{"id":2928,"date":"2017-06-07T23:59:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T06:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2017-06-08T00:20:06","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T07:20:06","slug":"a-smile-is-part-of-the-uniform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/a-smile-is-part-of-the-uniform\/","title":{"rendered":"“a smile is part of the uniform”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wallace and Gromit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m a part-time busboy in a dumpling house and these are the dumpling house rules. Luckily I don’t mind cheesing it up. Sometimes I feel like Wallace from\u00a0Wallace and Gromit<\/em>, where my mouth becomes bigger than my whole face — it’s a goofy feeling. (“You gotta smile with your eyes, too!” the manager says). Surely you’ve felt the same way at least once: smiling not necessarily because you are thinking or feeling\u00a0hooray!\u00a0<\/em>but\u00a0because you’ve been caught in an absurd situation where you can’t help but laugh at it all.<\/p>\n

I’m trying to imagine the same restaurant policy in the Netherlands. Outside of the fanciest restaurants, would this policy even pass there? Even the cheeriest Dutchies I know would roll their eyes and laugh it off. What Americans perceive as good customer service (i.e. big smile,\u00a0hey how you doin’?<\/em>), the Dutch often perceive as fake and disingenuous. Showing a detached demeanor in a restaurant service role is a way of living up to egalitarian values. Showing an eagerness to please no matter what (i.e. “the customer is always right”) is not.<\/p>\n

A memory from Utrecht: the owners of the Douwe Egberts coffeeshop at Janskerkhof had a lot to say about the waiters at Denny’s (the 24-hour American diner chain) when they visited the United States.\u00a0Too “friendly”! <\/em>(You could almost hear the quotation marks). Too fake! I know they want tips!\u00a0<\/em>The owners would say “how are you” in a nasal American accent and raise the pitch of their voice. Nothing could be done to ease their eternal suspicion of those waiters. I thought it was hilarious.<\/p>\n

As for me: I’m a sucker for everyday\u00a0theatrics, and it doesn’t bother me to suspend disbelief for a moment. Isn’t that how magic shows and fantasy books work?<\/p>\n

On another note: Peter Sallis, the voice actor for Wallace in \"Wallace & Gromit\" passed away earlier this week. The New York Times wrote a touching tribute<\/a>.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m a part-time busboy in a dumpling house and these are the dumpling house rules. Luckily I don’t mind cheesing it up. Sometimes I feel like Wallace from\u00a0Wallace and Gromit, where my mouth becomes bigger than my whole face — it’s a goofy feeling. (“You gotta smile with your eyes, too!” the manager says). Surely … Continue reading ““a smile is part of the uniform””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-Le","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2940,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}