smiling

i know yelpers are maniacs, but one frequent complaint i read when i'm over there is that the service employee in question DIDN'T EVEN SMILE. and sometimes when i'm on public transit there'll be a guy (always a guy, always someone i've had no other interaction with) who'll tell me to smile. what is the obsession with smiling? is this purely an american phenomenon, or are people in other countries belittled for having the audacity not to smile when they're out in public?

it applies over here too. i love the way group photos from, say, the 1950s back very rarely feature people smiling. it feels as tho it's only gradually become the default form for presenting yrself to strangers.

smiling makes the control go round

/ trenchant

i got a terrible job editing the reports that mystery shoppers write on the establishments on which they perform their covert operations

utterly stereotyped 'enthusiastic' and 'friendly' behavior is expected of every employee a shopper encounters even in passing

since these are training tools for corporate america, and most people have some kind of labor or business-to-business contact with it, i would not be surprised if every schmuck in the country was walking around critiquing the smileosity of every unfortunate wage-earned they met

almost as if it were a kind of payback for being in the role elsewhere

"She never smiles and she's kind of slow, I think she just needs a bf or a gf, she just needs to get some."

"So nice and always smiling. Why can't more places be like this?…"

"Unappreciative of customers, they do not smile."

"Would come here more often if they smile more!…"

"No hello, no smiles, no you're welcome, no thank you come again"

"Service is efficient, but girls @ the taverna should smile & greet customers more."

"the owner lady was quiet and did not smile at all, It would have been nice seeing her smiling."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_1FbjuJp4E

people buying stuff need a lot of reassurance that they're special huh?

Affective labour is very frequently gendered.

"cheer up mate it might never happen"

costs nothing

Lou wrote a song about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAVTm-lrmAA

from what i've heard at the very least america is the only place where service/especially food employees are expected to put on a whole song and dance for you and make it look authentic

dreadful thinking that certain european ilxors will never know the amount of stress involved in this expectation for both the lowly employee and their managers

and visiting europe customers tbf

I think if someone told me to smile I would flip shit. Who are you to tell me what to do and how to feel? FUCK YOU.

yr boss

in a public facing business

And yeah I guess this is why I can't work in customer service and work in the 'back'. I cannot fake an emotion ever. I have so much respect for those that can just do it without any complaining, seriously.

Yes it sucks to be expected to treat people you don't know like golden gods just because they're buying a chai latte or whatever, but, at the same time, if you want people to patronise your establishment or service, whatever it is, then, y'know, it stands to reason to be nice.

Imagine if strangers acted like it was their right to demand this of you, all the time, in public, whether you are working a "service" role or not. This is what it means to occupy a space designated "female" in public.

Smiling in a retail job is basic stuff, it's not difficult to do and the customer usually appreciates it.

Makes the day go quicker as well.

do strange women insist you smile Branwell with an N

Conrad, you do realise that when someone says "behaviour is gendered" this can be describing either who the behaviour is done *by* and/or who the behaviour is done *to*, and in what degree?

Of the 7 complaints that get bent posted, all 3 of the complaints where gender was noted, they were gendered as female. Assuming something like a 50/50 split to the unspecified employees (and my experience of retail and service is that it often is not) that still shows a disproportionate emphasis (5 to 2) that the expectation of affective labour is gendered.

I know there are other factors at interplay here, which I've been thinking about (while doing my shopping, and noticing how staff treat customers.)

There's a kneejerk part of me that wants to think that some people's minds are more heavily colonised by capitalism to think that affective labour is somehow either 'not really labour' or just something which is an inherent part of what is bought when your labour is purchased. But there's another part of me that wonders if it's one of those extrovert/introvert splits. That to an extrovert, smiling, emotionally interacting with people is something which is energising. While to an introvert, it's exhausting.

As an introvert, I find over-friendliness in staff rather off-putting (I found this almost overwhelming on my last visit to my States! I do not expect every routine transaction of buying beer at a grocery store to require bouncy, personalised conversation!) I appreciate when staff are polite, are prompt (or at least an acknowledgement if there is a reason they are not) and expect a neutral tone I'd classify as "professional" (if professional were not such a loaded term) and a mutual degree of attentiveness when it's "my turn" for service. I do not expect passing waitstaff to act as if taking my order at Pret is the most emotionally fulfilling and exciting activity they'd engaged with all week. That actually seems quite bizarre, to me. Smiling does not "cost nothing". It takes emotional energy. I appreciate it if that emotional energy is offered to me; I do not *demand* it, especially not of people who are serving me. (A lot of these complaints remind me of the old adage: never, *ever* trust anyone who is rude to waiters.)

I spent today not smiling tbh

everything ok?

http://www.xojane.com/files/facial%20expression%20.jpg

This works wonders on cashiers and baristas

the perkiness at trader joe's is a bit emotionally exhausting. it's part of the negotiation i make with myself over the true cost of cheap food. they do seem genuinely happy there, though; it's not like target where they all look like they want to bludgeon everyone.

My face aches after a full day smiling at customers in work. Surely being ~happy~ isn't meant to physically hurt?

smiling makes the control go round

/ trenchant

― mattresslessness, Wednesday, July 9, 2014 6:06 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm tho, the road to corporate feudalism is paved with smiles, the 'amazon smile' thing a couple months ago especially stuck with me

the worst feeling is that you are getting rictus face from smiling too fakely for too long
http://antifilmschoolsite.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/mr-sardonicus-1.jpg

but laughing and smiling til it hurts because things are genuinely mirthful, that's rare and fun

I try not to smile because i hope to have awesome jumbo jowels when i get older

jowls that is

looking forward to your jowel movements

i don't use smiley faces in texts and a few times people have told me that i "seem mad".

i like smiling at people i see on the walking trail near work, it's nice whrn they smile back or say hello

Turn that frown upside-down!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uupk6sEOokI/UXxwLlC9PbI/AAAAAAAADsg/7nD21cGn1cM/s640/socially-awkward-creepy-stare-cage.jpg

My natural facial expression looks utterly pissed-off. If I worked customer-facing I'd make an effort to smile purely for this reason but I know it'd be serious hard work.

I think if someone told me to smile I would flip shit. Who are you to tell me what to do and how to feel? FUCK YOU.

I'd be surprised if there existed a single adult woman to whom this hadn't happened at least 20 times.

I spent today not smiling tbh

― duff paddy (darraghmac), Friday, August 15, 2014 10:53 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everything ok?

― The aim of Rooney is spot correct (Daphnis Celesta), Friday, August 15, 2014 11:09 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

black despair vmnic for a day or two but getting over it but thanks

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llbbww9pW31qh59n0o1_500.gif

nice to make this small human connection when possible - esp when it goes along with looking people in the eye

There was a research study done in the late 60s or early 70s of the effect of having to permanently false smile on Air Stewardesses. It was found to create a psychological gap between the individual and their emotions.
I went to a talk on the subject when I was at university in the early 00s. It was put on by PsychSoc who did some great talks, I met Robert Hare the psychopath test guy at another one they put on.
There was a book documenting the study that came out in the early 70s. I remember the university library had it but can't remember if I read it or its title.

just imagined a disgruntled lex post inveighing against the mere concept of smiling

checked again today, still costs nothing

"if you smile at me I will understand because that is something everyone everywhere does in the same language"

still costs nothing

only true if the smile is given freely, rather than demanded by management as a service they've bought and paid for with your wages.

then you're earning from it

smile when you say that

https://i.imgur.com/WEdkUcG.jpg

If I haven't, that sign sure isn't going to change things

checked again today, still emotional labor

i'm trying to smile more

or at least thousand-yard-stare less

http://strangefive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Shingeki-no-Kyojin-05-Large-26.jpg

must be an exchange rate thing just checked there €0

that's 20 CHF iirc

checked again there

Reading this rn

http://images.betterworldbooks.com/052/The-Managed-Heart-9780520054547.jpg

c 1983 so maybe this is the one stevolende was thinking of?

After working at The Container Store in 2014 I grok that what they're calling for in their employees is not just the pretense of happiness/friendliness from employee to customer, but employees who are SO good at "deep acting," ie actually convincing themselves that they DO feel happy/friendly, that the customer can't tell the difference.

TCS does somewhat support their employees' actual happiness by paying a higher hourly wage, giving advance notice of work schedules, and some other comforts, but NO mention will be made of the specifics of what they're demanding, which is nonstop emotional labor at a v high level.

I'm only on Chap 4 so I'll let you know if I have more realizations (there's a whole chapter on "Gender, Status, and Feeling" so HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS, INTERNET FRIENDS!).

I may have to force smile my way thru the rest of this one huh

Don't worry, there are parts here for you too.

On the whole, I would guess that women, Protestants, and middle-class people cultivate the habit of suppressing their own feelings more than men, Catholics, and lower-class people do. Our culture invites women, more than men, to focus on feeling rather than action; it invites Protestants into an inner dialogue with God, without benefit of church, sacrament, or confession as an intermediary structure; and it invites those in middle-class occupations to manage feeling in service jobs.

It's quite interesting btw that the auth counts "service" jobs like sales "clerks" and flight attendants as solid middle-class earners whereas today retail is lumped in with fast food and low-wage, low-job security work. Combine that with a podcast I just listened to saying that car dealerships are actually barely scraping by due to ever-thinner margins whereas they used to be money-makers, and I don't know what it means yet but probably something.

I can def vouch for Protestantism strongly encouraging (actually, requiring) the believer to police their own mind constantly--to basically surveil themselves for any natural feeling and kill it off according to scriptural demands. Not only your actions but every single thought is never private or free.

protestants here are a much freer, more liberal and expansive lot but sure why wouldn't they be they took it all out on us

protestantism might be more lonely than Catholicism in its mechanics but not nec more severe

I still can't really decide to what extent I've got rid of this way of thinking, or how real the resignation to a background awareness that I'll never be a Good Person is, but I suppose I struggle to identify other ways of being ethical (in general/yourself). Mb giving a shit about this at all indicates it's lingering influence

not sure if this means protestants force smiles more, I'm generally resistant to this large scale/causal way of talking about religion, but I can believe all that fostering of a conscience & internalisation plays into it sometimes.

I remember having a little crisis/mini breakdown big enough to be public & visible when I was 21 & amidst all the other nonsense there was something very relaxing even liberating about being unhappy in polite company. get a sense of humour with it & you feel like yr going places

autocorrelation ruining my grammar'll teach me to write big posts on my phone

ah, well,

Mb giving a shit about this at all indicates it's lingering influence

im not trying to be harsh but i think this is almost as much a cop-out mechanism as not thinking at all about this stuff, its essentially the one-step better option or w/e a lot of the time, or for a lot of ppl, ime - not directed at you or anything obv. not thinking about this stuff at all and just existing a la goon is the ideal to which we should all strive imo.

like when we morally police ourselves and then feel guilty the guilt expiates the bad behaviour somehow? whereas there's no reason to believe that somebody without an oppressive self-surveillance regime wd actually behave any worse than anybody else? that feels plausible tbh

not following this quite. I mean giving a shit about to what extent I might have escaped/still be shaped by church-nurtured thought-policing. agree with NV's point; it's v hard to recognise the limits of the influence of this way of thinking because the similarity/difference of other ways of being ethical/existing in the world is unknown. this is partly why the explanatory potential of looking at things like this seems dubious to me. straying off-topic but my friends all had much less religious upbringings and where I'm close enough to tell at least I'd say they are less obsessed/suffocated by the same sorts of ethics. idk this sort of stuff is on my mind a lot but I don't want to start posting about my parents so I'll leave it there

all the free and easy protestants ive met (since moving to dublin, obv, jaysus) are lovely. as a broad swathe statement, since im making them and don't much plan to stop, they're much more socially engaged and conscious, but it seems to be in a less-broody way, more of a 'roll-up-the-sleeves, do lets' get stuck in chaps, this wants fixing' kind of way.

again i don't discount that they are all genuinely much fuckin wealthier and happier and less prone to having come from demented alcoholic abusive homes than the crowd im use to (oh that's probably covered in 'protestant' i guess)

no idea how engaged they are with their religion vs our lot, afaicglean its more of a social outing thing with them, that and knowing they're better than we are, which probably helps in a million unfelt ways.

like when we morally police ourselves and then feel guilty the guilt expiates the bad behaviour somehow? whereas there's no reason to believe that somebody without an oppressive self-surveillance regime wd actually behave any worse than anybody else? that feels plausible tbh

― Gombeen Dance Band (Noodle Vague)

idk, that, yeah, definitely, that and giving yrself the slap on the back for little or nothing as opposed to the (always? often? never?) truthier 'fuck it we're all in it and trying to get out of it and preferably me first' but tbrrwu i dont see how this links in any way to ogmors post and im only typing now out of reflex so