• LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I live in USA and I was just hired at a job where we are required to smile all the time. So far my perma-smiles are authentic because it’s my dream job literally on the beach, but I wonder over the duration of time, if the smiling will become exhausting and no longer authentic.

      • FilterItOut
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        2 months ago

        It will. I’m sorry. When I was on the phone, I was made to smile because it changes your voice. I learned to stab myself in the thigh with paperclips so I could feel even when I couldn’t because the smile had stolen thought from me. Even now, when I smile, a tiny part of me screams into darkness because the pain is real. It’s real.

      • Khanzarate@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I smiled at my job for 3 years. It was tech support, over the phone. No the customers weren’t better than what you usually hear, in fact I eventually became the next tier up and got the BS calls.

        I definitely felt my face muscles at the end of the day, but the smiling wasn’t ever fake, and you can know that for sure because I wasn’t ever required to do it, it just helped.

        As long as you still feel its your dream job, as long as you have a real reason to smile, it won’t become fake, even after a few years of doing it. If you lose that reason, it becomes more work to smile, and that work will tire you out, and only then will it be exhausting.

        If 3 years of IT (Which, I quit eventually because it sucked) couldn’t take my smile because I do like helping people, then I dont think an actual dream job will ever steal it.