Armas 1
Roxxette Armas
Professor Katharina Lang
SPC1017-2215-2959
06/04/2021
M2: Lesson 5: Fieldwork Essay
Nonverbal communication is “the transmission of meaning through an
individual’s nonspoken physical and behavioral cues”. (Pg.142). In everyday life, we use
nonverbal communication gestures, such as emblems, as a “substitute for verbal
statements” (Pg.145). By using multiple channels, auditory, visual, and tactile, we convey
nonverbal communication gestures and cues to indicate our feelings towards certain
situations. For example, if you get into a fight with your sister, you might scowl and raise
your voice to indicate you’re upset.
As I stated, we use nonverbal communication gestures daily, I have witnessed the
use of these gestures’ multiple times. Most of the times I’ve observed others and even
realized I was using nonverbal communication gestures, is when I’m at work. I work at
Ulta Beauty, a beauty retail store, which provides beauty supplies and services for
hundreds of guests daily. In this environment, I must maintain my “customer-service
face”. Meaning, If I feel upset, disrespected, angry, or embarrassed, I typically have to
hold it all in to enhance and maintain customer experience and this applies to my
coworkers as well. But this doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge outlandish behavior
whenever we encounter it.
Yesterday, June 3rd, a guest came up to the registers to pay after having her hair
services done at our salon. She was visibly upset and kept walking frantically back and
forth between the mirror at the front of the store and the cash register. She paid for her
service and asked me in a frantic high-pitched tone, which signaled how upset she was,
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Armas 2
whether or not I saw tones of brown in her hair as she pointed to her hair. Using an
illustrator, an accent verbal message, she pointed at her hair while asking whether or not I
saw brown spots in her hair. I honestly replied that yes, I did see tones of brown in her
hair. This comment made her even more upset because it validified what she was thinking
the entire time, so she snatched her receipt from my hand and walked over to the salon to
speak with the hairstylist.
As the guest was walking over, my coworker Karen used an emblem, a substitute
for a verbal statement, to signal to me with her eyes that this was going to be a tough
situation by opening her eyes up wide and looking back and forth from the guest to me,
this gesture conveyed that Karen did not see a positive ending to the situation at hand. I
replied to this signal using an emblem by raising my eyebrows and shrugging my
shoulders to indicate that I had no idea what was about to happen and to convey how
apprehensive I was about the matter at hand. From a distance, I kept observing the
interaction between the hairstylist and the guest. It was obvious how upset she was, she
held her hair up to the hairstylist multiple times while saying “It’s brown, not black!” in a
high-pitched tone, which is an illustration, to emphasize and convey how upset she was
about her hair being the wrong color. All the hairstylists could do was use an emblem by
shrugging with her eyes squinted and her arms crossed, staring at the guests’ hair, to
indicate that although she feels bad that the guest is upset, there is nothing she can do
about it. The hairstylist maintained this gesture throughout their entire conversation
which conveyed a sense of understanding but understandably frustrated the guest.
The guest would go on to repeatedly roll her eyes and shake her head with crossed
arms, which is an emblem, to convey that she was unhappy with the situation and feels it
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Armas 3
was unacceptable. Soon enough, the manager was called to handle the situation. My
manager, Aimee, approached the two women with a stern, fast-paced, walk to indicate
was trying to resolve the problem quickly. I think Aimee’s warm but stern demeanor
helped the customer feel some sort of relief or hope that Aimee would be able to resolve
the problem. Aimee approached the guest with a smile while fiddling with her hands and
squinting her eyes. Despite the guest’s initial gesture of confidence in Aimee, this all
changed when the guest started getting upset again about the situation. She was visibly
upset because she was pointing at her hair, the hairstylist Coco, and the wall of hair dyes
that are set up in the salon this illustrative gesture conveyed how upset the guest was and
how she blamed Coco for the state of her hair. The guest again used the repetitive
emblem gesture she had been using since the situation started, of rolling her eyes,
crossing her arms, and shaking her head to convey her displeasure.
Once the guest was finished talking, Aimee tried to convey empathy using an
illustration. Aimee would point at the walls of dye and Coco, while letting the guest know
she could get her hair re-dyed for no cost while squinting her eyes, tilting her head, and
fiddling with her fingers. Despite Aimee’s attempt to please and empathize with the
customer, this was not enough. The guest marched out of the store while shaking her head
to convey her irritation with the situation while yelling that she would never return to the
store ever again. Once she left, all my coworkers stood still, using emblems to convey our
shock by looking at one another with our eyes wide, while Aimee walked towards us
shaking her head still fiddling with her fingers.
This is not the first instance in which my coworkers and I have used emblems to
silently communicate our thoughts on matters that occurred throughout the store. This
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Armas 4
situation just goes to show, how we are constantly using nonverbal communication
gestures to convey our emotions. Although the guest did not explicitly say she was
irritated, her crossed arms and eye-rolls said enough so everyone understood how she
felt. Although Aimee did not say she was apprehensive about the whole situation, her
gesture of fiddling with her fingers was enough to show how she felt, and although I
don’t exactly know what the situation left off on, by the gestures I witnessed, thanks to
nonverbal communication, I could take a pretty big guess.
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