8 ms·

How faking your feelings at work can be damaging

70 points by NoB4Mouth 8y ago

tw1010 8y ago
Why giving generalized advice without conditioning on context-dependence is bad. Edit: Sorry, I now see that the real article has all the proper "can"'s, instead of "is"'s, I was missing.
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
The classic book Moral Mazes talks at length about emotional labor in organizational management. One of its primary claims is that HR and marketing function essentially purely as emotional labor (the book would treat legal compliance as a distinct category), and has a whole chapter called, "Dexterity with Symbols" that is a breakdown of how management and executives need to communicate with vague, symbolic language that can never been pinned down to specific claims or specific requirements, so as to allow virtually anything that is said to be reinterpreted as-needed to retrospectively imply whatever is expedient for the executives, particularly from an emotional labor point of view. I think this is a huge component of why software companies use open-plan offices, and in fact sometimes pay higher prices just to have an open-plan office (not even talking about any of the arguments about lost productivity or reduced communication in open-plan spaces, just purely the real estate costs). It's a form of emotional labor. The company gets to see who will express outward fealty to the management, like a dog rolling over to expose its tummy. Who will drink the Kool-Aid about "collaboration" and "entrepreneurial spirit" and give emotional labor outwardly praising the open plan office designs, despite inwardly knowing they are miserable, anti-productive and anti-ergonomic spaces.
- dasil003 8y ago
  HR I get, but Marketing is emotional labor? Not following that at all. All departments have their element of emotional labor, but in my mind it's something that will mostly be absorbed by management in a healthy organization. Maybe I just don't understand the term though.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    It is not referring to the external artifacts of a marketing strategy, like ad purchases or the design of packaging or something. It's talking about the internal "PR" role that marketing plays in its interface between management and the employees. Think about the huge product launch events that big tech companies produce. It's as much about creating external publicity or buzz as it is about generating conformity among the staff in terms of what the company line is going to be. As a result, it also boils down to a lot of emotional labor on behalf of PR staff "selling" the vision of the management to the rest of the staff, despite the fact that management's "vision" will be represented with vague, imprecise symbols that allow management to later on morph things around in whatever way suits them. Incidentally, I think it's also the biggest reason why internal prediction markets are not adopted. Despite evidence that they improve product delivery metrics and tangible financial metrics of project success, it makes the evaluation of project success so quantitative that managers lose their ability to manipulate, tell stories, argue for bonuses, argue that they were stopped by internal politics, etc. etc. Telling those stories is so valuable to middle and upper management that it is worth more than increased raw success of the company overall. Essentially, they want the company overall to be slightly worse off if it gives them manipulable tactics for entrenching their personal job security or bonus or whatever.
- haskellandchill 8y ago
  "This classic study of ethics in business presents an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Robert Jackall takes the reader inside a topsy-turvy world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but sharp talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. What sort of everyday rules-in-use do people play by when there are no fixed standards to explain why some succeed and others fail? In the words of one corporate manager, those rules boil down to this maxim: "What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you. That's what morality is in the corporation." This brilliant, disturbing, funny look at the ethos of the corporate world presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America." Wow thanks for the book rec. This is exactly my experience.
slededit 8y ago
Not what the article is getting at, but I have seen displays of righteous anger cause positive changes. Sometimes you need to communicate that you aren't just griping and this is a red line. Doesn't work if people already think your a hot head though.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I've never seen showing anger works. In American society, being Black and angry, conjures up the stereotype and gets you labeled as an "Angry Black Man". Also, if you are a female showing anger, gets you labelled negatively.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    Yes, Americans don't understand disagreement, even legitimate disagreement. You are wondering if this is because they fear incurring liability if they admit there is a problem or due to the almost prison-like environment of high school in their formative years, or what. It's a great problem for foreigners.
    - wedn3sday 8y ago
      Can confirm. Was recently informed I was "not a team player" for pointing out obvious facts that happened to be inconvenient. A German friend of mine told me that when she was immigrating here, she took a class that was supposed to help with integrating into American culture, she was told to always wrap any sort of criticism in a complement sandwich.
      - clintonb 8y ago
        praise-criticism-praise
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        That's called the "shit sandwich".
      - 8y ago
draw_down 8y ago
I mean, the whole enterprise is damaging. Workplaces are not humane, they're hostile (in a blithe, disavowed way of course) and overtly not designed for the interests of the people occupying them. Including whether it's considered appropriate to show your feelings (usually no).
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  How do you find work where this is not true? (assuming that you are working)
  - draw_down 8y ago
    I don’t know. (I am working and include my job in the above, as well as any other job I’ve had)
  - phyzome 8y ago
    I've never worked customer service, but I know that some managers will 100% stand by their employees against abuse from customers, and don't demand smiles. I've heard of this specifically w.r.t. some coffee shops. (Now I wonder if this has anything to do with France's reputation for surly customer service -- are the employees simply not expected to give "service with a smile", and Americans are horrified by the contrast?)
xj9 8y ago
> having feelings at work i go to work to complete an objective and get paid. feelings are personal and not something i care to share with workplace associates or strangers. of course, this means that i'm totally unsuited for any kind of non-technical, customer-facing work. except maybe a bar or restaurant that wants bitchy/sarcastic staff. i'm sort of lucky that i work it tech, but i'd be pretty happy doing construction or anything that involves doing stuff other than talking to customers.
- scandox 8y ago
  What makes you think that talking to customers involves feelings? It can also be completely professional and objective based - the only difference is that you certainly need good skills in showing appropriate affect in a wide range of situations. Being bitchy/sarcastic at a bar sounds ... well very emotional to me.
  - lainga 8y ago
    Then you get a scolding from your supervisor that X customer thought you were "disrespectful" and "insensitive of their needs". Customers don't want objectivity, they want you to do the thing they want right now, and what are we paying you for anyway?
    - watwut 8y ago
      I think you got it other way round. The customer service is supposed to keep feelings for themselves and smile nicely, no matter how much they find customer unsympathetic. Yes, they are supposed to deliver. The programmer can went his frustration over requirements pretty much at will. I don't know what exact objectivity would waiter deliver. Besides, you can be objective without being disrespectful, unless you are one of those people who use "objectivity" as euphemism for angry ranting.
      - lainga 8y ago
        Sorry. I was thinking "customer" in the context of drawing up requirements for a project. Often with the PM over your shoulder insisting that yes, you can do everything the customer is asking for, no problem.
brailsafe 8y ago
Haven't read the article, but I know that faking your feelings is a great way to subtract from team morale, particularly in situations most susceptible to tension. Sure you may keep your job, but great workplaces don't get to be great workplaces by instilling fear in people so they don't speak up about issues or bother to understand the personalities of their colleagues. If all of your colleagues are sociopaths, you're going to have a bad time. Edit: That's not to say that you shouldn't necessarily be principled about these things.
- warent 8y ago
  I was with you until the sociopath part. Faking emotions and sociopathy are two different things
  - brailsafe 8y ago
    You're right. Upon reconsideration, I think what I meant those as two independent examples of unhealthy company compositions in which lack of authentic emotion could lead to negative outcomes. Though I suppose it depends on the place.
megamindbrian2 8y ago
I got burned out by trying to be the code hero. Then I realized there really isn't any point to this line of work. It is the epitome of "progress only for the sake of progress".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- haskellandchill 8y ago
  There is no right answer. I fake being happy for fear of being fired. I tried to contribute and help and was told to focus on my work, which is meaningless engineering with no purpose. I have resigned myself to get in on time and sit and stare at the screen. I try to get things done but it is a moving target. The people who thrive here engage in side channel communications, I am mostly unwilling to do that because I believe in public communication. I wish I did not believe in a free and open society as we are tending towards some form human/machine authoritarianism and my views are going to be punished. Keep your heads down and accumulate resources seems to be the best advice.
  - brokenmachine 8y ago
    > Keep your heads down and accumulate resources seems to be the best advice. This is the problem with society at large IMO. Sounds like a toxic or at the very least an incompatible workplace. You should look for a different place to work, and possibly a different line of work entirely, since you don't seem to enjoy the "meaningless engineering". Money isn't everything.
  - megamindbrian2 8y ago
    Sounds exactly like my experience at Useless Fintech aka Charles Schwab sorry to hear this. “Your ideas are stupid and your goals are meaningless” https://medium.com/@megamindbrian/your-ideas-are-stupid-and-your-goals-are-meaningless-3fca37d07cb9 https://medium.com/@megamindbrian/your-ideas-are-stupid-and-... There is a shred of hope left. I have a friend that has not offered me work personally but he says he loves the "Google reject engineers". Meaning he loves to hire the people that are phenomenal and confident enough to compete in the big league but are defeated by some small technicality such as checking the wrong box on a web based job application or in your case failing at "side channel" communication. That's probably more of a good quality for you rather than a failure.
sandworm101 8y ago
When you bottle things up for months and months you eventually get your own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_flight_attendant_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_flight_attendant_incid... When people are forced to keep up that fake smile, the people they interact with start taking advantage. Then eventually the person behind the smile cracks, grabs "two beers and exited the plane by deploying the evacuation slide".
phyzome 8y ago
Note that this article uses a somewhat older and more specific definition of emotional labor, casting it as something done in the course of paid work. These days, it is also commonly recognized to occur in unpaid contexts. (Maybe it was in the 1960s as well, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor doesn't seem to cover that.) Having a friend lean on you during a breakup, and helping them process their feelings -- that's unpaid emotional labor. Which is fine! It's just good to recognize it, especially because there's a gender imbalance. Women are commonly expected to provide unpaid emotional labor in the domestic and social spheres, and in traditional labor contexts, women are commonly expected to provide emotional labor on top of their other job duties in ways that men are not.

70 points by NoB4Mouth 8y ago

Why giving generalized advice without conditioning on context-dependence is bad. Edit: Sorry, I now see that the real article has all the proper "can"'s, instead of "is"'s, I was missing.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

The classic book Moral Mazes talks at length about emotional labor in organizational management. One of its primary claims is that HR and marketing function essentially purely as emotional labor (the book would treat legal compliance as a distinct category), and has a whole chapter called, "Dexterity with Symbols" that is a breakdown of how management and executives need to communicate with vague, symbolic language that can never been pinned down to specific claims or specific requirements, so as to allow virtually anything that is said to be reinterpreted as-needed to retrospectively imply whatever is expedient for the executives, particularly from an emotional labor point of view. I think this is a huge component of why software companies use open-plan offices, and in fact sometimes pay higher prices just to have an open-plan office (not even talking about any of the arguments about lost productivity or reduced communication in open-plan spaces, just purely the real estate costs). It's a form of emotional labor. The company gets to see who will express outward fealty to the management, like a dog rolling over to expose its tummy. Who will drink the Kool-Aid about "collaboration" and "entrepreneurial spirit" and give emotional labor outwardly praising the open plan office designs, despite inwardly knowing they are miserable, anti-productive and anti-ergonomic spaces.

dasil003 8y ago
HR I get, but Marketing is emotional labor? Not following that at all. All departments have their element of emotional labor, but in my mind it's something that will mostly be absorbed by management in a healthy organization. Maybe I just don't understand the term though.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  It is not referring to the external artifacts of a marketing strategy, like ad purchases or the design of packaging or something. It's talking about the internal "PR" role that marketing plays in its interface between management and the employees. Think about the huge product launch events that big tech companies produce. It's as much about creating external publicity or buzz as it is about generating conformity among the staff in terms of what the company line is going to be. As a result, it also boils down to a lot of emotional labor on behalf of PR staff "selling" the vision of the management to the rest of the staff, despite the fact that management's "vision" will be represented with vague, imprecise symbols that allow management to later on morph things around in whatever way suits them. Incidentally, I think it's also the biggest reason why internal prediction markets are not adopted. Despite evidence that they improve product delivery metrics and tangible financial metrics of project success, it makes the evaluation of project success so quantitative that managers lose their ability to manipulate, tell stories, argue for bonuses, argue that they were stopped by internal politics, etc. etc. Telling those stories is so valuable to middle and upper management that it is worth more than increased raw success of the company overall. Essentially, they want the company overall to be slightly worse off if it gives them manipulable tactics for entrenching their personal job security or bonus or whatever.
haskellandchill 8y ago
"This classic study of ethics in business presents an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Robert Jackall takes the reader inside a topsy-turvy world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but sharp talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. What sort of everyday rules-in-use do people play by when there are no fixed standards to explain why some succeed and others fail? In the words of one corporate manager, those rules boil down to this maxim: "What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you. That's what morality is in the corporation." This brilliant, disturbing, funny look at the ethos of the corporate world presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America." Wow thanks for the book rec. This is exactly my experience.

slededit 8y ago

Not what the article is getting at, but I have seen displays of righteous anger cause positive changes. Sometimes you need to communicate that you aren't just griping and this is a red line. Doesn't work if people already think your a hot head though.

scarface74 8y ago
I've never seen showing anger works. In American society, being Black and angry, conjures up the stereotype and gets you labeled as an "Angry Black Man". Also, if you are a female showing anger, gets you labelled negatively.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  Yes, Americans don't understand disagreement, even legitimate disagreement. You are wondering if this is because they fear incurring liability if they admit there is a problem or due to the almost prison-like environment of high school in their formative years, or what. It's a great problem for foreigners.
  - wedn3sday 8y ago
    Can confirm. Was recently informed I was "not a team player" for pointing out obvious facts that happened to be inconvenient. A German friend of mine told me that when she was immigrating here, she took a class that was supposed to help with integrating into American culture, she was told to always wrap any sort of criticism in a complement sandwich.
    - clintonb 8y ago
      praise-criticism-praise
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      That's called the "shit sandwich".
    - 8y ago

draw_down 8y ago

I mean, the whole enterprise is damaging. Workplaces are not humane, they're hostile (in a blithe, disavowed way of course) and overtly not designed for the interests of the people occupying them. Including whether it's considered appropriate to show your feelings (usually no).

stevenwoo 8y ago
How do you find work where this is not true? (assuming that you are working)
- draw_down 8y ago
  I don’t know. (I am working and include my job in the above, as well as any other job I’ve had)
- phyzome 8y ago
  I've never worked customer service, but I know that some managers will 100% stand by their employees against abuse from customers, and don't demand smiles. I've heard of this specifically w.r.t. some coffee shops. (Now I wonder if this has anything to do with France's reputation for surly customer service -- are the employees simply not expected to give "service with a smile", and Americans are horrified by the contrast?)

xj9 8y ago

> having feelings at work i go to work to complete an objective and get paid. feelings are personal and not something i care to share with workplace associates or strangers. of course, this means that i'm totally unsuited for any kind of non-technical, customer-facing work. except maybe a bar or restaurant that wants bitchy/sarcastic staff. i'm sort of lucky that i work it tech, but i'd be pretty happy doing construction or anything that involves doing stuff other than talking to customers.

scandox 8y ago
What makes you think that talking to customers involves feelings? It can also be completely professional and objective based - the only difference is that you certainly need good skills in showing appropriate affect in a wide range of situations. Being bitchy/sarcastic at a bar sounds ... well very emotional to me.
- lainga 8y ago
  Then you get a scolding from your supervisor that X customer thought you were "disrespectful" and "insensitive of their needs". Customers don't want objectivity, they want you to do the thing they want right now, and what are we paying you for anyway?
  - watwut 8y ago
    I think you got it other way round. The customer service is supposed to keep feelings for themselves and smile nicely, no matter how much they find customer unsympathetic. Yes, they are supposed to deliver. The programmer can went his frustration over requirements pretty much at will. I don't know what exact objectivity would waiter deliver. Besides, you can be objective without being disrespectful, unless you are one of those people who use "objectivity" as euphemism for angry ranting.
    - lainga 8y ago
      Sorry. I was thinking "customer" in the context of drawing up requirements for a project. Often with the PM over your shoulder insisting that yes, you can do everything the customer is asking for, no problem.

brailsafe 8y ago

Haven't read the article, but I know that faking your feelings is a great way to subtract from team morale, particularly in situations most susceptible to tension. Sure you may keep your job, but great workplaces don't get to be great workplaces by instilling fear in people so they don't speak up about issues or bother to understand the personalities of their colleagues. If all of your colleagues are sociopaths, you're going to have a bad time. Edit: That's not to say that you shouldn't necessarily be principled about these things.

warent 8y ago
I was with you until the sociopath part. Faking emotions and sociopathy are two different things
- brailsafe 8y ago
  You're right. Upon reconsideration, I think what I meant those as two independent examples of unhealthy company compositions in which lack of authentic emotion could lead to negative outcomes. Though I suppose it depends on the place.

megamindbrian2 8y ago

I got burned out by trying to be the code hero. Then I realized there really isn't any point to this line of work. It is the epitome of "progress only for the sake of progress".

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
haskellandchill 8y ago
There is no right answer. I fake being happy for fear of being fired. I tried to contribute and help and was told to focus on my work, which is meaningless engineering with no purpose. I have resigned myself to get in on time and sit and stare at the screen. I try to get things done but it is a moving target. The people who thrive here engage in side channel communications, I am mostly unwilling to do that because I believe in public communication. I wish I did not believe in a free and open society as we are tending towards some form human/machine authoritarianism and my views are going to be punished. Keep your heads down and accumulate resources seems to be the best advice.
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  > Keep your heads down and accumulate resources seems to be the best advice. This is the problem with society at large IMO. Sounds like a toxic or at the very least an incompatible workplace. You should look for a different place to work, and possibly a different line of work entirely, since you don't seem to enjoy the "meaningless engineering". Money isn't everything.
- megamindbrian2 8y ago
  Sounds exactly like my experience at Useless Fintech aka Charles Schwab sorry to hear this. “Your ideas are stupid and your goals are meaningless” https://medium.com/@megamindbrian/your-ideas-are-stupid-and-your-goals-are-meaningless-3fca37d07cb9 https://medium.com/@megamindbrian/your-ideas-are-stupid-and-... There is a shred of hope left. I have a friend that has not offered me work personally but he says he loves the "Google reject engineers". Meaning he loves to hire the people that are phenomenal and confident enough to compete in the big league but are defeated by some small technicality such as checking the wrong box on a web based job application or in your case failing at "side channel" communication. That's probably more of a good quality for you rather than a failure.

sandworm101 8y ago

When you bottle things up for months and months you eventually get your own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_flight_attendant_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_flight_attendant_incid... When people are forced to keep up that fake smile, the people they interact with start taking advantage. Then eventually the person behind the smile cracks, grabs "two beers and exited the plane by deploying the evacuation slide".

phyzome 8y ago

Note that this article uses a somewhat older and more specific definition of emotional labor, casting it as something done in the course of paid work. These days, it is also commonly recognized to occur in unpaid contexts. (Maybe it was in the 1960s as well, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor doesn't seem to cover that.) Having a friend lean on you during a breakup, and helping them process their feelings -- that's unpaid emotional labor. Which is fine! It's just good to recognize it, especially because there's a gender imbalance. Women are commonly expected to provide unpaid emotional labor in the domestic and social spheres, and in traditional labor contexts, women are commonly expected to provide emotional labor on top of their other job duties in ways that men are not.