I snapped this picture at my local grocery store. Sorry about the blurriness. It reads: ” ‘THE CUSTOMER IS THE REASON FOR OUR BUSINESS’… Please, Thank Check Writing Customers BY NAME!” And then under the smiley face it says “Customers First. NO CHATTER!”
What an amazing example of how employees are required to do emotional labor! First, the employee should refer to them by name if possible, thereby pretending to know them. Second, the employee should be friendly and chat with his or her customers, but only if they initiate. So no one cares if the employee is in the mood to chat, he or she must respond to the customer’s initiation or lack thereof.
As someone who has not had a service job like cashier at a grocery store in a very long time, I am distressed by how insulting this little “reminder” is… with it’s CAPITAL letters, exclamation points, and mocking smiley face.
A good book on the topic of emotion work is Fast Food, Fast Talk by Robin Leidner. An even better one is The Managed Heart by Arlie Hochschild.
Comments 6
sjk — May 16, 2008
I agree with most of what was said, except: I didn't think the "no chatter" instruction is referring to how the employee should interact with the customer. I suspect it means simply that the employees should not chatter amongst themselves, but rather should give the customers their full attention (thereby putting the "customers first"). Whether the employee is also expected to chat with the customer if the customer initiates it, or expected to refrain from initiating chatting with the customers, is not determined by these instructions.
RRsafety — May 16, 2008
Correct SJK, it means "no chatter among the workers... take care of the customer first".
acolyte — May 16, 2008
That's just a small taste of what customer service is on the other side. Attitude is part of the package now, no bad days allowed. I remember working in a call center once and we had to answer each and every call with a smile on our face, even if the person on the other side of the phone was screaming and cussing. We were supposed to make you feel like we care but make sure we got you off the phone in 240 seconds.
Wonderful capitalism at work!
Petteri — May 28, 2008
By the way, there is an interesting study made about the effects of calling customers by name, which I unfortunately can't find anymore. Everything goes fine until a female cashier calls a male customer by name. Men have a bigger tendency to overestimate this friendly gesture as sexual, which leads them to make advances to the cashier.
Sociological Images » EMOTION WORK AT THE DAYS INN — August 11, 2008
[...] another example of emotion work, click here. addthis_url = [...]
mariakenneth — March 21, 2024
It cleverly contrasts these expectations with the unpredictable nature of interactions on platforms like omegle, shedding light on the complexities of emotional labor in different contexts.