By Dylan Lightfoot
At an ice cream shop on Bardstown road – call it Scoop-and-Jive – I stood in a long line as a crew of a half-dozen kids sang bouncy songs with Disneyan zeal while kneading toppings into globs of ice cream. This was clearly a brilliant idea by the management: patrons will have a better ice cream experience if the help sings in unison, like bored children on a road trip, silly songs reworded to be ice cream -relevant. The customers exchanged forced, nervous smiles, paid for their sundaes, and left.
For some reason, plain ol’ prompt-and-courteous just ain’t enough anymore. In a service economy where service so often sucks massive wind, the management will gladly substitute fake obsequious enthusiasm … even if you don’t like it.
It’s difficult to imagine what sort of happy-faced sociopath relishes affected exuberance by service personnel. Indeed, as anyone who serves the public can attest, most are indifferent to it. Others have themselves waited on the masses and thus sympathize with the poor souls behind the counter. Customers who demand McDonald’s-commercial caliber service are few. Most people simply don’t give a damn; they just want their freakin’ ice cream, thank you.
Aside from the handful who want their burritos served with a Shirley Temple grin, who benefits from this compulsory sycophancy? Eager-beaver perkiness is displayed to indifferent customers while the manager sits in the back counting receipts and the owners/corporate officers only come around every fiscal quarter or so. Clearly it has little to do with pleasing patrons and everything to do with keeping the wage monkeys in line with mild dehumanization. Why else would they have to wear stupid uniforms and learn silly cheers?
An ex-girlfriend of mine worked at a Tex-Mex-themed steakhouse – call it Fumblefeed – where servers-in-training had to respond with a throaty “yee-haw!” when trainers gave the rallying cry: “Texas friendly!” To “El Paso!” they answered “Bang! Bang!” while pantomiming six-shooters with their index fingers. “Texas friendly,” according to the Kentucky-based chain’s creed, isn’t something learned in a book, but “something you must have in your heart.”
But Fumblefeed’s training workbook gives a frightening glimpse at the cold clockwork of the corporate cheer machine. Cartoon caricatures show new hires the ropes. Frankie the Food-Borne Illness, an amoebic ne’er-do-well, stresses the importance of hand sanitation and warns that, at Fumblefeed, “there’s no place for finger lickin’, even though our food is that good!” Tickles the Time-clock welcomes initiates into the “Happy Shiny Gang,” and reveals the secrets to “WOWing” guests. Child labor laws apparently don’t prohibit treating laborers like children. Tickles is so bubbly, it’s easy to forget he’s actually the shrewd overseer who brokers hourly increments of servers’ lives for two dollars and change.
This is typical of servility coaching at corporate service establishments, but it took the genteel evil genius of Wal-Mart to create the archetypal boot-licker position, as well as the saddest display of feigned employee avidity on record.
The cheerful greeter in the blue vest handing out carts at every Wal-Mart entrance has become an American icon, putting a schmaltzy home-town spin on the buying of Chinese sweatshop imports at low-ball prices. Here again, the corporate office employs a glad-handing lackey as a public relations buffer – mercifully not paid too much to be eligible for public assistance.
And what could be more bogus than the pre-shift pep-rally, where adult employees are compelled to carry on like a varsity cheering squad? Independent Online’s Jim Hightower writes in his criticism of the megalo-retailer: “ … employees (or “associates,” as the company grandiosely calls them) gather … each morning for a pep rally, where they are all required to join in the Wal-Mart cheer: ‘Gimme a W!’ shouts the cheerleader; ‘W!’ the dutiful employees respond. ‘Gimme an A!’ And so on.” Perhaps this is why Wal-Mart sees 100 percent or more annual turnover: “associates” are denied the inalienable right to have a crappy day at work.
Yes, those who wait on us are actually people, and not step-and-fetch peons. Next time you hit the department store or burger joint and the cashier seems to be trying just a little too hard, tell the manager you don’t appreciate the phony kiss-ass attitude, and if the corporate officers want to express their gratitude for your patronage, they can come stand by the front door and thank you personally. They will appreciate your feedback.
