I once read, and please take this with a grain of salt because I think it may have been on the blog of Cobra Starship’s Gabe Saporta, that one of the worst things in life is that no one ever sees us the way we see ourselves. This idea can too be flipped, because the other terrible thing is that we never see ourselves the way other see us. Identity fascinates me, and while I’m throwing deep and meaningful quotes at you, I do love the existentially problematic “you are who you are when no one is looking”, if we are not being perceived, is our identity gone or in its purest form? Given the subject matter I’m about to follow on with, I am being way too deep, man.
Today I am concerned with the way others perceive us, or namely, me. I have always been dogged by the fear of misrepresenting myself, when I interact with people I meet, even when I blog sometimes. The thought of coming across as anything other than real!me worries me. I can argue that I am entirely real (unless this is The Matrix, oh shit!), but I get nervous about exaggerations of aspects of myself. This happens most at work because working in retail is not really about individuality, I doubt any institutional setting with uniforms and conversational checkpoints for workers ever could be. I’m happy to follow codes of conduct, mostly because I LOVE rules and by following them I am being true to myself, boom! However, with my rule following hat on I represent this concept that customers make assumptions about. I’m getting too heavy again, damn. The problem is that customers think that I am 17/18 years old which makes me cringe more than it should. To begin with, I know exactly why people assume that and can probably be largely blamed for it. It’s because of what I like to call my Sunny Disposition in the Workplace.
This Sunny Disposition is my work persona, I don’t ever recall sitting down and creating a personality but it happened. Somewhere along the path to becoming an A+ checkout operator, I became not only that but one of my greatest fears realised. No, not a giant moth, or a giant chicken, or the ailing sister in the Pet Semetary movie, but a bonafide misrepresentation of myself. YAY! The Sunny Disposition has several key elements:
I smile a lot, but I do that all the time so it hardly counts, but smiling is sunny as shit so it’s on the list.
My hair is often pinned to side, which Rhiannon has delightfully informed me makes me look “innocent”.
When I speak to customers my voice involuntarily raises an octave or two, which I find very funny because when I talk to co-workers I drop right back to my normal vocal register. I probably seem crazy, but it’s beyond my control, like the fact I can’t help but say “hey” instead of “hi” or “hello” to people that make me nervous and/or are attractive (TRIVIA!).
The final ingredient of the Sunny Disposition pie is optimism (I know, not love, how unexpected). Sunny!Jessica takes optimism, keeps it up ALL night watching re-runs of The Brady Bunch and then feeds it copious amount of crack. I am the checkout chick version of the world’s most effective positive affirmation, it’s sickening. I am a happy person, and I try to be as positive as I can, but fuck me, I am NOT the eternal optimist I pretend to be at work. Which is kind of a little dark and a little sad revelation, but hey, that’s just real!me.
All of these come together and make me seem like a teenager, which does not bode well with me. I am almost 23, I am 22 and 50 weeks old (my birthday is May 21st, for the record, whatever, I’m not prying for birthday wishes ….). Comparatively, 18 year old me sucks! I like myself (the way I see myself, whooaaaa) so much more now. It’s infuriating that people try to deduce something remotely real about me from a momentary interaction on a checkout. When someone asks me how my final year of high school is going, I muster up the strength to not go all Never Been Kissed prom scene on them and smile and let them know I’m about to finish university and am in my 20s. They’re always so surprised, and I laugh and say “But thank you, I’ll be happy to look five years younger in my forties!” or if I’m grumpy I tell them I never get ID’d anywhere, which is true. It’s not rude to assume someone is young, isn’t that why people always say middle-aged women are turning 21 on their birthdays? Being a teenager just wasn’t fun for me, and I don’t like being put back in that category. Once again, it’s just real!me.
The worst thing the Sunny Disposition brings isn’t eternal youth, but I get asked every shift without fail, “Why are you so happy?”, “Why are you always smiling?” In my first year of university when I was still a psychology major, the first assignment was about identity and a psychological theory about waiters in Paris (♫and they going gorillas♫. I am so sorry). A waiter in Paris (or anywhere) has a specific waiter identity that only comes into play when they’re at work. It is foolish to assume that it is a definitive representation of their identity, because it’s just a small aspect of the whole thing. This obviously applies to every employee role. This is why I never presume I understand someone on the basis of their work identity, because it’s not who they really are, and when it’s flipped back onto me, I think, I am not so happy, I’m smiling because it’s in my nature, stop questioning my persona and get aware, this is an exaggerated aspect of my personality I dance around in to pay the bills, how do you act at work? I’ve got a Sunny Disposition though, so I laugh and say because it’s not difficult to be in a good mood!! Hahaha. The disposition disappears occasionally though, and I have genuinely great conversations with people speaking at my normal vocal register, and they’re awesome and fun. YOLO, whatever. If you don’t break from the Sunny Disposition every now and then, you murder all your co-workers eventually, right?
It’s madness to over think this so much, I know, but if you’ve been on board with this blog for a while now you know that’s how I roll. Paying so much attention to this is probably futile as I will not be a retail worker forever, or if I am I’ll at least be climbing the corporate ladder, which will be a special ladder I will design that’s made of gold and used exclusively by the richest corporations in the world in inspirational staff meetings. For now, I must find the space between being the youthful Sunny Disposition princess and the (almost) 23 year old real!me and continue dominating the world of checkout operating. Maybe I’m going to become some kind of professional kinderwhore at work, YOLO. YOLO.
xoxo
