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The reception section had to deal with multifarious demands and queries by guests: ‘the front desk is more pressured [than switchboard], they get millions of questions’ .This constant questioning regularly involved being on the receiving end of complaints, or as one woman who had transferred into the front desk from another department described it, ‘when you’re actually at the front desk, you get it’; ‘whatever the cause of the guests’ dissatisfaction, it is the front office staff who are required to deal with them face to face and resolve the problem’. Resolving guests’ problems involved having to manage both the guests’ and their own feelings and in so doing undertake emotional labour, in which smiling through adversity was an expected part of the job. Although putting on a ‘smiley face’ was part of the job, it was clear from the descriptions given by the front desk staff that their performance of emotional labour involved far more than this. They had to absorb the anger coming from ‘irate guests’ calm them down and attempt to placate them, but at the same time control their own negative emotions towards the guests. This was a tiring process and was something that they had to regularly do as part of their job, a job that involved them standing up for many hours a day. Routinely having to deal with irate guests was by no means limited to the front desk, but was also a feature of reservations work. However, one woman who had transferred to reservations from the front desk thought that working in reservations was somewhat easier in comparison since it did not involve the element of face-to-face interaction.
Unlike the front desk staff, most of whom were women, the bellmen therefore did not routinely engage in placating guests’ unmet emotional needs. Even though the bellmen interacted with guests on a routine basis, this interaction took the form of offering information and advice in a friendly fashion rather than dealing with guests’ complaints. In other words, the undertaking of emotional labour at the front office was gendered in that it was something the women workers, rather than the men, were expected to routinely do.
Although certain back-of-house positions involved virtually zero contact with guests, for example laundry attendants, others such as room attendants, nearly all of who were women, did describe having occasional limited interaction with guests. Front-of-house workers are chosen by management for their ‘personalities’ and especially their capacity to display a front of politeness and cheerfulness even in the face of provocation by guests. As such, adherence to the ethos that ‘the customer is always right’ was prevalent. Most of the front office staff actually enjoyed their jobs including finding aspects of guest interaction satisfying. Nevertheless, those women employed in front office positions had to enact emotional labour for prolonged periods of time and were subject to frequent complaints and even bullying by irate guests. The enactment of emotional labour at the front-of-house was gendered in that it was something the women workers had to routinely accomplish as they sought to maintain a cheerful disposition and veneer of attractiveness, even when they were being berated by irate guests. The women front office staff were therefore engaged in a ritual of placating guests by absorbing their anger, while all the while looking ‘presentable’ and sounding ‘professional’. In the case of room attendants, who again were nearly all women, having to deal with ‘messy guests’ also involved a degree of emotional labour as they hid their own feelings.
In terms of resistance, women front office workers spoke of being able to detach themselves via depersonalization. However, there was also evidence that their capacity to detach themselves from guest complaints was gradually eroded over time with the result that leaving the job became another resistance strategy. Leaving the front office was not solely a result of burnout in the face of continual guest provocation, however. Other factors came into play, notably the impact of the shift system. It is notable that both the front desk and reservations sections were non-unionized. What is unclear from the data here is whether trade union membership and action ameliorates the negative aspects of guest interaction.
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Solving Problems | 4.3.3. Serving with a Smile in the Dining Area |
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