The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling by Arlie Russell Hochschild

Author:Arlie Russell Hochschild [Hochschild, Arlie Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Family & Relationships, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Non-Fiction, Mental Health, Emotions, Emotional Labor
ISBN: 9780520272941
Google: whi61UWpoJ4C
Amazon: 0520272943
Goodreads: 13724118
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1983-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

TO OUR CUSTOMERS

To insure that you as a valued customer receive proper courtesy and service we have reviewed our courtesy and service programs with all employees. Some of the basic courtesy and service elements you should expect to receive on each visit to a Winn-Dixie store are:

1. Sincere greeting when you are being checked out.

2. Fast, efficient check-out of your order with the cashier giving you, the customer, complete attention.

3. Proper bagging of your purchases.

4. Efficient and proper handling of your cash, checks, coupons, food stamps, etc.

5. Sincere “Thank You for Shopping Winn-Dixie.”

If for some unknown reason we might have employed a discourteous or rude employee, we ask that you report the incident to the front-end manager in charge or write to the Division Manager, Winn-Dixie Stores, P.O. Box 440, Tampa, Florida 33601.

An investigation will be made and proper corrective action will be taken to insure that you receive courteous service in the future.

Thank you for being a most valued customer of Winn-Dixie.

It would be hard to make a more explicit statement of the customer’s right to a sincere greeting and a sincere thank you, and hard to find a clearer expression of the view that display work and emotion work are part of a job.

By talking to customers about this promotion being a commercial gimmick, the cashiers laid claim to a personal sincerity. As one cashier said to a customer, “I don’t know why [the company] did this. They didn’t have to. I’m really friendly anyway.” By distinguishing her own sincerity from the variety being advertised as for sale, she seems to offer in-spite-of-the-job sincerity. But of course, we may think, it’s her job to do that, too.

Cashiers and salespeople may have to produce short bursts of niceness many times a day. They seldom get a chance to know any one customer very well for very long. But there are other jobs that call for longer and deeper relations with clients. Psychiatrists, social workers, and ministers, for example, are expected to feel concern, to empathize, and yet to avoid “too much” liking or disliking. As Sandy, a dropout social worker in the film A Thousand Clowns, commented: “I spent a long time understanding Raymond. And once I understood him, I hated him, and he’s only nine years old. Some cases I love and some cases I hate, and that’s all wrong for my work.”

Parents have different expectations about what a day-care provider should feel. Some want sympathetic interest in “educational experiences.” Others want warmth and physical nurturing for their children. Still others want full emotional substitutes for themselves and therefore place deeper demands on the day-care provider. In this case, especially, offerings and expectations may not match: “After Timmy’s mother told me she’d made another day-care arrangement, closer to her house, I had a long talk with her, and I began to realize that she expected me to be real upset that Timmy was leaving. I miss him, you know, but I wasn’t that upset about it. They picked him up at my house at 5:30 every day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.