“Morning fog, spider webs, and escaping from Alcatraz”: Examining metaphors used by public safety employees and their families to help understand the relationship between work and family

ABSTRACT

This study examines public safety employees’ (PSEs) (police officers and fire fighters) experiences with work and family as well as the experiences of their family members. Past research concerning work–family has typically concentrated on white-collar professions, rather than the non-standard workforce, which includes PSEs. Moreover, research has not considered the perspective of family members who openly strive to share equally in managing the relationship between work and family. Using interviews and focus groups, this study focuses on metaphors that were employed by PSEs and their family members with regard to how they articulate the relationship between work and family. Previous research has relied upon constructs and metaphors that have been created by scholars and researchers (i.e., balance, conflict, segmentation). Rather than imposing these past constructs on participants, this study allows participants to craft their own way of describing work and family. Theoretical and practical implications are offered as well as directions for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Work–family
• metaphor analysis
• public safety employees

Notes

1 This study is based on my dissertation so for the purpose of page length, the number of metaphor categories described in this study has been reduced from eight original categories to the three most common categories which appeared in greatest frequency across the transcripts. The original eight metaphor categories include: competition, nature/preservation, ambiguity, change, opposites, integration, destruction, and invisibility.

2 This term, “copper hopper” was used several times by participants. From what I gathered by talking to police officers, copper hopper refers to single women who frequent local “cop” hangouts and bars in hopes of landing a police officer, either because they are attracted to police officers or because they want to try and blackmail a married cop by threatening to tell their wives they are cheating if they do not pay them money. One of my participants likened “copper hoppers” to “police groupies.” One metaphor for another.