Chances are, most of us have worked a customer service job at some point in our lives. They’re often stepping stones to other careers, but there’s definitely an art to those jobs as well.
If you’re the sort of person who can serve people every day and never lose hope for humanity, you’ll never be out of a job for very long. It’s not easy, and it’s not for everyone.
And, if you’ve had one of those public-facing jobs, you’ve probably also felt the pressure to wear a smile at all times.
Regardless of what might be happening behind the scenes, the face the public sees just has to be happy and smiling at all times.
And hey, if you make tips, pushing through a shift with a fake smile plastered on your lips can actually pay off. But as a new study shows, it comes with a price of its own.
It’s probably not a complete surprise, but the study found that emotions that you have to suppress to fake smile through a shift at work can come back to haunt you.
Researchers at Penn State and the University of Buffalo found that employees who force their smiles through a shift were at greater risk of heavy drinking after their shift ends.
It’s a story that many in the service industry will be familiar with.
For the study, the researchers examined survey data from the National Survey of Work Stress and Health, in which 1,592 participants were asked how often they faked a smile, how often they drank after work, how much control they felt they had at work, and how impulsive they typically were.
For many in the survey, the faking of positive emotions and suppressing of natural emotions wore enough on them that they’d turn to alcohol.
As Penn State psychology professor Alicia Grandey stated , “Faking and suppressing emotions with customers was related to drinking beyond the stress of the job or feeling negatively.”
Those customer service reps weren’t just hoisting pints to blow off steam from some troublesome customers — it was about control.
“It wasn’t just feeling badly that makes them reach for a drink,” Grandey explained. “Instead, the more they have to control negative emotions at work, the less they are able to control their alcohol intake after work.”
Grandey said that for people prone to giving into impulses, the connection was more pronounced.
“The relationship between surface acting and drinking after work was stronger for people who are impulsive or who lack personal control over behavior at work,” she said.
The impulse to order another cold one gets harder to resist, too.
“If you’re impulsive or constantly told how to do your job, it may be harder to rein in your emotions all day, and when you get home, you don’t have that self-control to stop after one drink.”
One other interesting finding was how the nature of the job changed the relationship between fake smiling and drinking.
Those who work in jobs where they might only encounter a particular customer once, like at a coffee shop or call center, showed a stronger connection between surface acting and drinking than those who had ongoing relationships with those they serve, like in health care or education.
That makes sense, especially in occupations that are more rewarding.
“Nurses, for example, may amplify or fake their emotions for clear reasons,” Grandey said. “They’re trying to comfort a patient or build a strong relationship.”
It’s the more disposable relationships that lead to issues.
“Someone who is faking emotions for a customer they may never see again, that may not be as rewarding, and may ultimately be more draining or demanding.”
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In the end, Grandey suggested that employers might use this study to improve their workplaces.
“Employers may want to consider allowing employees to have a little more autonomy at work, like they have some kind of choice on the job,” she said. “And when the emotional effort is clearly linked to financial or relational rewards, the effects aren’t so bad.”
h/t ScienceDaily
