Yesterday, in my effort to find a body practice, I probably made a fool of myself at work staring at people and watching the way the way they walk, talk, and other body language. It wasn't until a customer came up and made a joke that was not funny, that I realized a body practice that the majority of people, including myself, do all the time. I fake laughed at this customer's joke. As the day went on I realized that I did it a lot and so did my fellow employees. I mean we have all been there, victim of a bad joke, yet we all laugh anyway. And why is this? Do we laugh to not hurt someone’s feelings? or what? Fake laughing has become a ritual in all our lives that half the time we don't realize we are doing it. According to Susan Bordo, culture creates body practices, it makes us do what we do. So our culture has taught us that we always have to be courteous to peoples feelings, that we cannot be rude. We have to make the person with the bad joke believe that they are funny. In a way, while trying to be nice by pretending to laugh, you become as fake as the laugh. I wonder if this is truly a good thing? If this is an ideal body practice and by doing this practice we become intelligible bodies. I don't know. After thinking about how many times I would pretend something was funny, I feel sort of bad.
I understand the feeling that Katie is describing. I also work in an environment were it is necessary to make the customer feel at home; whether that means laughing at their dumb jokes or smiling as they yell in your face. Acting fake is all part of taking on identity of whatever professional environment you happen to be employed in. We assume the language, movements and behaviors that please those around us so that we may provide high customer satisfaction. While I agree this seems fake and tedious, in the work place, maybe it's for the best that we don't always tell the customers what we are really thinking.
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