@“Tom of the Fog”#p149787 Meeeee tooooo. It's an all-time great TV show theme.
@“whatsarobot”#p149791 Say what you want about 80s TV shows, but they damn well knew how to write catchy music!
I can't imagine how many people in the UK are firemen thanks to Fireman Sam!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0EoqLkE_rQ
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149792 I wasn’t familiar with this one, and I’m not going to lie, I was hoping it would be the exact same tune but just with different lyrics.
@“whatsarobot”#p149796 Sorry to disappoint there. There was a different Postman Pat theme later in the series when suddenly Pat got his helicopter licence…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGqiyYasiE
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149797 Gosh now I want a cozy, slow-life Postman Pat game.
@“whatsarobot”#p149805 Then you my friend are in luck:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/17601/postman-pat/
God bless the licencing that existed in the 80s in the UK for getting games out for just about anything!
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149806
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/q09V16g.jpg]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/q09V16g.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
**_SOLD!_**
@“whatsarobot”#p149949 I found a video of it and having heard the music not only may you be let down, you will have it embedded into your brain forever. Click at your own risk.
That said I was singing it last night as always so you know, I can't talk!
@“Tom of the Fog”#p149982 I started listening to that, and clicked pause on the video after only a few seconds. But then my brain had this reaction:
https://youtu.be/rP8JwUWqX_g
And then I listened to it some more.
@“whatsarobot”#p149990 Bad version of Postman Pat theme is still Postman Pat theme!
I think I'll add the game to my backlog out of principle now.
@“sabertoothalex”#p149676 timing on this couldn‘t have been better!!! MS announce 2000 layoffs this morning and it’s one of the first things I saw after I woke up(I don‘t work at MS to be clear, just that it was connected to how I’ve been feeling). Hate this shit man.
So I enjoyed my first week at my new job but then got let go in an email Monday morning for not being a “right fit.” Apparently I‘m not enthusiastic or outgoing enough. I know a couple of people—one who quit and the other also fired—who tell me the co-owner is demanding and toxic and that I dodged a bullet. If you aren’t over-the-top bubbly and obsequious then you don't last long at this place. Oh well!!!
my job did a whopping 20% reduction in force today. my job is safe but half my immediate team was cut. they got nice severance packages, though. i figure they wouldn’t do another round of layoffs this year but i’m gonna start looking around regardless.
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@“connrrr”#p150179 If you aren’t over-the-top bubbly and obsequious then you don’t last long at this place.
Does this actually make a majority demographic more interested in patronizing the place? I mean do the numbers reflect this, after decades of institutionalizing this behavior? It drives me crazy when management insists you act like an overly friendly weirdo—it's uncomfortable for both parties. I don't want to go somewhere where bakers/baristas/etc all act like they're extremely happy to see me! I know and you know I'm just here to buy bread! Stop it
@“captain”#p150517 Usually it‘s for sure just the boss thinking it, because I’m with you in not wanting someone to be bubbly and over the top. THAT SAID my mom comments every time someone working somewhere isn‘t happy/is in a bad mood/is brusque or efficient rather than friendly. Every time!! And I say "it’s just a job! they‘re just working there! it’s not a performance" every time and it doesn‘t matter. she wants the cashier to be happy to work at safeway despite what may have happened earlier in their day, because SHE (my mom) is chipper so they should also be. She just can’t help it I guess!
@“exodus”#p150519 if my mom was in charge of workplace decisions we would have mass unemployment on a scale not seen since wiemar germany
@“captain”#p150517 I doubt it. If anything I would think more research has been done that shows the detrimental effects of telling people to fake emotions. I think it‘s just higher-ups being out of touch with what its like to fake an emotion from 9-5 everyday. Plus I would be surprised if most customers don’t also see through the charade in some way.
However, wouldn't be surprised if employees who are in a better overall mental state due to their material necessities being met appear happier at the workplace because they have less things to worry about, and work might not be a source of stress first and foremost. By far the most mentally tiring part of work for me is to play the role of happy worker.
I've been a a couple of awkward situations because I don't get as excited about work as my coworkers seem to be. I think everybody on your team putting up their customer service mask can create a bond of solidarity of some sorts, but I'm in a team where that excitement is sometimes genuine (or maybe they fake it well!) and it makes me feel like an asshole lol.
Also, re: customers with high standards --I'm convinced it's a generational thing or something, because the expectations that older folk I know have of just a random employee in Target is enough to drive me crazy.
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This is related to the phenomenon of the Professional Smile, a national pandemic in the service industry; and noplace in my experience have I been on the receiving end of as many Professional Smiles as I am on the Nadir, maître d’s, Chief Stewards, Hotel Managers’ minions, Cruise Director—their P.S.’s all come on like switches at my approach. But also back on land at banks, restaurants, airline ticket counters, on and on. You know this smile—the strenuous contraction of circumoral fascia w/ incomplete zygomatic involvement—the smile that doesn’t quite reach the smiler’s eyes and that signifies nothing more than a calculated attempt to advance the smiler’s own interests by pretending to like the smilee. Why do employers and supervisors force professional service people to broadcast the Professional Smile? Am I the only consumer in whom high doses of such a smile produce despair? Am I the only person who’s sure that the growing number of cases in which totally average-looking people suddenly open up with automatic weapons in shopping malls and insurance offices and medical complexes and McDonald’ses is somehow causally related to the fact that these venues are well-known dissemination-loci of the Professional Smile? Who do they think is fooled by the Professional Smile? And yet the Professional Smile’s absence now also causes despair. Anybody who’s ever bought a pack of gum in a Manhattan cigar store or asked for something to be stamped FRAGILE at a Chicago post office or tried to obtain a glass of water from a South Boston waitress knows well the soul-crushing effect of a service worker’s scowl, i.e. the humiliation and resentment of being denied the Professional Smile. And the Professional Smile has by now skewed even my resentment at the dreaded Professional Scowl: I walk away from the Manhattan tobacconist resenting not the counterman’s character or absence of goodwill but his lack of professionalism in denying me the Smile. What a fucking mess.
-david foster wallace from the cruise ship essay
I think from the Covid situation we saw that there is a non-insignificant portion of the American population who want to be “served” by those they perceive as less than them (grocery workers, restaurant workers, etc.). Forcing workers to smile is just a power move on the part of the owner, reinforced by a legion of people who love to talk to the manager.
Yeah, it could be that people expect it now or it's just out of habit that employers think it should be there. The co-owner also works the front cash and I have bumped into her outside the bakery and she pretty much has the same psycho Stepford smile on that she has at work and apparently expects from the rest of the front staff.
When I worked at the computer store my duties sometimes involved customer service and I was always very friendly unless something was dragging on me—which did happen since I was in a shitty situation homewise—and happy to help people, I think, because I wasn't technically a sales rep so a phony persona wasn't expected. At a different store I even got them good reviews on Yelp specifically about how polite I was!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I interviewed for this place, she made kind of a point in saying they pay a living wage, as calculated by the [Ontario Living Wage Network](https://www.ontariolivingwage.ca/), but that it'd only kick in after the training period. Like, maybe if you just paid your hires that from the beginning they'd feel supported and that would lift their mood, as @"Viralata"#1710 pointed out. By the time I followed up about the job, the living wage for the region had jumped over $2, so I pointed that out to them. They agreed to the bump after taking forever to get back to me, but still wouldn't budge on the kinda trash training rate lmao.