Professional Cheeriness is the latest craze to sweep our service sector. Professional Cheeriness is about serving a customer with a cheery expression, drained of all subtlety and nuance and infused with exaggerated brightness - in short it is the demeanour an adult presents to a child (squeaky squeaky smiley smiley). But our rapidly expanding service sector has hijacked this 'adult-to-child' demeanour to present a more friendly user interface to customers. Not only is the customer always right, but the service always has to be bright. The worst culprit? ----- Pret a Manger.
Here's a question: how will a Pret-a-Manger staff member serve you? Answer: with exaggerated smiles. They are soooo happy to see you! So happy to serve you! So happy that faith has conspired for them to meet you! Pret employees are always young, usually attractive European girls, and they have cute smiles, and they will never ever reject you! Never ever will they say: 'Sorry sir - you can't have that coffee sir' - 'Apologies sir, we can't make that for you sir'. No rejections! And that's the genius of it. To be served by young nubile pretty European girls - who are always always happy to see you - who will literally giggle at everything you say - who will always laugh at your jokes - who will always be polite. Going to Pret for lunch is like going on the best date of your life! And you can keep returning for more! And they'll keep on smiling.
But just poke your finger a little at the surface of these nubile pretty creatures and what happens? The finger rather easily pierces the thin film on the outside, to reveal an interior devoid of saccharine smiles and professional cheeriness - but an interior of profound depths, Yes! A soul doth lurk in them! They're not just all smiley-faced-puppet. They are daughters - they have mothers - they have brothers and sisters - they have hopes - and they're far from home. And our society, with its insistence on 'service - service - service' (£$profits£$ - $£profits£$ - $£profits£$), has turned them into automatic robots with perpetual cheery smiles. How does one keep a smile permanently affixed on one's face? What if that smile never comes off? When they go home in the evening - is the smile still there? - do the smile muscles ever ache?
We force chickens to lay eggs all year round. We force cows to grow monstrously big. We force grapes to grow seedless. We force carrots to tan abnormally orange. We force sunflowers to grow quick. We force Pret employees to wear fake saccharine smiles. Think about that the next time you pop into Pret a Manger and are confronted by a smile - a bright beaming saccharine smile. Remember: behind that smile lies a human being. That smile is not a brand. It is a person.
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