Being told to smile at work

[SmileSmiley]

I have worked as a solicitor since 2008. I work in house for a local authority and generally love my job.

I went to a meeting yesterday and the first thing my client told me was to smile. He then told me that he’d been to a meeting the week before with an external solicitor who greeted him with a ‘lovely big smile’. He then asked why I couldn’t be the same.

I was too shocked to respond. I work in a team with my DP who is also a solicitor - this client has never told him to smile or compared him to a male solicitor.

I have a resting sad face and even when I smile I don’t look particularly happy. However, I am fed up of how I look being deemed to be relevant to how I do my job.

I want to raise this with the client but I know he is going to brush me off as being over sensitive. Should I just leave it this time and have a snappy response prepared for the next time?

@SockFluffInTheBath

That would get a small mouth smile from me (no expression in the eyes) and a ‘shell we get started?’. Don’t give it headspace OP, it was a dumb comment.

That's the perfect response when it's an external client, whom you can't offend, except that I wouldn't smile.

As the OP has now clarified that he was actually a colleague, I'd go with a straight-up, "Would you say that to a man?". I recently did this to a twat who had rebuked me about my (entirely professional but firm) tone in an email. It was satisfying to watch him squirm.

Yanbu I can't imagine this being said to a male.

@SmileSmiley

I don’t think people understand that this is literally my face. When my face is neutral I look ANGRY.

I mean I’m not going to do myself any favours here but I’m 6ft1, slightly overweight, my brow overhangs so I look like I’m frowning, my lips point downwards and my nostrils are naturally flared. To arrange my expression into anything other than this is actually hard work and I can only maintain it for a little while before my muscles in my face start to shake. I’m always very pleasant though. I have also adopted a quieter voice so I don’t sound intimidating because that’s not my aim. But literally throughout my life men (and it has never been a woman) have told me to smile and say it might never happen. I am fed up with feeling like I’m not good enough because I look like I do. 😩😢

I would be formally complaining about this guy’s comment. Make it clear he never asked your male colleagues to smile. Then refuse to work with him.

Love that, @dropitlikeitsloth

I would be formally complaining about this guy’s comment. Make it clear he never asked your male colleagues to smile. Then refuse to work with him

I wouldn't refuse to work with him - that's an over-reaction that will put you on the back foot with HR.

@Butchyrestingface

Over the years, my resting bitch face has evolved into a resting murderous face so I no longer have to put up with this shite.

Is your client a member of Joe Public or does he represent a company you can raise this with?

Ha ha brilliant, resting murderous face. I feel I am slowly slipping towards this in my older age what with less tolerance for crap and generally being quite cynical

Either do nothing and carry on, or drop a short note to HR. Because he will be doing similar to other women and there is some value in ensuring that he and HR can never say 'but no-one's ever mentioned this before'.

He basically meant 'why don't you flirt with me the way the person seeking my discretionary business did?'

Yes to being friendly and professional. No to feeling you have to flirt with colleagues to make them feel special, 'because the other girls do it'.

@SmileSmiley

I did greet him appropriately. I smiled, said good morning and asked how he was.

You smiled and greeted him appropriately, what more does he expect? Did he keep a permanent smile on his face the whole time? If he did, does he realise this makes him look like a total idiot, just smiling for the sake of it?

Perhaps point out that continually smiling, when there is nothing to smile about, might actually make people feel uncomfortable! If I was in a meeting and someone kept smiling at me, I would wonder what was wrong with them, or what was wrong with me.

And this is one thick-skinned guy. He's stupid enough to pick on a lawyer. He's not someone who's going to take hints. His attitude and behaviour towards more junior women is probably much, much worse.

@SmileSmiley

I don’t think people understand that this is literally my face. When my face is neutral I look ANGRY.

I mean I’m not going to do myself any favours here but I’m 6ft1, slightly overweight, my brow overhangs so I look like I’m frowning, my lips point downwards and my nostrils are naturally flared. To arrange my expression into anything other than this is actually hard work and I can only maintain it for a little while before my muscles in my face start to shake. I’m always very pleasant though. I have also adopted a quieter voice so I don’t sound intimidating because that’s not my aim. But literally throughout my life men (and it has never been a woman) have told me to smile and say it might never happen. I am fed up with feeling like I’m not good enough because I look like I do. 😩😢

Before this last post I was going to say that I have noticed a difference between external and LA inhouse solicitors, I was trained external and worked external but had some dealings with in house, I would say as a generalisation external make more effort in terms of interpersonal things in meetings. But at the same time marketing is part of our job, it isn't a part of your job to the same extent if at all and that makes a difference.

But with this latest post my whole solicitor head disappears and instead I am thinking - you really could change your appearance if you wanted to. I don't scare the horses when I am slim but even a small amount overweight i look like the beast in beauty and the beast, and I do see this as completely within my control, if I am every overweight it is because at that time i couldn't care less how i look.

You could also do caci or something like that which changes your face muscles and makes you more smiley and also could raise your brow.

If you did a broad grin and held it for 3 minutes a few times a day (in private!) your face muscles would change and your face would naturally be more smiley

Being 6 ft 1 you could be really elegant

It is up to you, though.

Whether your colleague should have said something is a different question. No he shouldn't. But that doesn't change the fact that if you want to do something about your appearance, you can.

I'm not usually an officious type but report. Iverecently begun to report ANY male violence or inappropriate behaviour where different behaviour would have taken place had I been male. This has included in the past 3 months; providing the Police with dash cam footage of a male worker from a bathroom fitting company local to me repeatedly shouting abuse and swearing at me when I was keeping to the speed limit, then at traffic lights (I'd given him ample opportunity to overtake me and break the speedlight should he have wished to, DD7 Wasing the passenger seat with me).
And reporting my next door neighbour neighbour to the Police when (again in front of DD7) he threw a paddy over me 'driving over his piece of pavement. I've since reported to Police when he subsequently set up CCTV pointing at my drive (the Police have been excellent and the neighbour has been TOLD by them support provided.
I've had it with male violence/inappropriateness/entitlement and now report/call it out each and every time. If that makes me humourless/'that's person/a 'Karen' then so be it. 42 years of this shit and I'm done. DD knows how to act in the face of (predominantly) male bad behaviour.
Excuse my rant OP, this was a very convoluted way of saying face it head on, YASoNBU.

* I'm not usually an officious type but report. *

Please don’t. Really don’t

The examples you give involve unequivocal verbal abuse and threatening behaviour

If you feel undermined professionally by his comments you should seek advice from HR.

Wondering where mrploppy comment came from.

Re mask, that would be funny, someone making the comment, do a hard stare and put a mask on.

Men NEVER tell other men to smile. Neither do women tell men to smile.

It's horribly misogynistic and deeply inappropriate

I like the "smiling like a loon" thing

I could say "I don't have to smile continually like a loon, we're not in a brothel".

Personally I don’t think smiling is relevant to being a solicitor. Your colleague is an asshole, plain and simple.

Some industries a smile goes a long way, but yours is not one of them OP.

Next time stop, put down your work. Do the confused head tilt and sit and just look at him for two minutes. Don’t break eye contact. Maybe then he will learn to shut up.

I’m sick of men like this.

I have resting grumpy/sad face, and it's getting very much worse a with age, as I have very unelastic skin and I'm 65.

If some stranger told me to smile, I'd be really pissed off. But realistically I know my face has become a problem when it comes to relationships with people. I'm naturally animated and smiley in conversation. But my 'thinking face' is really grumpy, and I was horrified when I realised that. In meetings with people I don't know (and even those I do) I'm coming across in a way that is far from what I'm feeling inside.

Only a few weeks ago, after a meeting that I thought had gone well, I got a message from one of my colleagues asking if I was okay, as I hadn't seemed my usual self in the meeting. As the focus of the meeting has been building relationships with another working group there I was horrified.

I don't know what the answer is. A few years ago I'd have been furious at being told to smile in a professional setting. But realistically, having resting grumpy/sad face is a real issue. And I'm glad my colleague (also female, and who was expressing concern for me, to be fair), mentioned it. I'm going to be at pains to ensure that I try to animate my face more when I'm thinking. It actually does matter when relationships are involved.

Id leave it til next time and deliberately enter looking glum and when he points it out respond with a lighthearted "nice bit of everyday sexism there, Steve." And see what he says.

Whether your colleague should have said something is a different question. No he shouldn't. But that doesn't change the fact that if you want to do something about your appearance, you can.

mrploppy where do you get the impression that OP is wanting to “do something about” her appearance? The issue is how this man has responded to her, not about how she looks. Women are not decorative. Your comment in its entirety is bizarre.

YANBU for being miffed, OP, it's seriously condescending.
Is there also an age gap? (e.g. is he older?)

Not sure I'd bother "reporting", but I'd suggest practicing some answers in case this happens again. You don't have to put up with that crap.
There's plenty of approaches here.
I'm personally quite fond of playing dumb, e.g. "Why? :D", repeated as many times as necessary while the idiot digs their own grave. Works for sexist stuff, racist stuff, someone just being a dick to you personally, whatever.
Just keep pushing on the most outrageous points they make, and ask them to elaborate. Finish off with a swift summary of your own "Ah, so what you're saying is , did I get that right? I'll bear that in mind :D"
... Mind you, typing this, I realise this all relies on having perfected some kind of psychopath-poker-face-predatory-smile... You may want to practice that one

@Garriet

Whether your colleague should have said something is a different question. No he shouldn't. But that doesn't change the fact that if you want to do something about your appearance, you can.

mrploppy where do you get the impression that OP is wanting to “do something about” her appearance? The issue is how this man has responded to her, not about how she looks. Women are not decorative. Your comment in its entirety is bizarre.

Because she went into detail about how she looks! How she looks isn't relevant to what the man said, but it seemed relevant to the OP.

This is exact type of mildly sexist treatment I’ve had to put up without throughout my career. When isolated, each incident seems too small to complain about, but over time it forms a pattern…

I once bad a client comment that I seemed too smiley! You can’t win sometimes! Also comments on my age, looking like a ‘young girl’, creepy clients making a big deal about wanting to sit next to me, comments on my hair colour, etc… yuck.

Maybe you should smile if you do think you look grumpy. Most people act happy when exchanging pleasantries before a meeting. I don’t care if it’s a man or woman nobody likes a sourpuss.

In your rush to see sexism don’t forget part of most client based jobs is personal interaction. You can’t just act like a bitch and then be like, “well whoever doesn’t like this is sexist”. A smile is simple courtesy.