I can deal with "mandatory friendly" policies, for some values of "friendly." Friendly means polite & helpful, right? However, that's not the same as "mandatory smiling and talking to the customers as if they're good buddies."
My friends don't always smile. Especially when they're tired and busy, and very happy to help me but don't have the energy to be gleeful in my direction. Strangers being gleeful in my direction are not friendly; they're usually creepy. And a public note that says "PLEASE CRITIQUE MY FRIENDLINESS" says very clearly, "MY EMPLOYER IS SO SHITTY THEY CANNOT COUNT ON ANYONE WORKING HERE ACTUALLY ENJOYING THEIR JOBS SO THEY HAVE TO MANDATE THAT WE PRETEND LIKE WE DO."
Employees who work retail in places they love tend to be plenty friendly. The ones working in the local cookie shops who know they serve the most awesome cookies are proud to be a part of that. The ones who work in the tiny-weird-import shops are just as enchanted as the customers by the stuff they sell. The ones who work in Pagan shops are *thrilled* to talk about the books, the candles, the statues, tarot card preferences--they're excited to find someone else who shares some interests with them. The gamers who staff the game shops... well.
It's only in stores that pay minimum wage or close to it, and overwork their employees, and demand they put up with stupid pointless rules, and cheat them out of benefits with arcane accounting tricks, that have to *require* them to act friendly to customers. And since they can't actually measure "friendliness," they tend to come up with "the extrovert tv-hero version of friendly," defined by a huge grin.
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My friends don't always smile. Especially when they're tired and busy, and very happy to help me but don't have the energy to be gleeful in my direction. Strangers being gleeful in my direction are not friendly; they're usually creepy. And a public note that says "PLEASE CRITIQUE MY FRIENDLINESS" says very clearly, "MY EMPLOYER IS SO SHITTY THEY CANNOT COUNT ON ANYONE WORKING HERE ACTUALLY ENJOYING THEIR JOBS SO THEY HAVE TO MANDATE THAT WE PRETEND LIKE WE DO."
Employees who work retail in places they love tend to be plenty friendly. The ones working in the local cookie shops who know they serve the most awesome cookies are proud to be a part of that. The ones who work in the tiny-weird-import shops are just as enchanted as the customers by the stuff they sell. The ones who work in Pagan shops are *thrilled* to talk about the books, the candles, the statues, tarot card preferences--they're excited to find someone else who shares some interests with them. The gamers who staff the game shops... well.
It's only in stores that pay minimum wage or close to it, and overwork their employees, and demand they put up with stupid pointless rules, and cheat them out of benefits with arcane accounting tricks, that have to *require* them to act friendly to customers. And since they can't actually measure "friendliness," they tend to come up with "the extrovert tv-hero version of friendly," defined by a huge grin.