Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Intro of essay # 3

What do you mean by what type of work do I think we do? “We do costumer service” responded Severine, when I once asked my friend and coworker Severine how she will call our job type. This is how the whole discussion on job types, and workers emotions started between us. We were on our way home that night after work and I told her that I learned from my English class that same day that l service jobs were considered as “emotional labor” as well as some “industrial labor”. She still couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. Then, I told her that there is relationship between the type of job people perform and the emotions they display at work and in real life. That’s when she told me that her emotions have nothing to do with her work as at work, she just smiles while taking care of people and keeps her emotions for her real life. In other words, you have to detach all emotions related to this type of job in order to perform it well.
Well, that’s what I use to believe too, until the day I read “Exploring The Managed Heart” from Arlie Hoschild and started wondering what is “emotional labor”, “industrial labor” and what is their impact on workers emotions.

6 comments:

  1. Great start! It is certainly possible that not all workers, including your colleague, experience things in the way Hochild describes, so that might be interesting to explore.

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  2. You might want to research "emotional intelligence" a much more politically correct term for emotional labor. It explains a little further the aesthetic of emotions as labor. It explains it as a skill and could be illustrated as an abuse of workers because not everyone has this skill. Just something you can look into :)

    Read this:
    http://eqi.org/commdef.htm

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  3. Thanks JG, I'll see if I have time to reshape it or not. But will do my best. Really nice of you to give me your opinion !

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  4. That's interesting, JG- I think the difference you're pointing to is emotional intelligence as the skill, emotional labor as the work people are being asked to do. So I'm not sure if it's a question of politically correctness, so much as two terms that describe two different things, and I agree both might be interesting in your essay.

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  5. But now that I am looking closelly to them it is going to move me away from my original subject...So am not really sure. Let see 1rst what I come up with and please let me know what you think.
    Thanks again.

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  6. Our focus often changes as we write - keep posting and I look forward to reading more.

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