
The Tyranny of the Forced Smile - boh
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/jobs/the-tyranny-of-the-forced-smile.html
======
nakedrobot2
Here in the Czech Republic, there is no forced smile. It is not a part of the
culture, people generally don't do it, and people here generally see americans
(especially americans) as fake, superficial, and insincere.

I'm a bit on the fence about it. Central Europeans, including Czechs are a
rather gloomy bunch :-) especially in the winter. Americans are definitely
more cheerful, and it is not fake. Ok, sometimes it is but generally speaking
Americans are in fact more cheerful and optimistic. Ok, Czechs have five
centuries of being conquered and subjugated of course, so let's not draw too
many conclusions.

In terms of smiling strangers, well, I'd like a bit more of it than we have
here in the Czech Republic (where there is very little)

~~~
Swizec
Ha, five centuries! We Slovenians have had 12. From 828 AD to 1991 AD.

But yes, us Slavs are a gloomy bunch. But only on the outside and only to
strangers. Particularly Americans. Whenever I'm in the States I commonly get
accused of being emotionless and of having a deadpan face. At the same time, I
feel everybody I meet there is a clown and I always make sure to tune down
their enthusiasm. If an American says something is super awesome and the best
thing ever, it's probably kinda okayish.

Anyway, the interesting thing I've found comparing Slavs to Americans is that
while Slavs are weary of strangers, they open up much sooner. You can be
friends with Americans for months and years, but if you haven't gone to the
same kindergarten together, you will never be a true friend. Whereas with
Slavs, you could have met at a bar three hours ago, and already you're
confessing your deepest darkest secrets to each other and are practically best
friends.

Source: having lived in the States for some time

PS: to be fair, most Europeans I've met both in Europe and in the US share
this immediately friends trait. So far none of the Americans I've met have,
possibly because of The Big City effect.

~~~
beachstartup
you're european, so you can make instant-friends with europeans quite easily.

i'm american, and i can make instant friends with americans. i did it
throughout my 20s when traveling here in the US and overseas. in fact i've
done it all over 4 continents now. this doesn't seem to be a racial or
cultural trait. some people are friendly, some aren't.

perhaps the fact that you describe yourself as 'gloomy' is the reason
americans do not find it easy to befriend you even after a few drinks.

~~~
Swizec
> perhaps the fact that you describe yourself as 'gloomy' is the reason
> americans do not find it easy to befriend you even after a few drinks.

Funnily, Europeans have started labeling me as too cheery, smiley, and direct.
Too American.

And yes, it could well be the sense of common cultural heritage at play here.
But Europeans in general don't have _as_ much of a common heritage as
Americans do, and we all grew up on American culture anyway. Particularly for
everyone growing up in the 90's when American stuff was extremely popular here
as we were trying to be less like The Old System (tm) and embrace The
Capitalism (tm).

Although there are a lot of differences in observing a culture and actually
living it. I'll grant you that.

At the end of the day, this is anecdata. Your mileage may vary.

~~~
busterarm
I'm a gloomy American and it's typical for me to make friends with Slavs, but
I'm not really a "fast friends" kind of person.

------
DanielBMarkham
I am a consultant. I help teams perform better. So I get to travel to a lot of
places, work in a lot of organizations, and "start over" with each new gig.

A few years ago I thought I would try something different. I decided that no
matter how I felt each day, I was going to smile and be as friendly as
possible to everybody I met. At times, walking through the hallways of the new
job, I felt like an idiot. But I didn't care. I just smiled and tried to be
friendly.

I know that many times I probably smiled and said hello to the same people
twice -- as if I had never seen them that day. I know that at times I must
have appeared simple-minded. It was a horrible feeling that first week.

Then something strange happened. People started smiling back. I would be
working off to the side of a large room, and folks would come over and say
hello. People -- I had no idea what their names were or what their jobs were
-- would ask me how I was doing.

So I kept the experiment going. After a month, I had some really bad personal
news and I know I came in to work very downtrodden. At this point, all of that
"fake happiness" I had put in the bank came back to me. The anonymous people I
had smiled at? They now made an effort to cheer me up. No effort was required
on my part. If I came in upset, within a couple of hours of having other
people smile at me, I felt like smiling back at everybody else.

This went on for a few months. It was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've ever
had, and when I left, about a dozen people came over and told me that I had
done a great job and they would miss me. (I just did my normal job)

Lesson? Smiles are very, very powerful social tools, even if they are forced.
They cheer other people up, they cheer you up, and over time they provide some
kind of weird social insurance that you can tap into when you're having a bad
day. What blew my mind was that the fake part wasn't even important. Simply by
trying you got all of the benefits.

------
HarryHirsch
This Everything2 writeup explains way better than I can what's wrong with
passionately loving your job:
[http://everything2.com/title/F%25C3%25BCr+sechs+Groschen%252...](http://everything2.com/title/F%25C3%25BCr+sechs+Groschen%252C+Fritz%252C+ist%2527s+heute+genug)

There are limits to duty, but there are no limits to passion, that's why your
employer wants you to be passionate about him. Especially in startuplandia.
Hint, grasshopper, he is not passionate about you, he views you as a resource
to be strip-mined. The personnel department is appropiately called "Human
Resources" these days.

It's just this - why do employees internalize the "passion meme" without any
trace of cynicism, and why do customers condone the state of affairs?

~~~
pimlottc
The restaurant business, particular back-of-house, is particular bad in this
respect. Working conditions in most kitchens are horrible - long hours,
uncomfortable environments, physical demanding, often dangerous and horribly
underpaid with few benefits.

But yet, people do it. They know they are getting screwed over, they know they
are often destroying their bodies, but they keep on doing it. Because people
who want to cook are truly passionate about it. Cooking for someone is an
incredible intimate and loving act; one that no amount of corporatism or job
function abstraction can dispel.

It is an act in which the symbolism and the functionalism are inseparable.
When you are serving food, you are literally nourishing people. You are
literally providing the substance they need to survive. You are literally
crafting, with your own hands, the matter that will become a literal part of
another human being.

Such a primal act naturally stirs a lot of passion, but likewise, as you say,
great opportunities for abuse. Most kitchen employees don't make terribly much
more than minimum wage. In expensive cities like San Francisco or New York,
it's almost impossible to make a living wage. Even in high-end restaurants.

~~~
taivare
Most of the back-of-house employees in restaurant sector have dependency
issues, booze and drugs and management is always aware of it. Go in the back
lot where they park and you will special plates on more then one car, in my
state the plates are all yellow. If the restaurant industry ever drug tested
like the drug store chains do they would easily lose sixty-percent of back of
the house staff.

------
araes
This article starts to touch on something profound but then mostly skims over
an in-depth discussion with reasoning.

At its core, this is really about human social response and compelled social
behavior. The article could be about "bitchy resting face" or tipping, or any
other form of compelled social niceity and it could delve into the same
topics.

People see certain social cues, and they interpret them based on past
experience. People who smile at you, and talk in a certain frequency range,
and use certain words, must be nice and want to help you. Anyone who owns a
business wants all customers to feel that emotion whenever they associate with
your business, and implicit social contracts evolve that basically codify
that.

It's like "The Game" in some respects. There are certain social cues /
responses that most people have internalized so deeply that they're barely
aware they respond to them. Most people interpret offhand compliments from a
person with apparent detatched interest as intriguing. They interpret
questions about them as interest. Easy smiles as confidence. Ect...

With the aforementioned tipping, it's a similar mechanism that reinforces
certain behavior in wait staff. In a sense, it's a way that those with money
can compel behavior from those that don't. An aspect of the symbolic power
that wealth effectively represents.

Anyhow, lunch arrived, so I'm done, and I'll have to make that very choice in
a few moments.

------
lisa_henderson
In the USA, unemployment was elevated for several years, and is only now
coming down to reasonable levels. More so, if you lack a college degree (and
74% of the USA population lacks a college degree) then your chance of getting
a good job is non-existent. In Europe, the unemployment rate is still elevated
in most of the 27 countries in the EU. So what could possibly justify this
sentence:

"Admittedly, the dynamism of Western capitalism depends upon people who work
with missionary zeal, who refuse to accept that a job is merely a job."

Is it the "the dynamism of Western capitalism" that causes people to pretend
to like their job, or is it the scarcity of good jobs, which forces workers to
engage in an exaggerated pantomime of missionary zeal?

~~~
jes
Thanks for an interesting comment.

I wonder if it's true that the unemployment rate is coming down to reasonable
levels. As I understand it, the unemployment rate that is typically reported
excludes people that have given up looking for work.

I don't know if this is correct, but let's say that you had an economy where
there were no jobs available. Precisely none. Over the long term, the
unemployment rate would have to drift down to almost zero, as more and more
people realized that there were no jobs available and gave up looking for
work.

As regards the sentence you ask about, I think I am one of the people that
does not look at his work as merely a job. Perhaps it's because I do try to
distinguish between my work, my craft, my trade, from the other aspects of who
happens to be paying my invoices.

Thoughts?

~~~
jonas21
You're right that the official unemployment rate reported by the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics (U3) excludes "discouraged workers" who have given up looking
for work.

However, the BLS also publishes a rate that includes discouraged workers (U4),
as well as a rate that includes "marginally attached workers" who would like
to work, but for whatever reason have not looked for work recently (U5). All 3
of these have returned to normal levels [1].

There's also the U6 rate, which includes workers who are part-time, but would
like to work full-time. [2]

[1]
[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy)

[2]
[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE)

------
elchief
I made the mistake of studying for and taking the Canadian Border Services
exam, where you have to discriminate between fake and real smiles. I got
perfect on that section. But now I can't un-see it. Fake smiles. Fake smiles
everywhere.

~~~
sumitviii
Interesting. Does this effect wear down?

~~~
elchief
No

------
fishnchips
I remember this director from a Big Company pitching that I join his team
after I decided to maybe change jobs. His enthusiasm was insane and eventually
I ended up accepting the offer (which was like 20% better than what I got in
my old place) and on my 1st day I learned that the guy not only left but went
with a bang, too. Having been raised in the Eastern Block I still can't help
but wonder how Americans do it.

~~~
pacala
Hi there, comrade. Perhaps Americans are using the same coping mechanism we
were using to deal with the exuberant and completely inane "party line". As
outsiders, and engineers on top of it, we just don't pick up the inanity cues
that everybody else in the room understands instinctively. Kind of like
everyone would sing the International at the beginning of the day, or read an
omage to the party once a quarter, but think nothing of it other than being
happy to be done with a slightly ridiculous but overall insignificant chore.

~~~
fishnchips
I was born in 1983 so I never experienced much in terms of ideological
indoctrination. Before I went to school (aged 7) the communism was over.
Before that I only had friendly Soviet soldiers visiting my creche dressed up
as Santa Claus and giving us Christmas presents (the irony of that!) but I
would blame that for my current tone deafness when it comes to American
excitement ;)

------
ohazi
David Mitchell's customer service rant on QI is particularly on point here.

[http://youtu.be/_LiDTKEF1ek](http://youtu.be/_LiDTKEF1ek)

------
chestnut-tree
Slight digression, but speaking of fake smiles...I'm reminded of a quiz on the
BBC website called Spot the Fake Smile.

There are 20 short clips of people smiling. Can you spot which ones are fake
and which ones are genuine? (The test takes about 10 mins)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/)

~~~
beaumartinez
I tried to take the test—but the fifth time I pressed "next" it gave me a 404.

The key to faking a real smile is in wrinkling the eyes.

~~~
didsomeonesay
> The key to faking a real smile is in wrinkling the eyes.

The wrinkling is not a very reliable indicator of fake smiles [1]. A real
smile does indeed involve muscles around the eyes, but wrinkling could be
caused by the cheek muscles pushing upward too.

Some more indicators of a real smile are, IIRC \- curling corners of the mouth
\- corners of the eye pushing inward \- short duration \- it starts and ends
smoothly \- symmetry

[1] Source: Having recently read "Telling Lies" by Paul Ekman (and that was a
HN recommendation too)

~~~
beaumartinez
Thank you! I'll keep an eye out for those.

------
SixSigma
When I trained as an actor I learned the curious phenomena :

Happiness leads to smiling and smiling leads to happiness.

~~~
rifung
True! On the other hand, being forced to smile leads to unhappiness

~~~
SixSigma
Anyone that's worked as a waiter / bar-tender knows there's no-one more hated
than our beautiful customers.

I door find "Tell us why you're passionate about Supply Chain Management" a
curious question (my profession).

"I'm not, I'm interested in it and good at it" is insufficient. Of course, it
is one of those interview situation questions to be ready for. Passion comes
in many forms.

------
lohengramm
I live in Brazil, and I was born in a bad location in the country. My young
ages have been a real pain and I learned not to smile. I started working as a
programmer even before getting into college, because I needed money to
actually pay the college, and so I have lived a very black and white life for
ever. Today, I see that having a nice and beautiful past and present that
makes it easy to smile everyday is a more valuable trait to get a job than
actually having technical skills. I don't personally like the way it works
but, hey, it's the real world.

~~~
ryan-allen
If you keep working hard and are good at your work employers and clients will
hopefully see past your demeanour.

Some of the most competent people I know come across as grumpy and aloof. They
get respect because they know their stuff and care about their work, and that
shines through.

------
im2w1l
Just 13% of people feel passionate about their job (worldwide). In the US the
figure is 30%.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-
em...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-employees-
outnumber-happy-ones-by-two-to-one-worldwide/)

[http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged-
jobs...](http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged-jobs/376177)

~~~
desdiv
The per country break down can be found here:
[http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-
engage...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-
work.aspx)

Notably, Syria is at the bottom of the list with 0% of their worker being
"actively engaged" in their jobs.

------
unclesaamm
Seems like HN could do well with an introduction to Arlie Hochschild and "The
Managed Heart" [http://www.amazon.com/The-Managed-Heart-Commercialization-
Fe...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Managed-Heart-Commercialization-
Feeling/dp/0520272943).

Here's a bit of the blurb from Amazon:

"In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through
deep acting or "emotion work," just as we manage our outer expressions of
feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel
and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what
is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual
understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion
management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the
heart.

But what occurs when emotion work, feeling rules, and the gift of exchange are
introduced into the public world of work? In search of the answer, Arlie
Russell Hochschild closely examines two groups of public-contact workers:
flight attendants and bill collectors. The flight attendant’s job is to
deliver a service and create further demand for it, to enhance the status of
the customer and be "nicer than natural." The bill collector’s job is to
collect on the service, and if necessary, to deflate the status of the
customer by being "nastier than natural." Between these extremes, roughly one-
third of American men and one-half of American women hold jobs that call for
substantial emotional labor. In many of these jobs, they are trained to accept
feeling rules and techniques of emotion management that serve the company’s
commercial purpose."

------
6d0debc071
Perhaps the problem is less that it's asked that people love their jobs but
more that the question is asked about jobs that it's difficult to see anyone
honestly loving.

Do I love my job? Sure. And I'd love any job analogous with it as well.... But
I can't say that I've loved or even vaguely enjoyed all the jobs I've had, to
do so would have made me a schmuck.

------
phabian
I think Jim Carrey pointed one obvious thing about laughing in his hillarious
way.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRyYT62VZdY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRyYT62VZdY)

------
jamesli
I have conducted a few hundred of interviews for software engineers and DBAs
in the last three years. I do want to see the passions of the candidates at
the professions. It is a big plus in my eyes.

On the other hand, I am not impressed by "unequivocal statement". For seniors
positions, I don't ask questions with a fixed answer. I prefer to listen to
the candidates's opinions, to analyze the pros and cons of an approach, etc. I
consider it low intelligence by any "unequivocal statement" for these
questions.

------
kolev
We're living in times of fakeness as our modus operandi - fake boobs, fake
smiles, fake love skills (Viagra), fake friendliness, fake human rights, fake
Eiffel tower (Vegas), fake everything. It's because people today lack class,
are abusive materialists and consumerists, and lack any trace of philosophical
thinking. And this will not end well!

------
smilefreak
I think that a smile should never be forced, for two reasons.

1\. I want to find people who are genuinely passionate about what they do.

2\. If people are truly unhappy not being o.k with that, and not faking it may
bring attention to a problem they or society faces. This may help highlight,
and could lead to solutions. Do not go silent.

------
mc32
I think he brings up a few good points, but he muddles through the whole
article and peppers it with irrelevant things --which make me wonder about his
rigor. I mean, what does his "astrological sign" have to do with anything?
It's absolutely silly.

In addition, he comes to this from only an American experience. This is not a
symptom you only see in the US. It's saccharine in many places. That said,
saccharine or not, it does have a purpose as much as any other line of
questioning. In other words, passion, love, whatever, while they may or may
not be an indicator of how well someone will execute their job --the main
purpose of such questions, in my mind, is to see how well prepared you are for
something you can expect.

In other words, it's not that they expect a sincere answer or they are trying
to torture you and see how you wiggle yourself out, but it's rather to gauge
how adept you are at preparation. You know the questions is coming, yet, did
you take the preparation to come up with a sensible answer. That is the
function of the question.

On the other hand, if we were to take these questions literally, yes, then
they are quite silly expectations. I have had them at just about every
professional job and they are absurd. But we know it's all part of meta-
communication. Do I wish it were simpler and didn't recourse to this style of
communication, yes, but I think I understand its function.

On the other hand, I do enjoy people regarding their job as an act. A role to
fulfill. When we understand our jobs to be essentially a role to fulfill, it's
liberating in a way. It's no longer you, it's your job personae. Compare
service workers in Japan and Europe. Which ones deal with their situation
better? I believe the Japanese worker has a better understanding of the
situation. They put on their persona and take it from there. To see it any
other way is to see an actor performing a dark character and feeling bad for
the actor. No, to the actor it makes no difference. It's an act.

That said, I've come across very good service workers in Europe as well. They
very well understood their function and were happy to play it out.

~~~
spcoll
> I think she brings up a few good points, but she

Although the article might feel like it could have been written by a woman,
its author Paul Jaskunas is a man.

~~~
arnarbi
It's interesting to think why it feels like written by a woman, I had the same
assumption the whole time.

Maybe it's as simple as the opening sentence, "I'm a Libra", which has a
grammatically feminine noun. I wonder if the feeling depends on the native
language of the reader.

~~~
mc32
I'm taking up some Italian, but I don't think it has anything to do with it.
He could have said Sagittarius of Sagittariuses. No guy I know makes it a
point to announce their "astrological sign" in any kind of conversation. Your
experience may be different, but that's mine.

As an aside, I think writers should try to stick to their core competencies.
This looks like someone trying to write an article around an observation and
came up with nebulous reasoning, hoping it would be a fun read for everyone
and that people would chalk it up as a social commentary and move on, use it
as conversational fodder. (ie. "I read in the NYTimes such and such, ha ha,
don't you think it's funny...)

Unfortunately, lots of these writers lack rigor and seem to go with their gut
on things. It's the easy way out. It's surely easier to meet deadlines that
way, but the product leaves a bit to be desired.

------
analog31
In one of my sidelines, I'm a freelance musician. Over the years I've learned
how to keep a smile on my face, under pretty much any circumstances. This has
proven to be a valuable skill in my day job as well.

The smile is more subtle in the workplace -- just a cheerful disposition --
but it's still there. And it helps that I am in fact a generally cheerful
person.

As for knowing how to show an appropriate level of passion, I would expect
this of a senior level person as well, because they will be interacting with
colleagues, customers, etc.

~~~
A_COMPUTER
An artist friend of mine was mass-defriended on facebook after a vitrirolic
angerpost about religion. Everybody there knew his opinion on religion I know
for a fact many agreed with him, but they didn't want anger and unpleasantness
thrown in their faces. This has undoubtedly affected his ability to get work
in the future.

------
rosstex
I will never succumb to forced indifference!

~~~
ryan-allen
Give it a few years, you wont have to force anything!

------
janethenew
"I am a Libra of Libras" \- I could have stopped reading there. "...the
interview was over and I was leaving the room. As I shut the door behind me,
the committee erupted into laughter" \- of course they did. He probably had
just told them that alignment of planets made him suitable for the job.

Relevant SMBC: [http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3634#comic](http://www.smbc-
comics.com/?id=3634#comic)

~~~
walshemj
In japan they ask you for your blood group on job applications

~~~
janethenew
That's odd. At least, they don't ask about astrological signs. I hope that
they don't. "I am a Libra of Libras" sounds like "I'm a crackpot of crackpots"
to me.

~~~
phaemon
That's odd. Your comments in this thread sound like "I'm not intelligent
enough to identify a metaphor" to me. Strange how those things work, isn't it?

