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.

The University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center gives a thumbs up to these ads for Pyrex kitchen cookware for using androgynous figures instead of women.  Doing so suggests that people use kitchens, not just women.  Contrast it to, well, as far as I can remember, just about every other ad for every other kitchen product that I’ve ever seen (for examples, see here, here, here, here, and here).

Thanks to Laura L. for the tip!

Laura R. sent us this 1939 test for husbands and wives, developed by an M.D./Ph.D. in psychology, designed to determine how well each is performing in his or her gendered role with marriage.  For proper behavior the spouse earns merits, for improper, demerits.  Below is the front page and the first page of the test for both men and women.  Click here to see the whole thing (via boingboing).

Thanks Laura!

This Australian ad for Lipton tea suggests that it’s mind clarifying qualities are so good that it could help even George Bush achieve the feat of naming all 50 states.

This Brazilian ad for Rolling Stone, featuring a picture of George W. Bush, reads: “We don’t show naked women to sell more. At the most, we show some asses.”

This Chinese Greenpeace ad, portraying Bush’s spin on global warming, reads: “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Voice yours at forum.greenpeace.org.”

This Chinese ad for an erasable pen reads: “Everyone makes mistakes.” 

In Malaysia, Bush is used to sell Smart cars.  Text: “Still looking for weapons of mass destruction.  Not smart.” 

Also in Malaysia, Amnesty International makes fun of Bush in their effort to inspire opposition to Guantanamo Bay.  “Write to him and help stop torture at Guantanamo Bay.  Remember, use simple words.”

This is a Mexican ad for a dog kennel.  “We don’t discriminate any kind of breed.”  (The source says that, in Mexico, like in the U.S., “dog” is a name for a bad person.)

 This ad for a Mexican newspaper reads: “Such a complex world needs a good explanation.”

This is an ad for the movie American Psycho in New Zealand.

In Portugal, playing war games (paint ball) is advertised as equivalent to playing George W. Bush.

This Swiss ad threatens, if you fall off your bicycle without a helmet, you may end up as dumb as George W. Bush.

These and more borrowed from here, found via adfreak.

Update: There have been some really nice points in the comments about how, in the process of making fun of Bush, we are also seeing the further stigmatization of “people with developmental disabilities, brain injuries, and psychological diagnoses” (that from Penny in the comments). 

What do you think of this?

Found at blogofstench.

Kay Steiger blogs about the decline in wages since 2001 for college graduates. Figure A shows that both men and women college graduates are earning less than they did in 2001. The wage gap between women and men has decreased, but only because men’s wages have been falling. To top it off, Figure B shows that a lower percentage of college graduates are getting health insurance and pension coverage.

Might this be related to the shrinking middle class?

Via Matthew Yglesias.

For our sociologist and sociologically-inclined readers:

As Wicked Anomie asks, “Sociologist and American are mutually exclusive categories?” Who knew!

She also notes:

…did you also notice that bit about “real issues,” and how they and racial/ethnic issues are mutually exclusive? So, we have the broader category of issues, then we have subcategories of racial/ethnic and “real.”

Indeed.

Via contexts crawler.

Found here, here, and here thanks to Erin H.  Thanks!

Erin writes:

This brings together the awful hypersexualisation of toys for young girls (recommended: ages 4 – 8 ) with the often bizarre and sometimes disturbing anthropomorphisation of animals. In this case, Bratz dolls (complete with impossible footwear and freakishly large eyes) meet My Little Ponies in an unholy combination of hinted-at cleavage, age-inappropriate costuming / accessories and come-hither glances! So many shades of ick. What would the equivalent for young boys be, I wonder?

Speaking of, is anyone else nostalgic for my little ponies and carebears?  Sigh.

NEW!  In a similar phenomenon, I present you the Tini Puppini (found here via Jezebel):