Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

134 The Tattoo Relationship
tattoo artists to psychiatrists, are determined to control the service
interaction. They show a related tendency to typologize their
clients in order to better predict interactional problems and devise
utilitarian approaches to cope with conflict. In general. the typologies
employed by service deliverers are based on five definitional
dimensions.
1. Facilitation of work: does the client assist or hinder the
service worker in his or her service delivery activities?
2. Control: does the client allow the service worker to exercise
maximum control over service delivery or does he or she attempt
to wrest control from the service provider?
3. Gain: does the client allow the worker to profit or does the
interaction require extensive expenditures of time and effort
while providing little payoff?
4. Danger: does the client pose a physical and/or psychological
threat to the service worker?
5. Moral acceptability: is the client morally acceptable or does he
or she violate the service worker's values and normative
expectations (Mennerick, 1974: 400-406)?
Although tattooists routinely employ all of these dimensions to
catergorize customers, their typological schemes are relatively
simple-clients are typically defined as either "good" or "bad." The
simplicity of the tattooist's client typology is due to three important
characteristics of the tattoo service and the corresponding
interactional settings. First. commercial tattOOing, while it requires.
at least. a minimum of technical skill and experience, is
not particularly complex relative to other service activities (for example,
that of airline ticket agents or plastic surgeons). Secondly.
even with the recent diffusion of tattooing into an increasingly
wide variety of economic groups and subcultures, the clientele encountered
in most commercial studiOS is relatively homogenous.
Finally. the tattooist's customer typology is not particularly complex
because the tattoo service is proVided in a setting over which
the service deliverer exercises significant control. Tattooists work
in their familiar "home territory" with clients who are commonly