My question is "Does emotional labor have side effects?" What kind of trouble can you get yourself in if your job requires to smile all day?
I plan to use next sources:
1. Hochshild, Arlie "The Managed Heart"
It's a book, where Hochshild try to ask and answer questions: What is emotional labor? What do we do when we manage emotions? What are the cost and benefits of managing emotions in private life and at work?
2. Terkel, Studs "Working"
It's a book with collection of interviews. Interviews with people of different professions, including those who perform an emotional labor such as Terry Mason, Airline stewardess. Smile is the first job requirement for Terry's position. She talks about how she and her co-workers manage their emotions at work.
3. "Worker burnout a smiling matter: 'Emotional labour' has business costs",The Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2000,by Carla D'Nan Bass.
The article is about Alicia Grandey's (an assistant professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Penn State University) research of emotional labor's side effects such as stress, burnout,overwork cardiovascular system and weaken the immune system.
4. "BLUES HIT HAPPY WORKERS HARDEST", Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia), February 18, 1999, by RIGGERT E.
The article is about Dr.Charmine Hartel's (senior lecturer in psychology from University of Queensland) research of emotional labor and negative effects it has on worker's psychological well-being.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Post # 6: interview from Terkel
I choose two interview from Terkel: Pat Zimmerman, alternative school teacher and Dolores Dante, waitress.
Pat Zimmerman is a teacher in an alternative school for kids, who is normal in general sense, except that fact, that they are from poor families in a poor neighborhood. As he said:"This community has experience its war on poverty and hasn't changed. The kids now don't believe in politics. They don't believe things get better for them. There's feeling of hopeless and despair"(490). This interview looks to me as in illustration for the Paul Krugman's "Confronting Inequality", where he talks about the circle and rising inequality: born rich - be rich, born poor - be poor. And if people don't want to break the first circle (everyone wants to stay rich), because of increasing inequality poor people UNABLE to break the second circle. So, these kids from the poor neighborhood don't believe in, which we were talking during this semester, "class mobility". They don't believe that they can do better then their parents, majority of whom "are on welfare...They screw up...". But pat is trying to do something for these kids. He is trying to show them that they can do better. They can finish school. They can get stable full-time job. May be they will not become "doctors or lawyers. It's not because they don't know. It's that they have no expectations". So, Pat is trying to restore those expectation in these kids.
Pat also talk about the satisfaction from his work. He doesn't make a lot of money, but he thinks that the money is not that important. The satisfaction from work itself and the results of his work which is changing kid's lives for better is more important. As he said: "I run into people who say how much they admire what I do. It's embarrassing. I don't make any judgments about my work, whether it's great or worthless. It's just what I do best.It's the only job I want to do"(493).
Personally, I admire his work. Not everyone want to do or able to do the same kind of work!
My second choice of the interview is Dolores Dante, "just" waitress. I choose this one, probably, because currently I am a waitress myself and I understand, feel and experience everything what she is talking about! Long hours on your feet with heavy trays. Complicated relationship with other staff because of competition and a "war" for better customer, and a jealousy when you got one. Your boss, who wants you be the best, but not better than he is. And of course customers! They are nice, mean, generous, greedy,friendly, arrogant, moody and so on, and so on. And it's part of your job to know how to handle each and everyone of them! And its, actually, seams more important how you smile and treat your customer than how you place a plate in front of him. As we see in a shot fragment from the movie "Office space" manager said to the waitress:" customer can get his hamburger anywhere. So we need to create the atmosphere".
Even that the interview with Dolores was taking about 30 years ago, I must say: nothing changed! Waitressing is still a hard physical labor combine with a hard emotional labor. Or maybe it's an emotional labor in a first place and a physical labor after that? Another question just came to me: why you are so tied in the end of the shift: because you were on your feet for 8 hours, caring a heavy tray or because you were smiling and pretending to be happy for 8 hours? What is more exhausted: physical or emotional labor?
Pat Zimmerman is a teacher in an alternative school for kids, who is normal in general sense, except that fact, that they are from poor families in a poor neighborhood. As he said:"This community has experience its war on poverty and hasn't changed. The kids now don't believe in politics. They don't believe things get better for them. There's feeling of hopeless and despair"(490). This interview looks to me as in illustration for the Paul Krugman's "Confronting Inequality", where he talks about the circle and rising inequality: born rich - be rich, born poor - be poor. And if people don't want to break the first circle (everyone wants to stay rich), because of increasing inequality poor people UNABLE to break the second circle. So, these kids from the poor neighborhood don't believe in, which we were talking during this semester, "class mobility". They don't believe that they can do better then their parents, majority of whom "are on welfare...They screw up...". But pat is trying to do something for these kids. He is trying to show them that they can do better. They can finish school. They can get stable full-time job. May be they will not become "doctors or lawyers. It's not because they don't know. It's that they have no expectations". So, Pat is trying to restore those expectation in these kids.
Pat also talk about the satisfaction from his work. He doesn't make a lot of money, but he thinks that the money is not that important. The satisfaction from work itself and the results of his work which is changing kid's lives for better is more important. As he said: "I run into people who say how much they admire what I do. It's embarrassing. I don't make any judgments about my work, whether it's great or worthless. It's just what I do best.It's the only job I want to do"(493).
Personally, I admire his work. Not everyone want to do or able to do the same kind of work!
My second choice of the interview is Dolores Dante, "just" waitress. I choose this one, probably, because currently I am a waitress myself and I understand, feel and experience everything what she is talking about! Long hours on your feet with heavy trays. Complicated relationship with other staff because of competition and a "war" for better customer, and a jealousy when you got one. Your boss, who wants you be the best, but not better than he is. And of course customers! They are nice, mean, generous, greedy,friendly, arrogant, moody and so on, and so on. And it's part of your job to know how to handle each and everyone of them! And its, actually, seams more important how you smile and treat your customer than how you place a plate in front of him. As we see in a shot fragment from the movie "Office space" manager said to the waitress:" customer can get his hamburger anywhere. So we need to create the atmosphere".
Even that the interview with Dolores was taking about 30 years ago, I must say: nothing changed! Waitressing is still a hard physical labor combine with a hard emotional labor. Or maybe it's an emotional labor in a first place and a physical labor after that? Another question just came to me: why you are so tied in the end of the shift: because you were on your feet for 8 hours, caring a heavy tray or because you were smiling and pretending to be happy for 8 hours? What is more exhausted: physical or emotional labor?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Post#5: interview with Daisy Kinard
I admit that I choose this interview with Daisy Kinard made by Richard Lieberman on August 9, 1978, because it was the easiest one. Clear, informative, a lot of details about Daisy's life and her family. I think that interviewer was trying to figure out why Daisy moved from South to North. Why did she move North, and choose New York in particular. Did she like it? If that was what she expected? But beside answers for those questions we can get additional information about social problems in America in 40's such as minimum wage, hard physical labor for men, women and teenagers, lack of education, racism and discrimination of African-Americans.
So, Daisy Kinard at the moment when interview was taking was about 54-55 years old. I assumed it: she said that she finished high school in 1941,she must be about 17 then, so she suppose to be about 55 in 1978. She gown up in North Carolina. She is an African-American women. Again, she didn't say that directly, but she is talking about walking to school almost 2 miles because: "there would be two buses for white children coming along... the black bus would always broke down". So, the segregation between black and white was pretty strict: black and white kids couldn't use the same bus. And they also, probably, had separate schools for white and black kids. In the same time Daisy pointed out that in other states the situation is better:"education was a hard thing for us in the south. Having a chance to come north just to try to get an education was an asset." From history we know that the Civil rights movement more developed and successful in the north states such as New York. Daisy gave an example of less discrimination in New York than in other places:"white people speak to you, and they treat you nice. And they riding the same train!.."
Before Daisy left her home town she worked some very hard physical jobs with a minimum wage at a tobacco factory, tobacco and potato fields full of tobacco worms and rattlesnakes. Those jobs were "a frightening experience" for Daisy:" you work ten or twelve hours a day. Every night I went to bed burning from the sun. I could hardly sleep from working in the sun so many hours".
Daisy's parents were very supportive about her wish to move to NY. First, her father planed to send her to college, but something didn't work out and everyone were very disappointed. But later they decided that Daisy still need to go somewhere to look for the better life. And because her aunt were already in Brooklyn, NY, daisy came to live with her. At first sight New York was a great disappointment for Daisy:'' rats,roaches, dirty buildings. I cried many dark nights". But she adjusted herself and her expectations. She ended up in La Guardia and she said:"here I am in LaGuardia and this a great fulfillment of mine".
So, Daisy Kinard at the moment when interview was taking was about 54-55 years old. I assumed it: she said that she finished high school in 1941,she must be about 17 then, so she suppose to be about 55 in 1978. She gown up in North Carolina. She is an African-American women. Again, she didn't say that directly, but she is talking about walking to school almost 2 miles because: "there would be two buses for white children coming along... the black bus would always broke down". So, the segregation between black and white was pretty strict: black and white kids couldn't use the same bus. And they also, probably, had separate schools for white and black kids. In the same time Daisy pointed out that in other states the situation is better:"education was a hard thing for us in the south. Having a chance to come north just to try to get an education was an asset." From history we know that the Civil rights movement more developed and successful in the north states such as New York. Daisy gave an example of less discrimination in New York than in other places:"white people speak to you, and they treat you nice. And they riding the same train!.."
Before Daisy left her home town she worked some very hard physical jobs with a minimum wage at a tobacco factory, tobacco and potato fields full of tobacco worms and rattlesnakes. Those jobs were "a frightening experience" for Daisy:" you work ten or twelve hours a day. Every night I went to bed burning from the sun. I could hardly sleep from working in the sun so many hours".
Daisy's parents were very supportive about her wish to move to NY. First, her father planed to send her to college, but something didn't work out and everyone were very disappointed. But later they decided that Daisy still need to go somewhere to look for the better life. And because her aunt were already in Brooklyn, NY, daisy came to live with her. At first sight New York was a great disappointment for Daisy:'' rats,roaches, dirty buildings. I cried many dark nights". But she adjusted herself and her expectations. She ended up in La Guardia and she said:"here I am in LaGuardia and this a great fulfillment of mine".
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