Smile - You're on Candid Camera
Amanda at Pandagon writes about a study about how smiling may indicate social status and women smile more then men and are expected to be smiling all the time.
Specifically, lower status individuals appear to smile more than higher status individuals.
This is an interesting thought that hadn't occurred to me before. I smile alot. I thought I was just being friendly.
I am always smiling at customer service people in an attempt to get better service (some bank tellers can be so uppity), following the old "You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar". Of course I'm not trying to attract flies but anyhoo. What peeves me is that I have to smile to get pleasant service, or to accomplish what I need to do.
Another example of this is at work. I am in Application Development (IT, programming, whatever you want to call it). In the company I work for, the application developers rely on other technical teams for stuff like test environments, database administration, networking, storage etc etc. My female coworkers have discussed how much easier it is to get services from those teams if you bring cookies, or some other treat, in order to get the work you need done. I have to bring these guys (almost all of them men) presents and make nice for 15 minutes before carefully convincing them my request is valid. I'm wondering if my male collegues need to go to these lengths to get their requests completed. I doubt it. I can't see them bringing treats to other men.
To be fair, I have to consider that technical service teams are notorious for having a 'god-complex' becaue they have the secret passwords to control the hardware, and I have seen that attitude towards male developers as well.
She also writes:
In recent years, I’ve discovered that if I stifle the urge to smile all the time at people, I get more respect. I highly suggest to women experimenting with this themselves.
I am definitely going to try this out. Also consider how you react to people who are smiling vs. with neutral expressions.
1 comment:
Hmmm...something about this doesn't sit right with me, like that feeling in my stomach after I eat a Big Mac. Not so much about the lower status individuals or women smiling more than their counterparts. Indeed, I would say that from my own experience I agree with those statements.
No, I think what what's not sitting right with me is the interpretation. When Amanda at Pandagon writes that:
"In recent years, I’ve discovered that if I stifle the urge to smile all the time at people, I get more respect."
I don't believe that it is necessarily, respect, she is getting. She may get a more efficient and professional result, but if so, I think it's because the other person see's someone who is not wasting time with pleasantries and appears 'all business'.
Also when A Little Batty writes that she has to smile at customer service people to get better service, maybe that works because those customer service people have been dealing with non-smilers all day.
Put the shoe on the other foot for a second and consider how many times you've gone through a cashier who didn't smile or interact with you except to grab your money and hand you a receipt. How did you feel about that transaction? Sure it may have been efficient, but was their any respect for you as a customer?
I know when someone smiles at me it makes me feel a bit better about the service I received or gave.
Yes, the Big Mac might upset my stomach, but at least the smiles are free!
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