ABSTRACT
As an aside, another customer observation gave me a clue in the area of job function recognition. This remark came when I worked in a third-level reference referral operation. Because I did not have any public desk duties and frequently spent a lot of time on the floor of the reference stacks poring through books or in the basement environs among dusty old library materials, I often wore jeans to work. This customer started to ask me a question and then said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I realize you’re not a librarian.” Since she was looking directly at my clothing, I concluded that because I did not fit her stereotype of a librarian, she made a judgment call based on what communication experts call the “halo effect.”
