Being instructed to smile

[UncooperativeWoman]

Trying to decide whether to have a word with the manager, when I'm next there, and whether he'll even understand:

In a local chain shop this weekend (obvious from my name change), at the checkout, no-one else around us. I was being perfectly polite and normal, said 'hello', 'yes I think I will buy a bag' etc etc.

The checkout guy starts commenting, "you're not smiling".
I just say 'uh huh' or something.
"You were smiling before, but now you aren't smiling".
"Right".
"Oh, I see, you aren't smiling now because its time to pay".

I thought he might have gauged by now that I'm really not going to join in a conversation about my perceived lack of outwardly displayed joy. I'm poised with my card at the reader, waiting for the 'swipe your card' command. I looked up to see if there was a problem, and the checkout guy brings his hand up, puts a finger at each corner of his mouth, and gestures pushing up into a smile shape. Then he let me pay.

It's the last bit that really annoys me; this pausing in the transaction, so he could instruct me to smile, even though I clearly didn't want to engage in this.

If a male customer refused to hand over his payment card until a woman cashier smiled for him, everyone would think he was a prick, right? This is the same type of thing isn't it?

Are you sure he doesnt have mental health problems?

For the assistant to ask a customer to smile is not on.

Really! Sorry to say that some ignorant managers think that all you need to know when you're on the cash desk is how to operate the till - but there's more to it than that.

Social skills are important too. A spot of retraining is needed. Pathetic.

I don't complain. I give feedback. Politely. It's not about getting the employee into trouble. It's about women having the right to go about their business. Like men.

I wish I'd had a comeback for the dickhead who said it to me in an airport check in queue, at a very wrong time.

God this makes me SOoO chuffing MAD, I even bought a lapel pin. This is it.

Has any man ever had this said to him? Ever?

Yes, I've had it lots. More when I was younger, but it still happens... It was extremely annoying hurtful when I was in my late teens/early twenties and suffering from very difficult home life.

I'm not outwardly cheerful much so my apparent misery does get the odd comment to this day.

I'd have gone straight to the manager. We, as women, do not owe men smiles, or pleasantness, especially sexist fuckfaces who demand it of us because it's our 'job'.

Dickhead fucking bully.

When I get comments like this now from men I feel a change of rage inside me. I'm still stuck with contact with an EA narc exH until my DCs hit teens (then I aim to have complete NC). Last time I had a comment "cheer up love" I must have instantly given a 'deathstare' as he backed away very quickly. I have no patience for a man telling me how to look.

We've all heard of 'service with a smile' but this is usually from cashier to customer, not t'other way round.
For what it's worth (unsure if it's true or not) I recall reading this exchange between an air hostess and a male passenger:
Passenger, "Give us a smile."
Air hostess, "No, you give me a smile first."
Passenger smiles
AH snaps, "Now hold it for eight hours*."
*You could substitute all day if approached by a random man on the street.

I would have given him the look.

What a complete twat. I would have I beg your pardon

Report him . Are you speaking to me .

Cheeky bastard

Complain.

I look miserable often and get told to smile alll the time by everyone I know and don't know. It has never offended me it usually makes me smile that people actually care to notice.

Katy Do your parents never feel like telling those cheeky women to shut up and mind their own business. I'd get really annoyed by that!

Can you really be bothered to complain about this. Life's too short, spend your time on something that really matters.

I think I would have walked off and left him with a checkout of shopping to put back!

SunsetBeetch My dad doesn't take much notice of anything and my mum is more embarrassed about my dad (and agrees with them).

I hate this! I have a naturally grumpy face I think. My personality is not grumpy but I don't wander around smiling like a loon.

This will out me to anyone who knows me but whatever. When I was 17 I went on a coach trip to Amsterdam with my grandma. Lovely of her to take me but I was the youngest member of the trip by about 50 years. It was a 14 hour journey. Grandma snored. Etc. Every single time we got on or off the coach during the week the driver said "SMILE!" I wanted to stab him tbh.

The thing that pisses me off about this is that you predominantly seem to hear it from men to women. It's another insidious, subtle form of control, a way of passing judgement on how women appear in public. Before anyone jumps down my throat I'm not suggesting that people who say it have actively thought "I am going to exert my control over this woman", but if you stop and think, that's ultimately what they're saying: "I don't approve of the way your face looks, rearrange it at my request". Which is why I don't agree that it's simple "well meaning social awkwardness". It's rude and intrusive and never appropriate in that sort of social interaction.

^this, totally.

If I walked permanently grinning like a Cheshire Cat. I'd expect to be certified.
Also how does this idiot know you have anything to smile about.