It should be professionally acceptable to put on one’s resume: “Ability to smile and treat people with kindness even when all you want to do is punch them in the face”.
The world we live in today currently operates like a prominent business; customer satisfaction always comes first no matter what the price. Now, before you start disagreeing with me by citing an employee rights handbook, calm down and just hear me out. Having been a children’s snowboard/ski instructor, a model for Abercrombie Kids, a hostess for a restaurant and a barista at Starbucks, my variety of part time jobs has enabled me to see first-hand people at their snobbiest and grumpiest, and yet still had to treat each and every last one of them as if they were the dear blessed Mother Theresa. It’s something I’m not ashamed to boast about because there are no correct amount of words to describe the insane amount of mental strength it takes to not only bite your tongue in order to repress all the cuss words you are dying to unleash upon them, but to also do so with your most ravishing smile while simultaneously holding back that punch you want to release so badly.
There should be monthly awards given out to employees who don’t punch the ridiculous customers in the face.
If you have had any type of job that interacts with people, then I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about. I’m even willing to bet to that some of you can even visualize that one specific customer in all their ridiculousness, making his or her ridiculous requests that make you think in the back of your mind how relieved you are that you turned out the way you are. But if you happen to be one of the ridiculous customers reading this, I suggest that you take note and change your snobby ways because the employees that you treat rudely aren’t just robots who wait around for you all day in order to serve you unquestioningly. These employees are people who go through all the same daily hardships and stresses that you do, but must hide it all behind a smile once they're on the clock. So there’s absolutely no excuse to be rude to us when we’re there to offer you our service in the first place. And, I might add, the majority of these same people also have some form of social media: so you can guarantee you are being tweeted or Facebooked about if you do something nonsensical. Or, in this case, you did something so comically absurd in front of the girl who writes weekly articles for an online publication. So I suppose I should thank you all for that, but now that you’re all relieved that I’m not mentioning any names, you all should really reconsider your rudeness and flip it around for human betterment sakes.
However, on a more serious note, being able to fake a smile is a skill that surpasses the realm of part time customer service jobs. Being able to do so enables a person to learn to not act on emotional impulses like anger or frustration in heated moments. Employers not only want to employ people who can successfully manage difficult customers with kindness and represent their businesses in a good light, but people in general want to maintain relationships with the people who can continue to carry themselves with their heads up even when the going gets rough. Faking a smile can be very painful at times, but like having to deal with a difficult customer, is necessary at certain moments in life because it teaches you patience and develops your inner strength. It teaches you to get up out of bed, even when all you want to do is stay there and cry or sleep reality away, and get on with your life-- because life is meant to be experienced, not merely just felt. Sometimes a fake smile is like a tiny light at the end of a dark tunnel, the tiny optimistic beacon that signals that everything is going to be ok if you just keep moving along even though it hurts to just keep breathing. So if you're currently in a chapter of your life of having to fake your smile, know that you are strong. You are strong for having the courage to keep going when all you want to do is stop, for continuing to surround yourself with people even though you feel all alone when you're with them, and for refusing to stay in the deep and dark rut life may have pushed you down in. The bright side to hitting rock bottom is that the only place left to go is up, so keep pushing on and I promise you that everything will be ok and that someday you'll take a deep breath and genuinely smile because for the first time in a long time, you're not being forced to fake it.
