Doormen By Peter Bearman Chapter 1 Summary

In Doormen, Peter Bearman describes the doorman’s job in intimate detail. In doing so, he reveals certain aspects of the occupation that, while specific to a doorman’s duties, are also applicable in other capacities of society. Bearman’s descriptions of busy versus not busy periods and of the status difference between the tenants and their doormen are two of the aspects that pertain to other areas of life, examples of which are the restaurant industry and the undocumented workforce.
Chapter 3 portrays the tenants’ perception that doormen usually are not doing anything, except when the tenant is in need of assistance. In actuality, doormen generally have intervals of lulls and activity throughout the day. In another setting, restaurants, customers seem to share this opinion, as well. The wait staff in restaurants, like doormen, normally have a respite

before the busiest times of the day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During this time, it is not uncommon to witness servers sitting at booths or at counters, relaxing. Accordingly, during this same period, the few customers at the restaurant mean fewer demands for the servers’ attention. Therefore, though the waitperson may be seen as inactive, the customers are served in a more timely manner and are checked upon more frequently than when the restaurant becomes busier. However, once the restaurant starts to become more crowded, the customers, as a whole, feel that the waitperson is not paying nearly enough attention to them. This feeling can be attributed to the customers’ prior experiences with service when the restaurant is not busy. The customers’ become accustomed to that treatment and expect it every time they frequent the restaurant. They do not relate the restaurant’s crowdedness and the servers’ availability; they do not connect that in previous occurrences, the waitperson may not have had other customers to serve.
In fact, the customers often assume that the service of non-busy periods is the basic treatment they are guaranteed. Consequently, they refer back to those experiences and remember the servers’ inactivity. As a result of service being well timed, the customers never feel that they need anything. The feeling of need is not apparent until the server can no longer anticipate the customers’ wants. Therefore, the customers are apt to feel that servers do nothing, except when the customer needs them, in the same manner that tenants perceive that doormen are only busy when the tenant needs them.
In Chapter 5, Bearman provides doormen’s description of the tenants’ treatment of the workers outside of the apartment building setting.

The doormen’s consensus is that the tenants tend to not acknowledge their doorman when they are not in the professional state that the apartment building creates. Another situation that parallels this treatment is that of the undocumented workers and their employers. Though many upper class citizens are more than willing to hire undocumented workers, if questioned, the employers are unlikely to admit their relationship with the employees. However, as with doormen and their tenants, the likelihood of the upper class employers happening upon the lower class employees is small. Yet, if the employees do greet the employers in a context other than work, the employers will ignore them or become irritated that the employees show recognition of the employers. This denial of acquaintance may be due to the employees’ lower social status, but can also be a consequence of the fact that the employees were illegally hired and the employers wish to distance themselves from their illicit

activity.
Similar to the doormen’s impression that the tenants are hypocrites, so are the employers of undocumented workers. For the most part, employers hire undocumented workers in order to avoid federal and state regulations regarding workers’ rights. Thus, the employers take advantage of the employees’ inability to ask for legal wages and treatment, while at the same time refusing to recognize that they employ undocumented workers, let alone that they are taking advantage of the workers. When the employees are at work, the employers usually expect a greeting from the workers; as in this context, the greeting is a sign of respect and deference. The employers would be upset and feel slighted if the employees did not acknowledge them, possibly to the point of firing them, but the employees are expected to anticipate the employers’ dismissal in public. The employees are of lesser status and if the employers are noticed associating with them, their social status may be harmed, as the employees are perceived as undesirable. This idea of class asymmetry is common amongst the undocumented workforce and their employers, as well as amongst the doormen and their tenants.
Many ideas and arguments presented in Doormen parallel other branches of society and life. While doormen, servers, and undocumented workers are specific examples of these relationships, the ideas apply in a great number of settings. These instances are simply on the micro scale. In the macro sense, the concepts Bearman depicts are found everywhere because nearly every person in an asymmetric relationship like that of servant and recipient has the same opinions of entitlement and feels the same societal pressures to act a certain way. This causes the participants to perform in, essentially, the same manner, no matter the context. Whether a doorman never does anything, a server is never available, or a worker never acknowledged, people in these positions are faced with the equivalent situation for indistinguishable reasons because people are, at their most basic, alike.