I changed the last part of essay # 3

As we saw it in Mike’s case, the excess of “physical labor” if not perceived as a carrier, can induce some emotional state of being. It can make the worker feel some negative emotions about his work, himself and others.
For customer-service representatives what matter the most is the pressure exerted by the boss on workers to do the job in a very specific way, it is not the job itself. Because it make the workers swing between happy to very sad moods. But for the workers who see customer-service as a carrier, the performance of the job is like practicing one of their hobbies.
In any case, maybe workers should start choosing their carriers in function of what they are good at, and more what they enjoy doing. Because as mentioned by Burling in his article, the happiest workers he observed were the ones that weren’t forced to display an emotion that wasn’t theirs. These people have fun and enjoy their jobs whether physical or service. Because in Mike’s case all he’s asking for is some recognition of his work.
In sum, for both type of job maybe what can make a difference in the “emotional cost” of working is what the worker himself is looking for in a job. Some of us need to see a result of our work like a finished product for others, it might be just the sentiment of belonging to a certain type of group and the interactions they have with the people in the group; more some are looking for a good monetary compensation for their work while others it is the sentiment of creating happiness in others.
As for my friend Severine, she changed department. At the beginning of May, she went to the Cargo department where she will have a very different assignment and a nine to five fixed schedule with no risk of having to stay overtime. Her problem she said with the tickets sales department was her constant late night shifts; she had to find a babysitter who would stay late with her son until she’s back. This was always a struggle for her because no one wanted to work late babysitting her one year old son. Well, just as many low wage workers in the United States, one more who’s struggling with child care.

A new version of essay 3

“We do costumer service” responded Severine, when I once asked my friend and coworker Severine how she would call our job at the airport as airline employees. 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 service jobs were considered as “emotional labor” as well as some “physical labor”. She still couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. Then, I told her that there is a 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. She just smiles while taking care of people at work, and keeps her emotions for real life. In other words, you have to detach all emotions related to this type of job in order to perform it at the best of your abilities.
Well, that’s what I used to believe too, until the day I read a passage from “Exploring the Managed Heart.” a book from Arlie Hoschild that talks about the “commercialization of human feeling” and started wondering what is “emotional labor” how is it related to “physical labor” and “mental labor”; what is emotional labor’s impact on workers’ private life, and their life at work itself.
But first let’s see how the nature of labor changed trough time in the United States. Until the 1800sthe type of labor that was practiced in U.S was farming. Millions of enslaved African-Americans were working in the plantations o cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice in the southern region of the U.S. Then what follows is a period of rapid industrialization that was favorable to the massive production and commercialization of goods. In other words, the 19th century was more characterized by factory jobs which are commonly known as “physical labor” because of the physical effort they demand. From the advent of the 2000s to present, the type of labor that is practiced is more of service type; demanding more interpersonal contact, and a certain state of mind from the worker in order to perform the job.
Nowadays, we still see both “physical and service labor with a predominance for service jobs. In the case of this discussion, we are more concerned by what they both might have in common: the emotional cost of doing their job. What is the impact of these two types of jobs on workers; eventually which one affects more workers emotions? Hoschild described their individual implications in these terms: physical labor require “coordination of mind and arm, mind and finger, and mind and shoulder” while service labor in the case of a flight attendant pushing heavy meals carts, preparing and organizing emergency landings for example, require “physical labor,…mental work,…she is doing something more, something I define as emotional labor.”(Hoschild 7). Yes it is in trying to draw a line between what both physical and service jobs require from workers that she came up with the term of “emotional labor”.
Obviously, both physical and service labors imply emotions. Again in this case we are referring to the feelings of workers toward their job or just the feelings induced by the practice of a job while on the job or more in their private life.
Certain type of emotions for workers like Severine and I, who perform a service job may be part of the job requirements. We have to display “happiness to serve” others at work. But, some other emotions displayed by workers toward work and outside work are the consequence of practicing a job that they may not like or enjoy doing as discussed later.
For workers who do physical labor, officially their work requires nothing more than physical effort. But, as we are about to see in Mike Lefevre’s interview with Terkel “Who Build the Pyramids?” in the book “Working” there is more involved in this type of labor. These workers deal with muscles pain that they have to deny in order to continuing working; there is no social life at work as interpersonal interactions are not necessary; alienation from self and from work itself is a major issue among workers.
Here is a longtime worker in a steel Mill, Mike who’s testimony describe his feelings toward his work and how these feelings affect his everyday life as follows: “It’s hard to take pride in a bridge you’re never gonna cross,…You’re mass-producing things and you never see the end result of it.”(Terkel xxxi). Because he’s at the beginning of a chain line, he doesn’t see the finished product of his work; he doesn’t know where the steel bars him and his coworkers lift everyday go. It is indeed hard to appreciate a job if one can’t tell what the result of his work is and can’t point it to anyone. This is why Mike compares the finished product of his work to the Pyramids, the Empire State Building; no one thinks of the hard work of their builders, people just enjoy them.(Terkel xxxii). There is so much frustration, and lack of self-esteem in Mike that he directs his anger to anyone that annoys him including his wife. This is a price of physical work that is not exposed.
Now in the case of service labor employees, the involvement of emotions in their work is a very different case. For most or all these jobs, workers have to be willing to “suppress” some emotions and “display” other ones as predetermined by their future or actual employers.
In fact, management of “service Jobs” put a high pressure on their employees to make them display an attitude that represents their goodwill of delivering an outstanding service to their clients. For those customer-service representatives who are not comfortable in interpersonal interactions, these techniques may push them to their limit, and induce them in a situation of stress.
In the article “May I Help You Becomes an Issue in Customer-Service Jobs”, written after a Verizon call center employees complain about the stress they endure at work, the author reports that as per the Bureau of Labor Statistics “nearly half of all recorded occupational stress cases occur among technical, sales and administrative support workers, the category that includes customer-service representatives and the median length of absence for occupational stress is more than four times that of other work place injuries and illnesses.” (Williams Walsh 14). As per this article, the customer-service jobs are the cause of half of the reported occupation stress by workers. In other words customer-service jobs put many people in work related disability that is four times harder to heal than any other work related disability. Employees of the Verizon call center told Williams Walsh that the cause of their stress “is not selling …but having to do it according to standard scripts and procedures when common sense tells them not to.” (Williams Walsh 14). Because they are watched and they know that the evaluation of their works depend not on the “good job performance” but, on how well they follow the company’s instructions on proposing to the client a product he doesn’t need. These workers do everything they can to save a job that requires frequent mandatory overtime that take over their family time. This just reminds me of Severine. As a ticket sales agent who has a one year old son at home, she almost never gets to leave work on time. Every time our incoming flights are delayed from Paris, she has to stay and rebook delayed and angry passengers who are going beyond New York. She’s not happy because of the workload she has to endure but at the same time she has a son to feed; she can’t afford to lose her job, and more sometimes she needs that extra money. So, she chose not to show her unhappiness at work and just do her job. This is exactly what is creating stress and unhappiness in customer-service worker’s personal life. By repressing their real feelings in order to induce happiness in other people they end up with ambiguous emotions toward their work and even outside work.
Speaking of workers happiness and their work conditions, the research the University of California conducted revealed that “Faking your feelings at work, especially if your boss pressures you to do it, is an important factor in burnout.” (Burling F4). These findings were discussed in the article “ Faking happiness detrimental to workers.”. The author in explaining the relationship between worker’s happiness and their work conditions says that workers who work without any pressure from their boss are the happiest customer-service representatives.(Burling F4). In other words people who see customer-service as a carrier weren’t sensitive to management’s supervision because they don’t fake anything while doing their job; everything they do comes naturally and freely. But for others, like some of the call center employees the article is about, the management has to help them persuade the client that they are happy to serve by giving them mirrors so they can look at their own image while on the phone with clients.(Burling F4). If they see a happy worker talking that means the client perceives a happy worker therefore the transaction will have a happy ending.
As we saw Mike’s case, the excess of “physical labor” if not perceived as a carrier it can induce some emotional state of being. It can make the worker feel some negative emotions about his work, himself and others. For customer-service representatives what matter the most is the pressure exerted by the boss on workers to do the job in a very specific way, it is not the job itself. Because it make the workers swing between happy to very sad moods.
In any case, maybe workers should start choosing their carriers in function of what they are good at, and more what they enjoy doing. Because as mentioned by Burling in his article, the happiest workers he observed were the ones that weren’t forced to display an emotion that wasn’t theirs. These people have fun and enjoy their jobs whether physical or service.
As for my friend Severine, she changed department. At the beginning of May, she went to the Cargo department where she will have a very different assignment and a nine to five fixed schedule with no risk of having to stay overtime. Her problem she said with the tickets sales department was with her constant late shifts she had to find a babysitter who would stay late with her son until she’s back. This was always a struggle for her because no one wanted to work late babysitting a one year old.

HERE WE GO !

The almost last essay is here but I still don't have a title yet for it !

Prof. T. I was wondering how to get your feed back on this essay so that I can correct it before Friday. Since I can't attend any of the afternoon tutoring sessions this week then, I'll see you in class tomorrow.

“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 service jobs were considered as “emotional labor” as well as some “physical labor”. She still couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. Then, I told her that, there is a 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” how is it related to “physical labor” and “mental labor”; what is emotional labor’s impact on workers private life and at work itself.
But first, let’s define labor to have a better idea of what we are talking about. As per the online merrian-webster dictionary, labor is a “human activity that provides the goods or services in an economy”. That means anyone who works for wages by producing a product or something that is not tangible that we commonly call "service". Its nature has changed through time in America through time. Until the 1800 the type of labor that was practiced in the United States was farming. Millions of enslaved African-Americans were working in the plantations of cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice in the southern region of the U.S. Then what follows is a period of rapid industrialization that was favorable to the massive production and commercialization of goods. In others words the 19th century was more characterized by factory jobs which are commonly known as “physical labor” because of the physical effort they demand. From the advent of the 2000s to present, the type of labor that is practiced is more of service type; demanding more mental implication or certain state of minds from the worker in order to sale it.
Nowadays, we still see both “physical labor” and “mental labor” but in the case of this discussion, we are more concerned by what they both might have in common: the feelings they require workers to produce or to exclude from their consciousness in order to do their job. Hoschild described their individual implications as follows in her book, physical labor “require coordination of mind and arm, mind and finger, and mind and shoulder” while mental labor simply require “mental coordination” (Hoschild 6). But, in trying to draw a line between what they both require from the workers she came up with the term of “emotional labor”.
Apparently, both physical and mental labors imply emotions. But again, let’s define the word emotions. They are “conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.” In this case, one is referring to the feelings of the workers toward their job or, just the feelings induced by the practice of a job on the job, and in their private life.
Emotions for some workers (mental or service jobs) are part of the job requirements for others (both service and physical jobs), it is not a requirement but a consequence of practicing a job that they do not like or enjoy doing for a long time. But the ways they affect both types of workers are different.
For workers who do physical work, officially their work requires nothing more than “strong muscles”. But, in order to do this job one has to deny physical pain and most of the time suffers alienation from self and the job itself. Some of these workers who do not enjoy and like their job have hard time feeling proud of their work. Terkell in his book “Working” used interviews of workers talking about the way they feel about their jobs to expose some of these emotions.
This is the case of Mike Lefevre who works in a steel mill. In his interview “Who Built the Pyramids?”, Mike explains how he feels about his work in these words “It’s hard to take pride in a bridge you’re never gonna cross,…You’re mass-producing things and you never see the end result of it.”. Mike has been doing this job now for many years and because he’s at the beginning of a chain line, he doesn’t see the finished product of his job. As a matter of fact he doesn’t get to appreciate, enjoy, and be proud of this product. He compares the finished product of his work to the pyramids of Egypt that the Pharaohs were so proud of but never showed that they are the result of the hard work of many workers who putted those rocks one on top of another.
As we can see it takes not only physical strength but some mental and emotional stability to perform a “physical labor”. Depending on what exactly one chose to do as (physical) work and for how long, the emotions involved can be surprising. In Mike’s case there is a sense of worthlessness because he spends so much time and energy in his work and he still doesn’t get to point a finished product and say this is the product of my hard work.
Now, in the case of “service jobs” employees, the involvement of emotions in their jobs is a very different case. For most or all these jobs, workers have to be willing to “suppress” some emotions and “display” different types of emotions that may be the ones their employers want them to display in order to be hired.
In fact, management of “service jobs” put a high pressure on their employees to display an attitude that represents the company’s image of always wanting to deliver an outstanding service to their clients. For those customer-service representatives who are not comfortable in dealing with people, these techniques may push them to their limit, and induce them in a situation of stress.
In the article “May I Help You Becomes an Issue in Customer-Service Jobs” published in the New York Times, Mary Williams Walsh explains how customer-service representatives of a Verizon call center are prompted to follow a designed script while on the phone with clients instead of being natural even when the clients are the one initiating a natural dialogue. Employees have to stick to the script that may include trying to make the client buy a product even if he didn’t call to buy a product; asking specific questions even if the client doesn’t want to go through the questionnaire because the management is monitoring the call. As per the Verizon employees “it is not selling that causes the stress, but having to do it according to standard scripts and procedures when common sense tell them not to.” Because for most of the time clients call for specific reasons, even when they call to buy a product they know what they need. Selling a product that has nothing to do with want the clients need just because that product is on sale today put customer service-representatives in a stress that sometimes damage their family life, and moreover their health as per the Bureau of Labor’s statistics.(Williams Walsh 2). The statistics report that nearly half of all reported occupational stress occurs in customer-service jobs and the length of their occupational absence is four times longer than for other jobs.
In the same line, an article published in the state of California (U.S.A.) titled “Faking Happiness Detrimental to Workers” in the newspaper Contra Costa Times emphasizes on the fact that pressure at work burnout employees. This article too is about “call center” employees because of the required perfect behavior they have to have while on the phone with the company’s clients. The employees this article is about are persuaded by their company that customers have the ability to detect trough their voice if they are really happy to serve them or not. The customer-service representatives are therefore given mirrors so they can see their own image while on the phone with clients. The image of their face is correlated to the sound of their voice and the emotions they are feeling in that moment. So, they have to smile while on the phone, suppress all negative feelings, and “fake” positive ones in order to finish well the transaction.
The consequence of this is that employees and up having a mood swing issue because they lose the ability to distinguish the limit between the real happiness and the fake one. They fake their behavior or get confused when they have to be real, and take it too personal at work when they are supposed to fake it; they end up being sad or depressive. As Burling reported it in his article “What really struck us were these pockets of happy and pockets of very sad.”(1). these employees are losing themselves in the name of the practice of customer-service.
As we saw it with Mike in “Who Build the Pyramids?” the excess of “physical labor” induce the workers to feel certain emotions that are not always positive. For people who do “service job” it is even worse because the emotional state of being in which they have to be in order to perform their jobs are not in some cases genuine. The companies dictate to their employees ways of making the client believe that the emotion he perceives from them is genuine. Moreover companies are making applicants for customer-service position ability to induce the client to have a positive attitude toward them a job requirement and criteria of promotion for the employees that are already working for them.
In any case, maybe people should start choosing their carriers in function of what they are good at, and more what they enjoy doing. Because as mentioned by Burling in his article, the happiest workers he observed were the ones that weren’t forced by their bosses to endure the emotional pressure from clients and the ones who chose to do the jobs they like the most. These people have a tendency of having fun and enjoying their jobs, because they are just good at doing them and don’t have to fake their feelings and emotions while doing them. In others words, working is like doing one their hobbies.

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.

Bonus Post: The Most Dangerous Job

I even don't know what to say about Kenny. His attitude goes wayyyy beyond dedication to his job and his company. Kenny gave all he had to these people, his body, mind and life that's how I'll describe it.

He shouldn't disinfect that plant just like his coworkers. That's against the law. Now he is in a big trouble (health related) and no one cares, his coworkers are still probably working for the same company or another one.

I wonder though if Kenny did all these things for this company because he "loves" his job or its because he thinks he couldn't do anything else. In others words he didn't have an option because of his background that lead him to become uneducated.

I still don't understand this type of dedication because I am not willing to do this no matter what. To me there is always another way around. He could have gone back to learning something else, moved to another city, state or I don't know.

Kenny shouldn't be frustrated because he should have known that if the management of this company cared about him he would have seeing it; he should have had a carrier advancement.

I see very few people with a certain level of "dedication" at my work but, I don't think they would go this far. Anyway, in NY companies are more likely to follow the rules, we don't have to worry about things like these. ( at least where I work).

QUESTION

Prof. T.

I have a quick question, if I am using the text "Who Built the Pyramids?" from the book "Working", do I cite the book or that part of the book ? Because I don't see an example of work cited of a text from a book. It looks like it is just book titles.

Thanks for quick response.

Post # 7: Annotated bibliography for essay # 3

The question of my research is " What is the impact of switching from physical labor to service labor on workers in the United States ?"

The documents I'll be using are the following:

2 course texts:

Terkel,Studs."Who Built the Pyramids?" Working (1972),page xxxi-xxxviii.

This article is an interview with a worker in a Steel Mill, Mike Lefevre who does strict physical work. Mike explains what are the conditions in which he works, with whom and how he feels about what he does as work. Most importantly, he explains how the stress of his job affect his personal life, his vision of the future for his children, and how he releases that stress.

I think this interview can help me show what is the effect of long term physical labor on workers mentally.

Hochschild, Arlie. "Exploring The Managed Heart" The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. California:University of California Press,(1983). Page 3-9.

This is a book in which Hochschild explains and compare the concepts of job accomplishment, and how to measure it. She uses interview with several front line agents to have their testimonies about how they perform their jobs and what are the emotions involved in their work. She explains how she came up with the notion of "emotional labor" and how she defines it.

This part of her book can help me I think, define, and explain the historic of the term "emotional labor" in my research.

2 outside sources:

Williams Walsh, Mary. " When May I Help You Is a Labor Issue." New York Times August 12 2000,Pg. C1,14. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 18 May 2010.

In this article, Walsh addresses the issues costumer service agents face while performing their job. The costumer service representatives of Verizon express to her how they are listened to while working by their supervisors, and that they have to follow the scripts designed by the company while talking to costumers on the phone, the big work load they have to face on a daily basis.

This article can help me show the stress costumer service representative endure and what are the consequences of that stress on their physical and emotional being over a long term.

Burling, Stacey. "Faking Happiness Detrimental to Workers." Contra Costa Times December 15 2005, Pg. F4. LexisNexis Academic Web 20 May 2010.

This article is about a recent study conducted in a call center of a telecommunications company by the University of Pennsylvania. It studied what it takes to workers to manage their feelings while on the phone no matter how rude the caller is; what is the impact of the type of pressure they endure on their job performance, and their mood in general. Also it has some examples of this particular company shows it employees how to change their emotions; how the happiest employees were the one that knew that, their managers are more understanding when it comes to their handling of difficult costumers.

The particularity of this study is that it shows the relationship between doing the job "by the book" and the employees emotional being. Bottom line of the study is that people who love this job are better at doing it.