Cult Girl: Responsible Management and Self-Management of Subjectivity at Work

To promote and sell its products, the beverage company Cult hires an army of event girls. The Cult Girls, as they are called, represent Cult at festivals, nightclubs, and local venues and are famous for their sexy outfits and flirty behaviour. Many girls find the job exciting; they see it as a way to get paid for going out at night to party and being the centre of attention makes them feel appreciated. Others find that their limits are seriously tested, having to deal with drunken guys and jealous girlfriends. Cult arranges team-building courses designed to help the girls prepare for the job. But how far can you go when identifying with and selling a product and what are the consequences? The case is primarily targeted at a student audience with a high level of reflectivity, but the provocative theme makes it teachable in most discussion-based classes, for example in HR or marketing, with no more than 30-40 students at the most. We have taught it in a 6th semester course on human capital as a contemporary philosophical problem, with 25-30 students in the context of a BSc program in philosophy and business administration.