| Occupational stress cost industries, organizations, the economy, the healthcare system, and taxpayers upwards of $50 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. The negative health impact of occupational stress on workers can have devastating psychological, physical, behavioral, and social consequences that can negatively affect all aspects of their life, their job performance, and the organization. Finding ways to lower the financial costs and health burden of occupational stress necessitates identifying.;1) types of stressful incidents that occur in the workplace, 2) structural and contextual characteristics of those incidents, 3) incident outcomes, and 4) behaviors or decisions that lead to more positive or more negative outcomes.;This thesis research explored the types of stressful incidents low-level front-of-house (FOH) employees reported experiencing in a full-service restaurant-bar named "Joey's" (pseudonym). I examined employee narratives about stressful workplace incidences with special attention on the pattern of co-occurrences among factors such as: 1) how the incident started; 2) main focus of the incident; 3) key players; 4) incident outcomes; 5) was the incident resolved; and 6) factors that led to incidents being resolved or not. This research employed a mixed qualitative-quantitative methodological ethnographic assessment of occupational stress using qualitative sampling techniques, semistructured interviews, freelisting, and the critical incident technique (which I incorporated the freelisting technique into).;The study results show that the characteristics describing the majority of incidents are: began with either a manager statement, an upset customer, or an employee making a mistake; began in the front-of-house; involved managers and customers; lasted between 5-10 minutes or between 1-2 hours; occurred while it was busy; and were resolved by the end of the incident ending the incident on a positive note. A primary theme throughout the incidents that were resolved and ended on a positive note was whether or not a manager was involved and how the manager responded to the incident (even if the incident did not originally involve the manager). The thesis concludes discussing different culturally specific strategies managers or supervisors can use to reduce or eliminate stressful incidents that arise for low-level FOH employees in the restaurant industry and create positive employee and organizational outcomes. |
