Thursday, May 23, 2013
COM 250 / Week #8 Discussion: Emotion Labor: A Commodity to be Paid?
In today's career world, especially in the retail business, employees are required to display particular emotions or feelings deemed "appropriate" for the business setting. As a college teacher, sometimes I am under the pressure to take it down a few notches when it comes to my critique on student course work, because if I honestly point out a mistake I might end up with a bad "customer review" of my teaching which has increasingly become a "product." To be honest, I feel bad about it. I believe those who are forced to display particular feelings no matter what they truly feel are in the same situation. Do today's organizations push too much to make our human interaction less genuine and more like a "commodity"? Whose fault is it?
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It's our own fault because we allow these "guidelines" to shape our lives. Why should we tolerate acting a certain way because our job requires it? The answer, not surprisingly, is because we want to be paid.
ReplyDeleteOver time society has developed a certain style of interaction in business that has transformed into a concise, non-genuine interaction between workers and customers. This concept has become mainstream and is an accepted standard in the workplace. It's become so common it is expected and deviating from this creates an uncomfortable experience for the customer.
Our professor has, from time to time, shown his true feelings on certain topics and I have felt this uncomfortable feeling a bit. It's not a bad feeling, but unexpected. The appropriate standards for interactions in the workplace is used to keep a status quo among people.
If we as a society want to change this fake communication in the workplace we have to change all at once. A few groups attempting to change won't affect the vast majority. Until this happens there will be a small sense of awkwardness for both the customer and worker when interacting in the business world.
Hi Cody,
ReplyDeleteGreat points! I remember the first time I asked to "up-sell" at work. I was all of 16 years old and I had absolutely no sales skills or training and precious little communication skills (extremely shy), yet I was forced to conform to performance standards that had nothing to do with my work ethic. This was in 1983. Since then, this kind of manipulation has become the standard.
You make another great point by suggesting if we want change we have to change all at once. Yet, I am seeing small and slow changes in people's attitudes about what constitutes fair work. More and more people are leaving full time careers and returning to school, starting their own businesses or combining households so there are fewer collective work hours outside of the home. I believe it is time for non violent non cooperation.
Thanks for reading,
Colleen
The culture of America, amongst many things, has began to shift and change to this attitude of tolerating and pretending. We tolerate so many more things in today's world versus 20 years ago. I believe that in today's modern corporations and organizations, the employers absolutely require of their employees to put on this "customer front" or attitude. For example, in the customer service industry--gas pumping, restaurant service, or ANYTHING that involves employees helping people (customers)--those employees have to act happy ALL the time when working...even when they're having a bad day, or a customer is being a jerk.
ReplyDeleteIt is now just common practice and a way of life to have employees who put the customer first and go above and beyond for them. In the sense of calling it a "commodity", I would say that organizations want ALL their employees to uniform, monotonous, and synchronized with the same "program". Twenty years ago, people had genuine treatment for all their customers; whether that was bad or good. It was a more "case-by-case" basis. Instead, nowadays, everyone has to be treated the same.