Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

Acting Cheerful - Why? How?

People in retail are expected to be cheerful. What’s there to be cheerful about? Oh, I love doing menial things anyone could do, standing on my feet all day, hearing you bitch about how your aunt’s left ear was cropped out of the picture, picking things from the shelf which you could have found yourself, and ringing them up in a machine-like manner. Robots could do this. Whoop-dee-flippin-doo, let me have the honor and pleasure of ringing that up for you!

Sure, if I were in such a precarious position in my life, financially and educationally, that I felt VERY grateful to have any job at ALL, then I guess I could be cheerful. But even then, the realities of how boring and meaningless my current job is, are such that I do not feel like I have to be cheerful.

But, of course, I still act cheerful, because, you know, I’m a nice person. I do aspire to some Buddhist ideals, the key one being ignoring suffering by abandoning desire (This job’s not so bad! I don’t NEED a better job, so why worry about it?), which leads one to potentially be cheerful despite circumstances (The Dalai Lama, upon being asked why he smiled all the time despite all the horrors of the world, famously answered “Do you have a better alternative?”). However, I fall short of this ideal, so at work all I can do is ACT cheerful, as I cannot BE cheerful while watching my expensive education going to waste.

posted by Remus