Page 124 - The Disneyization of Society

PERFORMATIVE LABOUR

quality and that this was one of the main reasons for a downturn in its financial
fortunes soon after the start of the new millennium and for its decline as a
brand. 58 115
It is not just crew workers who are involved in exhibiting emotional labour.
Managers are also involved in a form of emotional labour in that they are trained
and encouraged to become subservient to the McDonald’s corporate ethos and
culture. Leidner writes that the company seeks to produce managers with ‘ketchup
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in their veins’. The Hamburger University plays a significant role in inculcating
this corporate spirit. In part, the training is conducted in order to instruct
managers in the correct operational procedures in order to maximize the kind
of uniformity of process and product for which the company is famous. But
also, as Leidner observes, managers’ zeal is worked on in order to ensure that they
understand as fully as possible the reasons for adherence to protocol so that
they are more likely to ensure that there is no transgression among their staff.
The training is concerned therefore with ‘building commitment and motiva-
tion’ as much as instruction in McDonald’s ways of doing things. The kind of
company loyalty that is required and engendered involves an element of
emotional labour on the part of those who are required to exhibit it. Much like
Disney’s University, the managers are also introduced to the company’s history
and to the words of its founder in order to enhance the emotional appeal of the
corporate culture.

Other restaurants

McDonald’s is by no means the only fast food chain that seeks to elicit emotional
labour from its workers. It is evident in Reiter’s research on Burger King which
‘urges employees to be pleasant, cheerful, smiling, and courteous at all times’ and
to ‘show obvious pride in their work’. 60 A flier given to cashiers as part of their
training informed them: ‘without the personal attention to good service that only
you can give, our customers may not return … Be fast and friendly, with a “smile”.
Make the customer’s visit a happy one’. 61 Research into fast-food restaurants in
New York (which included a McDonald’s outlet) confirms the importance of emo-
tional labour in the work of cashiers and other frontline service workers. As one
worker put it: ‘The first time I did the work, they said “smile, be polite.” If some
customers are impolite or not kind, we have to smile to everyone.’ 62 Similarly,
Leidner noted a sign outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet that read ‘Now
hiring smiling faces.’ 63
Fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King are by no means the
only types of restaurant in which emotional labour is likely to be found. In
Chicago, at the Johnny Rockets restaurant (a chain of 1950s-themed diners) an
instruction was written on a white board in the servers’ food collection area