Emotional Labour It's been ages since an article so perfectly distills how work makes me feel and what it's probably doing to me. Claire works in a call centre for Orange mobile phones and on her "computer screen, a series of little squares indicates calls waiting, and tells her how long she has been on her current call. If a call has been difficult, there are only eight seconds in which to take a deep breath and compose her voice into the expected tone of friendliness. ... What is striking is how on the one hand Claire is dealing with very rigid systems set down by company procedure and the vagaries of the computer system, while on the other she is expected to convey a sense of naturalness and her own personality. "
posted by feelinglistless on Jun 13, 2004 - 22 comments