Stories, meanings of life and work relations: the trajectory and the quotidian of a bakery’s countertop employee

Abstract

This article is based on a kind of sociability that is specific to urban centers, constituted by hurried interactions and incomplete conversations. Based on a routine of interaction between researcher and employees at bakeries’ countertops, it is attempted to understand the trajectory of one of them, who used to be manager and owner of his own business. The analysis is articulated around an apparent paradox: the fact that he elaborates a narrative of success and even social ascension instead of one of negative mobility. I propose that the key to its comprehension lies on those work relations – a logic involving newbies, an elite and former employees – and on the very dynamics of conversation at the countertop. These dynamics, as I intend to demonstrate, are more than a simple context from which information is extracted: it imposes itself as an object of study.