A red faced woman stands in front of me with her lips pursed and a pink plush pig toy on the counter in several pieces. She reaches into her bag and throws more white stuffing onto the counter. Along with a balled up receipt, she throws at my chest. “I want a refund.”
I hate this part. “I’m sorry. We don’t do refunds on toys that have been destroyed. It’s one of our policies. You can call the company that makes the toy and-”
“My dog is a pit-bull. It is so hard to find a plush toy that he won’t destroy.”
Maybe you should get bones, instead of plush toys, you dumb bi-
“This toy said in the packaging it was durable. It didn’t even hold up the week. I want my money back.”
Remember to give a sad nod. “I can’t do that ma’am.”
“What kind of pet store is this?!”
Nice and easy. Keep your tone steady and soft. “I can call the manager. He may be able to help you.” No he won’t. “I’m just a sales associate.” Fix your face, make it look sympathetic.
“No, I’m talking to you.”
I don’t get paid enough. “I’ll go get the manager.”
“Hey! Don’t walk away from me. Such a rude disgusting little girl.”
I could hear my manager from across the store apologize about me.
A question that struck me in class was “How does labor shape or reshape our body?”
When we discuss labor, we tend to focus on physical labor, more so than emotional labor. Both can be equally difficult or different depending on the person.
I work in retail, specifically at a pet store.
Before I had a retail job, I would work more with my parents. I painted, cleaned, and helped fix houses. It was a demanding job physically. The physical labor was difficult, but it made my body stronger. When I got my first “real” job at the pet store, I thought it would be so easy. Just stand there, smile, and nod when customers yell at you. I was not prepared for the huge toll it would take on my emotional health.
If I was going to do retail, I thought pet stores would be my best bet. Animals tend to bring me peace because it doesn’t matter what you wear, what you look like, or whether you’re happy or sad, they’re always happy to see you. When I volunteered at the shelter, I would always come in looking half dead and homeless. The staff threw me funny looks, but the dogs would leap for joy when I stepped into their cages.
People tend to have high expectations. Dress nice. Smile pretty. Act “ladylike”. Wear just enough makeup to look like you are not wearing makeup. Stand straight. Sit with your legs crossed. Talk loud, but not too loud. Laugh at not funny jokes.
Be happy.
We all battle different demons everyday. Why do we expect everyone to be happy all the time? Its such an unrealistic expectation.
Crawling out of my cave of blankets to pick a “pretty” work outfit and put on eye concealer so that others can get a pretend version of me while they shop for their dog’s monkey paw socks is so exhausting.
It starts to feel so lonely and isolating. Always hiding my true feelings. I start to actually not feel like a person and feel more like a mannequin.
I take frequent bathroom breaks because I get nauseous and dizzy. Then a tingling feeling overcomes my cheeks, it gets hotter, and eventually harder to breathe. I lie to my coworkers and say I have “tummy” issues because somehow that’s less embarrassing than telling them that I lose control of my mind sometimes.
When I worked a physically demanding job, I could say my legs are aching or my back hurts from sweeping the floors yesterday and I would get the day off to recuperate.
I can’t call of work because it takes too much effort to smile, I feel anxious, I can’t laugh today, or I feel depressed.
Because then that would make me lazy, dramatic, emotional, and weak.
Employers take physical pain more seriously than emotional pain. Employers want strong employees that can mask their emotion for as long as possible without breaking.
Emotional labor has reshaped my body into something that is a bit weaker. Or maybe it has shed light on my weaknesses.
Unruly Bodies 
I really enjoyed reading your post. I was able to really relate to the topic you chose to focus on. Emotional health is a subject that not too many people are comfortable talking about. Society usually tells us to keep our emotional problems and our withering emotional health to ourselves. Instead of getting to the bottom of our feelings, we are told to smile or “suck it up”.
I can also really relate to not wanting to use my emotional health as a reason for not doing something. People are more likely to believe you are in pain if there’s a physical symptom of it – something they can see. If your pain is emotional, the lack of physical evidence (like a cast, brace, bruise, etc.) causes a skepticism that leads some people to assume your faking it to get out of doing something.
The hushed conversation regarding emotional health and mental illness gives these subjects a label of social deviance, which further causes those who are suffering to stay quiet. It’s a destructive cycle that can only stop with the change of society’s view of emotional health.
You picked a really good topic! It raises a lot of opportunities and questions for conversation.
I loved this so much. It is everything I have ever thought when I was working retail.
I questioned why me standing for many hours and doing math in my head isn’t enough for people. Does getting this overpriced shirt really feel better because I faked smiled when you out of cultural norm said “Hi, how are you doing? Great! Thanks for asking” without waiting for me to reply.
I completely that work does put this emotional toll on people and it is rarely spoken about in the professional setting. If we want people to really care for their overall well-being, I think that it is important to start talking about self-care in the workplace.
I love how you mentioned that you thought that retail would be easy. Because I think that we are told that retail and the emotional labor that comes with it are “easy” when in reality it’s so far from easy. We are told taking other people’s emotional crap is easy and that you can just brush it off with a smile. I also agree that self care is huge but sadly we don’t really talk about it. Thank you for bringing to real light how exhausting it is to be in retail.
Your post was so vivid and truly illustrated how taxing emotional labor can be. I really appreciated how you emphasized that physical pain is more easily accepted than emotional pain, even though one is not actually worse than the other. I also appreciate that you brought up the idea of emotional labor as something that can shape the body – labor does not have to be physical to change us! Thank you so much for sharing.
Fantastic post and conversation.
I love this post and relate to it so much. I worked at a fabric store for a school year and assumed it would be easy because, well, that’s basically the message I get from the general culture about retail (it’s a minimum wage job it’s easy). A week in I assumed the hardest part would be lifting the bolts of vinyl over my head. Hah. Customers put sales associates through the wringer and everyone in that store knew it, to the point that everyone working close would usually spend the final hour when it was just us bitching about the rude people we’d encountered that day. (On another note, are you familiar with the retail robin meme? The retail robin tumblr kept me sane not even kidding)