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.Ittook that long to be "accepted." Today the breaking-in-period must be highly compressed intime.Thus we have in many American suburbs a commercial "Welcome Wagon" service thataccelerates the process by introducing newcomers to the chief stores and agencies in thecommunity.A paid Welcome Wagon employee usually a middle-aged lady visits thenewcomers, answers questions about the community, and leaves behind brochures and,sometimes, inexpensive gift certificates redeemable at local stores.Since it affects onlyrelationships in the service category and is, actually, little more than a form of advertising,the Welcome Wagon's integrative impact is superficial.The process of linking up with new neighbors and friends is, however, often quiteeffectively accelerated by the presence of certain people usually divorced or single olderwomen who play the role of informal "integrator" in the community.Such people are foundin many established suburbs and housing developments.Their function has been described byurban sociologist Robert Gutman of Rutgers University, who notes that while the integratorherself is frequently isolated from the mainstream of social life in the community, she derivespleasure from serving as a "bridge" for newcomers.She takes the initiative by inviting themto parties and other gatherings.The newcomers are duly flattered that an "oldtime" residentin many communities "oldtime" means two years is willing to invite them.The newcomers,alas, quickly learn that the integrator is herself an "outsider" whereupon, more often than not,they promptly disassociate themselves from her."Fortunately for the integrator," Gutman says, "by the time he or she managed tointroduce the newcomer to the community and the newcomer in turn had gone on to abandonthe integrator, there were new arrivals in the settlement to whom the integrator could onceagain proffer the hand of friendship."Other people in the community also help speed the process of relationship formation.Thus, in developments, Gutman says, "Respondents reported that the real estate agentsintroduced them to neighbors before they had taken possession.In some cases, wives werecalled on by other wives in the neighborhood, sometimes individually and sometimes ingroups.Neighboring wives, or husbands, encountered each other casually, while outgardening and cleaning up the yard or in tending children.And, of course, there were theusual meetings brought about by the children, who themselves often were the first to establishcontact with the human population of the new environment."Local organizations also play an important part in helping the individual integratequickly into the community.This is more likely to be true among suburban homeowners thanamong housing development residents.Churches, political parties and women's organizationsprovide many of the human relationships that the newcomers seek.According to Gutman,"Sometimes a neighbor would inform the newcomer about the existence of the voluntaryassociation, and might even take the newcomer to his first meeting; but even in these cases itwas up to the migrant himself to find his own primary group within the association."The knowledge that no move is final, that somewhere along the road the nomads willonce more gather up their belongings and migrate, works against the development ofrelationships that are more than modular, and it means that if relationships are to be struck upat all, they had better be whipped into life quickly.If, however, the breaking-in period is compressed in time, the leave-taking thebreaking-out is also telescoped.This is particularly true of service relationships which,being unidimensional, can be both initiated and terminated with dispatch."They come andthey go," says the manager of a suburban food store."You miss them one day and then youlearn they've moved to Dallas." "Washington, D.C., retailers seldom have a chance to buildlong, enduring relationships with customers," observes a writer in Business Week [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]