UNIT 2

For this unit I am going to discuss "emotional labor" from chapter 4.

I'm sure most of you are like me and have had to pay your dues serving tables while in college.  It's easy money (most of the time) and the hours are flexible.  Over the last 4 years, i have worked in 3 restaurants.  All have been completely different menus with everything from Italian to seafood and steaks.  I consider myself to be a good people person so being a server has never really been a challenge.  As you know, one of the keys to good service is someone who is upbeat and personable.  Nobody wants to be waited on who has a bad attitude and you can tell there is a million other places they would want to be instead of serving you.  However, everybody has their good and bad days and sometimes that one little complaint or comment by a customer or a co-worker can just ruin your day.

Emotional dissonance in the work place might be one of the hardest things to do (at least for me).  This is when you have to project one emotion while feeling another.  For instance, lets say you have had a rough day of classes, maybe you got a test back and you did not do so well or you have a lot of homework that you need to get done after work.  You are in a pissed off mood because you feel overwhelmed and wish you could have got the night off to finish your school obligations.  I know that this has happened to me plenty of times.  To keep your boss happy and your tips high you have to dig down deep inside and project yourself to be feeling happy and excited to be working.

I could go on for days on times when i felt like just wanting to walk out of the restaurant and say screw it.  When i worked for a restaurant downtown last year, i always seemed to get the shifts that were the worst times for me and could never get anybody to pick them up.  It didn't help that our manager was living on the reputation that the restaurant had 30 years ago.  She was way up there in age and was stuck in her ways.  Things had to be done a certain way because that was how it has always been done.  Needless to say, me and all the other servers hated working there (most of the servers were friends of mine) but the money was really good and you never were stuck there past 10:00 at night.  There were so many days where i had to use emotional dissonance because I knew that if i didn't then i wouldn't make any money.  People are not going to tip a person who has a terrible attitude. 

People in all different types of professions experience emotional dissonance on a weekly basis, not just service industry people.  When it's time for me to start my career i'm sure there will be days when I have to put my happy face on when i'm not really happy.  The point is the one's that suck it up and deal with it are the ones that stick around and the one's who let their emotions get the best of them are the one's being told they are fired.