To not reprimand staff for not smiling?

[squashedalmondcroissant]

I work as a manager in a catering/hospitality business, small local chain.

I had a call from a senior staff member about a negative review we were given online that essentially said they didn’t feel that the staff member on duty (not me) was smiley enough. I have now been tasked with pulling up this staff member on this.

I am very much not someone who is easily offended or quick to jump to misogyny but something about this feels..irritating to me. (The person complaining was a man and all the staff are women). They didn’t say the staff were rude, unpleasant or ignored them, just that were weren’t smiley and ‘welcoming’. I know the staff member and they are always polite and helpful but they do have a bit of a ‘resting bitch face’ when not intentionally grinning like a Cheshire Cat!

Something about this is rubbing me up the wrong way. It seems the main complaint is the staff not smiling while doing her job perfectly competently. Should I reprimand her for this? I understand that when customer facing sometimes you need to fake it a bit but is just her natural face position so offensive to someone that she should be forced to plaster on a fake smile? I’m torn!

Research indicates 98% of women have been told to "smile more" at work, a frequent form of gendered, emotional labor and workplace sexism where women are pressured to appear accommodating. It undermines professional autonomy, often punishing women for having neutral expressions that men would not be criticized for, particularly during assertive moments.

i admire you OP for picking up and filtering this complaint - I hope your staff member knows the above and that it could be workplace sexism to confront her

How dare that man try to control staff members body!

Not really - it’s highly unprofessional

to try and control how a women presents her body for men

all those giving examples of bosses giving golden nuggets about smiles are talking of another era - it’s very outdated

Honestly I wouldn't even mention it to her - it's a ridiculous complaint by the type of person with too much time on their hands, and who is a busybody. My old coworker was told by our manager that she "was being paid to smile." She promptly got another job and quit. I wasn't happy as I loved working with her.

Absolutely

• focus on the women’s performance

• challenge idea smiling enough is part of the job

• respect womens emotional freedom

I cannot believe people are saying to take seriously a complaint that a women didn’t smile enough - completely sexist - the fact that the complaint is that she was smiling, just not enough

I’m in a couple of minds about this. It isn’t good to leave feeling unwelcome … BUT I’ve worked in a shop and will say that quite a few customers were utterly unreasonable (to the point of being quite mental). I had one guy get quite cross because he asked me a question about physics (at the shop till) and I answered it correctly.

I once had a customer lose it at me because we sold Coke and not Pepsi. Some people are just looking for a punching bag.

RBF comes to all of us with age.

How sexist of him. Bet he wouldn't say that about a man.

I have really conflicting thoughts about this.

On one hand, women are always told "give us a smile love" etc. It's everyday misogyny because men certainly aren't treated the same way.

But when you're working in a service capacity and your job is to be welcoming, I don't know how you can achieve this without smiling? Being polite isn't the same as being welcoming/friendly.

I choose not to be a customer-facing role any more precisely because I don't want to do this (but I have done in the past). I get that it's knackering but so are many aspects of working, surely? Having to be polite to people who didn't deserve it used to really grind me down. So I'm not without sympathy at all - but I'm not sure how "welcomed" I'd feel by a man or a woman who greeted me without a smile cracking their face. You don't have to be grinning inanely to be welcoming.

I remember this, smile when you dial 😀 must admit still smile even when I send emails now

I would have a friendly chat with her about it, and come at it from the pov of “welcoming” the customers. She may have a wholly different story of what happened but she can’t tell you that unless you raise it.

Then you can tell your manager you’ve discussed it.

I would sit her down and say "I've been informed I must reprimand you for not being smiley enough. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you I value your work ethic, you've always been great at X-Y-Z. I didn't see the interaction that led to this complaint so cannot comment further but I do have to remind you to smile at customers even if you're busy doing your work"

Basically saying in code this is ridiculous and you hate reprimanding her w/o saying that aloud. Hopefully she'll clock that you're not taking it seriously. It feels misogynistic to me and I hate it-can you push back at all to your boss?

When I worked retail we had a problem customer making trouble for us and I had my supervisory staff on constant alert if she came in they were to call me, if I wasn't there they must stop whatever they're doing, go greet her, ask her if she needed assistance etc and SMILE at her (bare your teeth if you must). It worked so well she refused to shop elsewhere so I cursed myself but the insane complaints ended.

Anybody working in hospitality irrespective if they are male or female
is except to be warm friendly and dare I say smiley
but that doesn’t mean a ridiculous forced Cheshire Cat smile
it’s more your facial expressions in general and a smile is part of that

tone manner and body language is a big part of it as well

no no no

this is awful advice

you are on dodgy ground telling a women in a work environment that she didn’t smile enough when a male gaze was on her even though her performance is great

don’t let yourself down by colluding with the patriarchy

Does the training cover smiling for customers?

Give this waitress a warning? You'll do no such thing. Tell your boss you issued one if you like, but don't dignify this arsehole's petty nonsense.

I find it telling that it was a man complaining about women not smiling at him. Would a woman complain that a man didn't smile at her?

He said she wasn’t “smiling enough”!!!

so her smile wasn’t up to his male gaze - ffs

@sueellekerI suspect not. Personally, as long as someone is doing their job and isn’t rude I never even notice if someone is or isn’t smiling at me! Male or female.

Anybody doing an inspection in retail or hospitality this is one of the things they check The manner and friendliness they were greeted so I doubt gender is relevant

your the first point of contact if you will the face of the business
there's no easy way to tell anyone they look miserable so it’s easy feedback “smile”

think every time you do a survey for a company the first question is generally about the greeting

Someone with a resting bitch face shouldn’t be front of house or dealing with customers frankly

You said that she had resting bitch face. And it doesn't matter how polite her words are, if they're accompanied by RBF.

This is nothing like a random guy telling you to 'smile - it might never happen'. Working in hospitality means that you have to be welcoming. And if you don't have even a hint of warmth in your face, you're not welcoming.

I too have resting bitch face, and I hate it. But I have a weekly volunteering role where it's very important that the service users receive a warm welcome. So I had to learn to make sure that I smiled. It took very little time for it to come naturally, and if I'm honest, I enjoy the role more now, as I get the same warmth back.

So yep, she needs to fake it until she makes it.

So. Thats her face. I have a pal like that who would give you the shirt of her back. We cant judge people by their resting face. If she had loads of complaints fair enough but one (two tops) is a have her back situation imo. Is anyone perfect? Who wants to be part of a situation where we moan and complain about every little thing we dont do perfectly. Compalin when there is a complaint. Not when you dont 100% like someones facial expression. We are all someone's daughter/mother/sister/whoever just trying to work and pay the bills. He was a grumpy man imo. Let him moan. We need to build each other up. Tell the employee you trust her appreciate her and she and the work place will be better. Moan and pull up for every little thing and the work place is toxic and no one is happy.

That’s the patriarchy - we don’t have to abide by it - it’s wrong to control women’s bodies

on the contrary I think they would look further at overall experience