Page 123 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

price rather than differentiation. In one of the three chains, a store manager
indicated that checkout clerks ‘are told to smile all the time’ and to contact a super-
114 visor or manager if a customer has a problem. A checkout clerk at the same store
informed the researchers: ‘We are given customer care training when we join
the company and as an ongoing thing. We are told to smile all the time and
that the customer is always right.’ 53 Moreover, management at this store were
keen that the smile should appear genuine and not superficial, so that in Hochschild’s
terms they should be displaying emotions through deep rather than surface acting.

McDonald’s

Emotional labour is a key feature of McDonald’s restaurants. It is a component of
the Quality Service and Value ethos from Ray Kroc’s days that remains a central
tenet of the faith. Its importance is drilled into franchisees and managers at the
Hamburger Universities. Crew members at the customer interface are widely
expected to engage with diners in a friendly way in order to enhance the plea-
surable nature of the dining experience and to increase the likelihood of more
items being purchased. Drawing on her research in a McDonald’s restaurant,
Leidner found that window workers were expected to smile, be cheerful, and
polite. 54 In addition, they were supposed to be themselves, meaning that they
were not to repeat a script robotically but to go beyond the standard phrases and
to inject some of their own personalities into the interaction. This arises out of a
belief that a monotonous repeating of standard phrases and forms of behaviour
frequently appears contrived and therefore not indicative of deep acting.
On the basis of his European research on McDonald’s, Royle has suggested that
the company’s till employees ‘are expected to control themselves internally by
being pleasant, cheerful, smiling and courteous to customers, even when cus-
tomers are rude and offensive’. It is very much part of the show business atmos-
55
phere that Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s as we know it today, felt was such
an important component of the success of the restaurants. It can be seen in the
previously quoted remark by Jim Cantalupo (see p. 28), then president of inter-
national operations, when he refers to the significance of ‘the smile at the front
counter’. As Fantasia points out in connection with the reception of McDonald’s
in France, the American ambience is a very important aspect of its success there
among youth, and it is the deployment of emotional labour that plays an impor-
tant role in creating that ambience. 56 It is striking that when Kincheloe inter-
viewed a woman originally from Hong Kong, she explained how as a girl her
enthusiasm for McDonald’s was such that she used to play role playing games
in which she would ‘churn up a big smile, and say, “How can I help you today?
May I please have your order?”’. 57 However, there has been some speculation
that McDonald’s has allowed progressively less attention to be paid to service