My name's Paul" says the man—eliciting "I'm Pete"and "Jason" from two of the men but nothing from any of the women,including me. 'And I'm an Animal Control Officer" Paul adds, pulling anofficial-looking badge and identification card out of his pocket.

Furious at my Saturday slowness, I think immediately of "Dogs andTheir People" (Robins, Sanders & Cahill 1991). My students love this ar-ticle, not only for its focus on an everyday feature of their own lives (pet-facilitated interaction in a public place), but also for its illumination ofErving Goffman's (1963,83-84) concept of civil inattention, that is, sufficientattention "to demonstrate that one appreciates that the other[s are] pre-sent" but not enough to suggest that they "constitute [targets] of specialcuriosity or design." Robins et al. (1991) found that, in the park they stud-ied, dogs served as warrants for breaching civil inattention among owners,but only for very limited conversations: on encountering strangers withdogs, it was appropriate to ask them for "personal" information about theirdogs (e.g., their dog's name, age, breed or habits); it was not appropriateto ask them comparable information about themselves. The exchange ofpeople-personal information had to wait until newcomers became regulars,in other words, not strangers any longer. This, of course, was the basis formy nervousness about Paul-the-Animal-Control-Officer: he had been press-ing us for information he had no business asking, accompanied by a dogor not. Then I remember Carol Brooks Gardner (1995, 93), who charac-terizes persons accompanied by dogs as "open people" (i.e., people whomay be "approached a will with no pretense of stranger etiquette"). Gard-ner is the one who developed the idea of "access information" that is, in-formation "that would lead to the discovery of an individual's immediateor ultimate destination or a place where the individual can later reliablybe found" (1995, 122). Consistent with Gardner's view—that breaches ofthe rule concerning civil inattention can lead to leaks of access informa-tion—Paul is now checking each of our dog's collars for current tags, andtaking addresses for those of us (including me) who have failed to registerour dogs.

I listen to him announce that I'm in for $36.00 in dog registration feesand an additional $10.00 penalty for failing to register before now. TheAfghan will cost twice as much to register, he says, because she hasn't beenspayed. What's more, I'll need a certificate from a vet confirming that Iam sequestering her properly when she comes into heat and that I am notinvolved in any unlicensed breeding. With the clarity of vision that comesfrom hindsight, I see that I am only making sense of this situation and

Not Even a Day in the Life 449

invoking the rule about civil inattention now that it has been violated (towhich Harold Garfinkel [1967] would doubtless reply, "But of course." Ifnorms really regulated behavior, I should have been out of there as soonas this stranger asked us our names).

Returning home, I see that the dogs are in no way chastened by theirnewly declared status as outlaws. They line up in perfect "sit" position fortreats and look expectantly at the kibble container, figuring that breakfastcomes next. I respond by filling both bowls with kibble, thinking all thewhile that living with dogs is much like living with Dustin Hoffman's char-acter in Rain Man (this character was autistic and perfectly amiable—solong as his days proceeded in orderly fashion. Lunch on Friday had to con-sist of exactly eight fish sticks at precisely twelve thirty).

The phone rings, disrupting my train of thought. My first reaction isto ignore it—it's Saturday, after all. After obediently answering ringingphones all week, I'm ready for a break. As it rings again, I remember thatweekend calls are often from friends and family, and I pick up the receiver."Hello?" I say, cradling it on my shoulder while pouring more coffee intomy travel mug. "Mrs. West?" says the voice at the other end of the line.Instantly, I am on guard. Although this two-turn exchange has so far dis-played all the prototypical features of a phone call's conversational open-ing—for example, the answerer spoke first, the caller tried to displayrecognition of the answerer's voice (Schegloff 1968, 1979)—I know thatsomething is very wrong. For all that the caller dispensed with "Hello" andmoved to an attempted identification of my voice, "Mrs. West" is not myname (and wouldn't be, even if I were married). Remembering a sociolin-guist's advice from years ago (Sharon Veach, personal communication), Ireply "I'm sorry, she's not here right now. Can I take a message?" "No,"says the caller, "Just tell her MCI called and we'll call back later." Hangingup the phone, I note, "That kind of 'non-message' is like the cases MannySchegloff (1980) talks about in 'Preliminaries to Preliminaries'" (e.g., Ques-tioner "Can I ask you a question?" Answerer: "You already have.")

Elated to have out-smarted an MCI sales person (especially after hav-ing been duped by an animal control officer), I grab my car keys and setout to do a few Saturday morning errands. The first one takes me down-town, which is already looking awake and alive. As I drive down the mainstreet, I see several shabbily-dressed people with backpacks and bed rolls,some gesturing and reaching out to the pedestrians who walk by. Stoppingat a stop sign, I see holiday shoppers averting their eyes and/or crossingthe street to avoid contact with these folks. I think of my work with CelinePascale (Pascale & West, forthcoming), showing how civic leaders in SantaCruz justify ordinances and policies that exclude people who are homelessfrom public places and hence, from public purview. I know that the people

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I see on this street represent but a few of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000people who are homeless in this community. As the holiday shopping sea-son builds to a fevered pitch, they are becoming less and less visible to thepublic eye.

After parking the car, I walk toward the book store, window shoppingas I move along. I notice a number of display windows that say "Feliz Navi-dad" as well as "Merry Christmas" (though none says "Feliz Hanukkah").Some display what look like African American angels along with whiteones, although both have decidedly European features. One window stopsme dead in my tracks: a carefully arranged pot pourri of artistic objectsfrom very different parts of the world. Masks from Bali form the backdropfor man-with-burro figurines from Mexico, with Chinese slippers on oneside and African spear-holding statues on the other. The whole display isframed in shiny gold tinsel, with red and green glass balls hanging fromribbons up above. I shake my head despairingly, recalling my attempts toexplain to students that there is no such thing as Ethnic with a big E: ifthey mean Thai food, they should write "Thai food"; if they mean Chinesefood, that's what they should write (I also point out that they don't use"Ethnic" when they mean French food, and this finally gets through to theslower ones). This window, by contrast, lumps Balinese, Mexican, Chineseand African objects all together—as if they came from a single culture orwere somehow indistinguishable from one another. It brings to mind Mari-anna Torgovnick's (1990, 75-76) description of turn-of-the century Westernmuseum exhibits, which displayed "primitive" objects—especially Africanones—all in a mixed-up heap (as if to suggest "that African life was messy,chaotic [and] in need of Western order" [p. 76]).

Remembering that I haven't got all day to spend window shopping, Ileave the window display and move on to the book store. I join the queueof people at the book store's counter, waiting to pick up my special order.When my turn comes, I look down at my planner to verify the title of thebook I ordered, so I'm not looking when the clerk says "Hey, Dr. West!"Glancing up, I recognize a former student who took my methods class lastyear. "I was in Soc 103" says he, none too sure that I will know him. "Anddid you pass?" I ask teasingly, knowing full well that he did. It occurs tome that, for a professor, running into students everywhere you go is oneof the advantages of living in a small town: for example, you never havetrouble getting your checks cashed. Then I recall that, for a professor, run-ning into students is also one of the disadvantages of living in a small town:for example, you're never assured of anonymity. There was that time I tooka prospective colleague and his wife out to dinner, in an attempt to showthem the joys of living in Santa Cruz. Since they were from Australia, Iwanted to pick a restaurant that showed some cosmopolitan sophistication;


however, since they weren't keen on spicy food, our best restaurants (In-dian, Mexican, and Szechwan) wouldn't do. I settled on an Italian restau-rant, which, although no competition for Italian restaurants in New York,served reasonably decent food. The problem was, the night we were there,it was staffed exclusively by university students. The wine steward soughtmy advice on his senior thesis while simultaneously crumbling the cork inour wine bottle to pieces and confessing that he had never used a "pro-fessional wine opener" before. The waitress polled each of us at the tableon the question of whether she should change her major from psychologyto sociology. To top things off, when the check and my credit card disap-peared to the cash register in the back of the restaurant, we heard a de-lighted cry: "Candace West? That's my teacher!" The cook (my student)came out to greet us, quite unaware of my embarrassment at how provincialSanta Cruz must have seemed to Australian sensibilities. In the book store,though, I am pleased by the provincialism, which gets me in and out inrecord time.

My next stop is a bagel shop, which is doing a very brisk business.Serving "New York style" bagels like its parent shop in Berkeley, this es-tablishment stimulated a lot of controversy when it first opened here. Manypeople feared that the advent of "bagel chains" would, like the advent ofother chain stores, lead to the demise of the independent small businessesin Santa Cruz. Hence, many (like me) are scrupulous in alternating ourpatronage between chain shops and independent shops—our palates con-ditioned as much by guilt as by taste. Standing in line, I notice a supremetest of civil inattention just outside the window of the shop: a man is walk-ing down the street with black grease paint on his face, a hat with Vikinghorns on his head and a huge spear, which he is carrying upright in hisfist. His appearance is otherwise unremarkable: jeans, running shoes, asweat shirt and a flack jacket look pretty much like what everyone else iswearing this Saturday morning. As he moves toward other pedestrians, theydo their best to seem urbane: catching sight of him from about eight feetaway and averting their eyes as they near him—but whipping their headsaround to stare at him, just after he passes by. I laugh, recalling the vampireI met on the street one Halloween morning, just after \ moved to SantaCruz.

My final destination today is the cigarette shop—now, the only storein town that allows smoking on its premises. Arriving at the doorway ofthis shop, I am aware of other pedestrians who studiously avert their eyesfrom me as I enter. Buying cigarettes these days feels like buying tamponsdid when I was thirteen—making an acutely stigmatizing purchase that youhope nobody notices. Moreover, things have gotten even worse than theywere when Joseph Schneider (1984) documented them: not only do non-

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smokers look away from smokers as the latter enter this shop but smokersthemselves avoid looking at one another as they pull their cartons fromthe shelves. Skulking out with my plain unmarked bag, I console myselfwith thoughts of Charles Edgley and Dennis Brissett's "Health Nazis andthe Cult of the Perfect Body" (1990).

I drive home with my mental calculator running, itemizing Things I'veGot To Do Today. My first priority has got to be e-mail, I realize, since Ihaven't touched it in 48 hours. Although I appreciate its advantages, I hatee-mail for making me ever-accessible. The article comes next, I figure: Ican work on that while my brain is still fresh and switch to the letters ofrecommendation when I start getting tired. There aren't that many letterswith deadlines this week—once 1 finish them, I can review at least one ofthose journal manuscripts. Realizing that this set of priorities will leavesome hapless author with a very frazzled referee, I promise myself that I'lldouble-check any review I write before sending it off on Monday morning.

The screen of my computer brightens as icons begin to appear. I looklongingly at the file with my emergent article in it, then dutifully click onmy e-mail program. I have 44 messages, I learn with dismay (knowing thatthis will kill the better part of two hours). I list all 44, resolving to be brief,to answer only those that must be answered by Monday morning and tosave the others for the week to come. The first one to appear, however,is a message from an irate student. Although he is enjoying my methodsclass very much, he says, he is upset at my remark last Thursday that "evenHitler was kind to his dog." He is Jewish, he tells me, and several of hisrelatives died in the Holocaust. He says he believes Hitler was a monster,therefore, he finds my comment very distressing. I think back to the contextin which I made this remark: well after our discussion of ethics and politicsin social research (including Jack Galliher's "Social Scientists' Ethical Re-sponsibilities to Subordinates" [1980]) and Barrie Thome's " 'You StillTakin' Notes?" [1980]) and well into our discussion of field research itself.What I had been trying to convey in class was the necessity of capturingthe whole of an informant's world view—however complicated it mightbe—in one's field notes and analysis; but what he'd gotten out of my re-marks was my apparent appreciation of Adolph Hitler. I sit for severalminutes, thinking of how to best explain myself. "Dear Keith," I finallywrite.1

I'm very sorry to have caused you such distress—I certainly didn't mean to. In fact,I chose Hitler for my example precisely because of his infamy, and the nearlyuniversal loathing people feel for him.But the job of researchers who conduct unstructured interviews is to capture thepoint of view of those they are studying. This means including what makes senseto the people they are studying—and why it makes sense to them—regardless ofhow repugnant it might seem to the rest of us. Your reaction to my comment


reminds me of my own reaction a few years ago, when I was asked to review amanuscript about pedophilia by an author who was obviously a pedophile. I actuallycringed as I read the first page of this manuscript, thinking, "What is sociologycoming to?" I realized, however, that if we really want to eliminate pedophilia,we're not going to accomplish it by dismissing those who practice it as "monsters"or somehow inhuman (remember Bosmajian [1974]?). Rather, we're going toaccomplish it by understanding what things look like from their point of view.Candace

As I sign off, I make a mental note to look for Keith in class on Tuesdayand make sure that I've resolved this misunderstanding. He's a good stu-dent, and this is the second course he's taken with me; if there weren't230 other students in the room, I suspect he'd have posed his question inclass on Thursday.

The next message on my screen is more disconcerting still. It's froma senior administrator in my department, concerned about the problem of"gender balance" on our Departmental Policy Committee.2 He notes thattwo of the five women faculty members in our department have taken un-expected leaves this term; as a consequence, there is no "gender repre-sentation" of women on the committee that makes executive decisions forour department. So, he is asking me and the other senior woman on dutythis term "if [either of us] would like to serve on this committee—in ad-dition to our already full loads of existing committee responsibilities.

In irritation, I think of Rosabeth Moss Kanter's (1977) contention thatit's women's status as tokens—not gender—that determines their experi-ences in the work place. If there were more women faculty members inour department than the existing five (out of sixteen), we wouldn't haveto do more service than men faculty (to ensure that "the woman's pointof view" is represented on every committee). But then I remember my ownwork with Sarah Fenstermaker and Don Zimmerman (e.g., Fenstermaker,West & Zimmerman 1991; West & Fenstermaker 1993; West & Fenster-maker 1995; West & Zimmerman 1987). And I remember the tacit assump-tions of work like Kanter's: that one's gender might be interactionally"overcome", that it might someday be no longer worthy of note; that itmight eventually no longer require accommodation (see Fenstermaker &West 1991, 292; Zimmer 1988). I realize that this view (like the view ofthe senior administrator who has sent me this message) still retains thenotion of gender as an individual characteristic—rather than "an achievedproperty of situated conduct" (West & Zimmerman 1987,126). In holdingmy colleague and me accountable as women for the "gender imbalance"of the Departmental Policy Committee, this administrator is not only en-gaged in the ongoing accomplishment of gender but also, the ongoing pro-duction of women's greater work loads.

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"Enough already," I tell myself in exasperation. I'll call my colleaguelater and see how she thinks we should handle this. Meanwhile, I'll let thee-mail just sit there and get to work on my article. I open the file full ofdrafty, unpolished prose, speculating that one reason this article is takingme longer to write than I'd like it to is its lack of a proper title. Thinkingof it vaguely as a piece on "Qualitative Sociology as Everyday Life" isn'tgetting me anywhere; what I need is to put my own stamp on it as theauthor. Let's see ..."Everyday life" ...no, "A Day in the Life" ...no, 'Almosta Day in the Life" ...maybe that's it ...

POSTSCRIPT

I have exercised some literary license here: the events I describe didnot all happen on the same day, although they did all happen (and some,very recently). Condensing them the way I have seemed the. most economi-cal means of fitting them into the space allotted.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their helpful comments on an earlier draft, I am grateful to SarahFenstermaker, Carol Brooks Gardner, Valerie Simmons, Frank Talamantesand, especially, Celine Pascale.

ENDNOTES

1. "Keith" is a pseudonym.2. "Departmental Policy Committee" is a pseudonym.

REFERENCES

Bosmajian, H. (1974). The Language of Oppression. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press.Edgley, C., & Brissett, D. (1990). Health nazis and the cult of the perfect body: Some

polemical observations. Symbolic Interaction, 13, 257-279.Fenstermaker, S., West, C., & Zimmerman, D.H. (1991). Gender inequality: New conceptual

terrain. In R. L. Blumberg (Ed.), Gender, family, and economy: The triple overlap (pp.289-307). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Galliher, J. (1980). Social scientists' ethical responsibilities to subordinates: Looking upmeekly. Social Problems, 27, 298-308.

Gardner.C. (1995). Passing by: Gender and public harassment. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.


Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in public places. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.Pascale, C M., & West C. (forthcoming). Social illusions: Responses to homelessness in Santa

Cruz, California 1989-1994. Perspectives on Social Problems.Robins, D. M., Sanders, C. R, & Cahill, S. (1991). Dogs and their people: Pet-facilitated

interaction in a public setting. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 20, 3.25.Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70,

1075-1095.Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Identification and recognition in telephone conversation openings. In

G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 23-78). New York:Irvington Publishers.

Schegloff, E. A. (1980). Preliminaries to preliminaries: 'Can I ask you a question?'"Sociological Inquiry, 50, 104-152.

Schneider, J. W. (1984). Morality, social problems, and everyday life. In J. Schneider and J.Kitsuse (Eds.), Studies in the sociology of social problems (pp. 180-205). Norwood, NJ:Ablex.

Thorne, B. (1980). "You still takin' notes?" Problems of informed consent in field research.Social Problems, 27, 284-297.

Torgovnick, M. (1990). Gone primitive. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.West, C., & Fenstermaker, S. (1993). Power, inequality and the accomplishment of gender:

An ethnomethodological view. In P. England (Ed.), Theory on gender/feminism on theory(pp. 151-174). New York: Aldine.

West, C, & Fenstermaker, S. (1995). Doing difference. Gender & Society, 9, 8-37.Zerubavel, E. (1979). Private time and public time: The temporal structure of social

accessibility and professional commitments. Social Forces, 58, 38-58.Zimmer, L. (1988). Tokenism and women in the workplace: The limits of gender-neutral

theory. Social Problems, 35, 64-77.

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Not Even a Day in the Life

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