Do you work in the service sector?
Have you considered turning your emotions off?
As humans adapting to the immediacy of today’s world, we have grown more accustomed to the newer expectations of speed and efficiency with which we receive goods and services. What once began as a convenient way to make goods more accessible than being restricted to physical locations, snowballed into never-ending success for one of the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace and retailing companies, Amazon. The site has steadily stayed at its level of ubiquity and everyday use since Bezos decided to tackle growing consumer restlessness with features like same-day delivery and accurate tracking. It streamlined and facilitated the process, making it so that the average shopping addict could get their hit of dopamine in even quicker and more creative ways.
To say that this shift in consumer attitude and general consumption may be doing more harm than good to us would be an understatement. We are currently watching as capitalism, coercive consumption, a need for social dominance, and hedonism go hand in hand in the midst of what many are suggesting to be an economic recession. As we blend these phenomena with our current economic and social behaviours, the red lights start to blare in respect to how dependent, expectant, easily influenced, and sometimes even entitled we have become when it comes to our consumption.
The cycle perpetuates itself; working ourselves to the nub in jobs we may not be fond of, to buy the things we don’t need for a quick rush of dopamine, to growing increasingly more isolated as we hustle our way back to square one. All at the mercy of coercive or akratic consumption, once again to save us from the grim reality of the holes we have dug ourselves in. Many of us have made it so that we are only concerned with our next ‘hit,’ whatever form it may be in, and will stop at short of nothing to get it.
The question of whether we have experienced another significant paradigm shift since the onset of the pandemic is becoming another frequent topic of discussion. It sits in the air like a miasma of dread and trepidation, wondering if we were always like this.
These impatient, vampiric, greedy and grasping, unempathetic and easily agitated tendencies being ever so slightly encouraged to infiltrate our humanity. It’s not hard to miss in a long line, as a customer service or hospitality worker hurriedly struggles to keep up with mounting frustration in mere minutes.
This new way of interacting with consumption points to an even bigger issue concerning how we view each other. Elements of it may point to the spotlight effect; where we are constantly observing ourselves and how lush and exuberant several of us crave to appear. We spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves, watching and curating ourselves- whether online or in person, and seeing things from mainly our perspective. As a result, we often overestimate how much we think others are looking at or noticing us. Whether we broadcast it or not, this concept, though not new, is largely kept alive by late stage capitalism.
Hyper-individualism perpetuated by western culture, and decades of internet browsing and activity also highlight our blossoming tendencies to watch ourselves watch each other.
We are enslaved and ensnared by bureaucracy and consumerism to name a few, trapped in an inescapable cycle of participation, often against our own will.
As said by political and sociological theorist William Davies in The Political Economy of Unhappiness, “[We live in] an ethos that implores individuals to act, enjoy, perform, create, achieve and maximize… The [employee] is stricken by a chronic deflation of these psycho-economic capacities.” What he had been saying, though in respect to mentally unwell workers, paints a bigger picture. It exposes work culture and the perpetual need to relay polished, consistent service, to constantly take initiative and enact a sense of urgency regardless of the worker’s state of mind or physical capabilities. Mix in the nature of many service jobs being strenuous and laborious in nature, leaving many with all types of long-term and otherwise avoidable chronic pain.
In the face of these issues, it’s easy to wave dismissively and shrug at the fact that everyone has to put food on the table one way or another. But it’s arguable to say that this same kind of behaviour is what is perpetuating a dismal sense of apathy.
It begs the question of who is doing the ‘beating down,’ and who is frequently being beat down. The answer to that is quite unclear, as even service workers themselves who understand the hardships of service work are not exempt from lashing out gratuitously.
As people get older and are forced to adapt to how the world works, they tend to grow more jaded. Psychologist Reena B Patel outlines the significance of power dynamics we experience as we go through day to day interactions. Since service workers often lack little to any power, the average consumer recognizes this, making many people have a natural predisposition to feel superior to such workers. A customer named Caitlin who had displayed aggression at an unsuspecting service worker described it succinctly, “There is no social credit in the relationship… there’s no ramifications for me just letting my worst behaviour fly.”
The expectation to remain composure at work, school and other establishments with a more defined social contract does not apply at a grocery store, coffee shop, restaurant, front desk or elsewhere, because there is no one to answer to. This phenomenon is known as scapegoat theory, and describes our tendency to divert and shift blame for convenience’s sake. Our brains tend to think in black and white because it’s more digestible, and it’s easier to explode at the drop of a hat than it is to sit down and ask one’s self why they became irate or upset at a minor inconvenience. It’s easier to lash out than it is to stew in and dissect the political, financial, and/ or general anxieties going on in our lives.
As things grow more uncertain, whether it pertains to politics, economics, global health and general way of life; human desire for social dominance and acceptance stays the same. Instead of changing behaviour to adapt, and injecting empathy and patience into our lives, many crumble under the pressure, or do what they deem necessary to remain sane. Unfortunately for a lot of people, their remedy for a bad day or an uncomfortable period means lashing out at those who likely won’t do anything about it. Client entitlement can also be fed by slogans like, “the customer is always right.” It is no wonder patients at medical practices, hospitals and clinics are getting increasingly bombarded with signs reminding them to treat front desk workers and nurses with respect and civility.
While many who blow up at workers aren’t repeat offenders, there is evidence to suggest that people exerting scapegoat theory and entitled behaviours may have a sense of preordained dominion over others. This behaviour is usually rooted in prejudice itself.
“Self righteous indignation” ties back into these phenomena of scapegoating, power dynamics, the spotlight effect and social dominance in a world that has a tendency to gradually beat us down. As we watch ourselves and watch each other, on screens, and with none of the happy chemicals that we get from an ordinary, physical human interaction, we grow more accustomed to this alien and distorted way of viewing one another. We allow ourselves to get addicted to the dopamine of quick fixes because it’s easier to live this way than to bask in the reality of today’s world. Checking our phones while we wait in line, using a nicotine or weed vaping device that delivers a high or a rush in alarmingly quick speed, posting the 70th take of ourselves in an outfit we just spent hard-earned money on.
Many of us get so caught up in the charade that we forget how to act reasonably. How to see the true face of the other, and not just a nebulous figure with a fixed existence at their place of work, only materializing to cater to your every need.
In today’s world, it has finally reached the point where people would rather opt to dehumanize each other. It has only become easier to abuse one another than it has to to ask how and why we ended up here. We seldom give grace to each other because unhealthy modern day lifestyles and mechanisms hinder us from reflecting or pausing, or because we simply don’t have the time to. Exercising empathy is harder when you have dozens of places to be in a day and money to make.
We are constantly performing for each other, working hard to construct our masks, only to let them slip in front of the most vulnerable.