Emotional Labour, by Anna Van Dyk

There is perhaps no better an example of emotional labour than the hospitality industry. The term, first coined in 1983 by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, quite simply refers to the act of suppressing feelings, or inducing sparkly ones, in order to convince your customers, boss or colleagues that you are nothing short of wildly happy. 

Of course, this performance is not only confined to the hospitality industry. But in all my working roles prior to being front of house at The Restaurant, I had never felt the pressure to hide my feelings as I did there. 

For a brief period whilst living in Cape Town, for example, I worked a job where all three employees in the office complained incessantly about the office space, about one another, about the heat, about their lives, about whatever the hell they wanted to complain about. It was exhausting. My job after that was in a slightly bigger office, with vastly nicer co-workers, but the inner office gossip and moaning still lurked behind the water coolers. In these sterile 9 to 5 worlds of paper cuts and whirring aircon units, there seemed no need to hide internal grumblings. 

How different the world of hospitality is. 

I learned very quickly that the entire reason I existed in the eco-system of the business was to make people feel good about themselves. Regardless of what was going on in my personal life, I was expected, from the moment I stepped into the room, to smack on a smile and dazzle the shit out of every single customer that came through the door. 

Some days were easier to do this than others. One afternoon, just before I went in to service, I checked my phone to see a sad text message from my mother regarding her health. I had no time to duck to the bathroom to process the news alone. I spent the next six hours, in fact, slowly turning over the news that my mother had bone cancer, all while performing the role of gracious hostess, affably making small talk with customers about their trips to France, their new shoes, their new dog, Benjy. It was perhaps the most torturous service I survived.

Being in the service industry is essentially being paid to act as though you care: about the temperature of the wine; about the way in which a customer likes their pasta served; about the well-being of people who will immediately forget about you the moment they leave the room. If I thought listening to co-workers moan all day was exhausting, I was supremely wrong. It turns out, pretending to be constantly happy is a far more draining task. 

Some days, my mask would slip. In those moments, I would accept that the world of hospitality was not my calling. I was floored at the ease with which my colleagues would accept the wrath of rude or demanding customers, how they would hold themselves together despite whatever was going on in their private lives. 

I, on the other hand, found myself in a few scenarios where I just could not stomach the appalling behaviour of certain diners. The pressures of my own world became harder to hide behind my Receptionist Mask after the ill-treatment I would occasionally receive. One scenario that comes to mind was when a woman demanded I take her salad main off her bill because she felt it was “too cold”. Incredulous to her request, I declined to do so, but offered her instead a dessert or coffee or replacement main on the house. In hindsight, what I should have done (and what any of the other restaurant managers would have done) is take the damn thing off the bill. My failure to play the game of cheerful, willing server resulted in her calling me an asshole, and declaring that she would never eat at The Restaurant ever again.

Working front of house stems very much from a love of caring for others, and making them feel special and valued through the act of service. But it is also a game of deception. We smile a little bigger than other people do at their jobs. We turn up with the weight of family dramas or break ups or financial stresses on our shoulders and bury them deep, deep within us in order to do our jobs properly. And at the end of the night, as we fall into bed with aching feet and jelly brains, we have to either feel that the emotional labour was worth it, or we resign ourselves to the fact that it is time to move on to a new office job where being 50% happy on the odd occasion is acceptable.

Because, heaven knows, the pay is certainly not what keeps us coming back for more.