The Obliviousness of a Modern Servant Representation

“Why Should I Be Nice To You Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Services” by Emily Raine, published online on Bad Subjects website in the editorial page, gives a radical insight of the writer’s comparative experiences as a server. Being a barista has confirmed to be her most unpleasant experience in the service industries; in contrary to her other work experiences at fine dining, cocktail waitressing and hip euro-bistro counter work. In this article, she made astonishing insights of the so-called almost-luxurious branded corporation’s clever ways of concealed marketing strategies, and, exploiting their workers’ individual qualities by controlling and assimilating them into the image of perfection to represent the corporate overall image.

Emily enjoyed every aspect of serving because serving gives her the opportunity to interact with her customer, as it takes about half an hour of interaction each table, which was a pleasurable experience she got from serving. But her experience working at Starbucks as a Barista made a huge turn of an event in her life. As serious and painful of an experience as this could be for her, she made a good twist with sarcasm by using quotes in her article, for instance, quoting the word, nice, to imply how she
felt forced to be nice.

The use of humor through her metaphors, too, has been deliberately added in the article, which molded the uniqueness of her ideology of specialty cafés and fast food outlets. Metaphors like “I felt like an aproned Coke machine” and “The penguin-suited household servant staff” that Raine used in her context marked her style as somewhat serious but the clearly concise images she portrayed, which sparks the humor in a spin. Raine made an impression of her idea of working at the specialty café as an exploitation of worker’s rights. In turn, workers get back at the company by taking time off their paid working hours by having their unassigned personal breaks. As a worker herself, she felt devaluated as a worker when all she did was one task assigned that she repetitively did all throughout the day and interaction with her customer each time was too scarce, which last for about tem seconds. The genuinely casual opening dialogue like “How are you doing today?” may likely be a disapproved thing to do by the company, as that is not the main focus of the company’s purposeful policy. Indulging dialogues would eventually lead on to longer chat that would hold up the line.

Being unhappy about the work system and the lack of humanly interactions, Raine put it out in the open about how she felt like a robot doing everything the company demands of their worker under their supervision and control in terms of dress code, the scripted quotes pasted on the cashier machines to prompt customers, and the closing line with a customer.

To reward the Good Samaritan behaviors of workers, the company offered benefits that can hardly match the needs of any workers who wish to attain full-time schedule in order to receive the benefits. In doing so, the company market itself to a level that makes them look professional and upscale and creates an image that they are the company that cares and have a good bond with their workers. With the great benefits the company has to offer, worker put up with the strict work ethics required of them. In Raines’s opinion, there should be no putting up with the company. She blatantly suggested Baristas to be rude when there is a need to with either customers or the management. There should be tolerance towards the working hierarchy, which the company sets to devaluate its workers indirectly, in order to show a little humanity that a person behind the counter has.

Raine has made this article very useful and she cleverly made awareness about the corporate structure. She may even be able educate readers with the right approach to deal with the worst scenarios in a manner that no one as a human can deny. Faking smiles and gestures are just ways to show genuflect to the hierarchy and reflecting of the image of the past “penguin-suited household servant” that Raine mentioned in the article. She have extensively emphasized on being an individual, not in a rebellious way, but a mindful way whereby one maintains his image to be respected regardless of where he stands in the company. If one thinks that low of you, that is when you get stepped all over regardless of how brilliant of a college student you are wherever you may work at.

Reign, Emily. “Why Should I Be Nice To You? Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service” Issue #74 Bad Subjects. December 2005. Reprinted in Faigley, Lester. Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond. NY: Pearson, 2007: 327-334.