Emotional labor is a kind of work we often dont recognize as work: the need to appear friendly, deferential, or attentive at a job. Fast food restaurant Pret a Manger is famous (or infamous) for holding its employees to exacting friendliness standards, and emotional labors overall importance is becoming a more and more pressing question. Its frequently, for example, implicated when talking about the supposed American crisis of masculinity and the growth of the service sector: are some men, rarely asked to perform as much emotional labor as women, having difficulty adjusting to the new economy?
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