[acb-hsp] FW: [employment] Faking Enthusiasm

[Baracco, Andrew W]

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Baracco [mailto:wq6r at socal.rr.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 6:34 PM
To: Baracco, Andrew W
Subject: Fw: [employment] Faking Enthusiasm


Something I can identify with.
-----Original Message----- 
From: peter altschul 
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 12:49 PM 
To: Acbemp 
Subject: [employment] Faking Enthusiasm 

Why Faking Enthusiasm Is The Latest Job Requirement
  By Anya Kamenetz February 5, 2013
  Increasingly, companies want loving the job to be part of the 
job (though they're less eager to pay for it).  But when our 
required professional persona is at odds with our selves, we all 
suffer.  Is there a solution?
  Sooner or later, most jobs require us to exhibit some emotion 
that we don't necessarily feel.  Flight attendants and waiters 
are supposed to smile when they hand you a drink; bill collectors 
are supposed to scare you into coming across with the cash.  
Nurses and preschool teachers are supposed to be comforting, even 
loving.  When your job requires playing a part, though, it's hard 
to figure out where you begin and your job ends.  The experience 
can be alienating, even dehumanizing.
  Award-winning UC Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, 
in her book stThe Managed Heart coined the term "emotional labor" 
to describe the curious situation where "seeming to love the job 
becomes part of the job."
  This concept has been in the air lately.  Josh Eidelson wrote 
in stThe Nationst about D.C.-area Starbucks baristas exhorted to 
support a corporate pro-austerity campaign by physically writing 
a slogan on cups.  "CEO's hawking 'shared sacrifice' are a dime a 
dozen," Eidelson noted.  "A working-class seal of approval is 
much more valuable, even if--like so much in the American 
workplace--it's coerced."
  Timothy Noah wrote in stThe New Republicst about how Pret A 
Manger requires its employees to master "Pret behaviors," such as 
"has presence," "creates a sense of fun," and "is happy to be 
themself." Yes--in order to sell you a bacon sandwich, employees 
must be fully self-actualized.  And the amount that they touch 
fellow-employees is considered to be a positive indicator of 
sales, not a red flag for sexual-harassment lawsuits.
  "If you have to love the job to do it well, the logic goes, 
then we don't want people to be in it for the money."
  Usually we only think of emotional labor as belonging to the 
low-wage service economy.  In fact, economist Nancy Folbre argued 
in her great book stThe Invisible Heartst that the reason that 
jobs like preschool teacher and social worker are so low-paid and 
devalued is precisely because they require so much emotional 
labor.  If you have to love the job to do it well, the logic 
goes, then we don't want people to be in it for the money.
  But as Hochschild wrote, "most of us have jobs that require 
some handling of other peoples' feelings and our own, and in that 
sense we are all partly flight attendants." Emotional labor 
exists even in the startup world, which is supposed to prize 
authenticity and pure technical skill.  Lauren Bacon, a web 
developer, technology entrepreneur, and author, wrote in the 
Huffington Post last week about technology and "empathy 
work"--the unpaid, not-part-of-the-job description stuff that 
(usually) women do in the startup world, by, for example, 
bringing the team together, projecting a positive image in their 
spare time on social media, or reminding everyone to eat lunch.
  Bacon sees women in tech companies often being marginalized to 
""people" roles like HR, communications, project management, 
admin, and user experience.  "One could almost--if one were 
feeling cheeky--rename these roles employee empathy, customer 
empathy, team empathy, user empathy, and boss empathy: all of 
them require deep skills in emotional intelligence, verbal and 
written communications, and putting oneself in the shoes of 
others," she says.  All this work is crucial to a company's 
success, but valued at a lower level than the hard-core coding.
  Is there any way to make peace with the emotional heavy lifting 
that our jobs may require? Bacon suggests that employers and job 
candidates do a better job of talking about and adequately 
valuing people skills and not offloading all the emotional labor 
to a few people.  For individuals, choosing a job that's a good 
fit for your natural temperament is important.  But so is 
spending enough time away from work to find out how you really 
feel.
  Copyright B) 2013 Mansueto Ventures LLC.  All rights reserved.
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