The last 4 summers has been an experience I call "Trial by Sweat." In my job I am required to wear a shirt and a jacket (polyester-so are the pants) with a lining, inside an increasingly hot and humid building. Our guests arrive in shorts and short sleeved shirts, or sleeveless long cool cotton dresses. They claim "too cold" while I stand before them with perspiration literally dripping down my face, and other unmentionable areas.
It feels like torture, and in some respects I believe it is. Is an image truly that effective when the person representing appears to be suffering? I grant that it gets the sympathy vote, but little else.
We have been very busy being as short staffed as we have been for several months. Everyone of us has to hustle though out a long and arduous shift. Tonight I did not have 10 minutes to call my own inside of 9 hours. Yes, there are a small few zones that are comfortable. But when it is close to 100 degrees outside and the air is not working as it should inside then we, the staff, suffer. Then there is an incident in the garage (no air) and I am standing outside with a head completely saturated in sweat inside 2 minutes of being out there.
I feel sometimes as though I am being punished for some unknown infraction. WHY would any reasonable company expect their employees to physically suffer while they are at work?
Image. That is the answer I have received these past 4 summers. We have to present a professional appearance. How pleasant can someone be to other people if they are miserable? The answer is they can't. The feeling of being miserable is all consuming, it leaks out whether we intend to be cranky or not.
I'd rather be outside sweating in shorts and a cool top then buried under layers that would be comfortable in the winter months, inside a building with faulty air conditioning, Seriously....
Ok..whine over..time to move on.
~K
It feels like torture, and in some respects I believe it is. Is an image truly that effective when the person representing appears to be suffering? I grant that it gets the sympathy vote, but little else.
We have been very busy being as short staffed as we have been for several months. Everyone of us has to hustle though out a long and arduous shift. Tonight I did not have 10 minutes to call my own inside of 9 hours. Yes, there are a small few zones that are comfortable. But when it is close to 100 degrees outside and the air is not working as it should inside then we, the staff, suffer. Then there is an incident in the garage (no air) and I am standing outside with a head completely saturated in sweat inside 2 minutes of being out there.
I feel sometimes as though I am being punished for some unknown infraction. WHY would any reasonable company expect their employees to physically suffer while they are at work?
Image. That is the answer I have received these past 4 summers. We have to present a professional appearance. How pleasant can someone be to other people if they are miserable? The answer is they can't. The feeling of being miserable is all consuming, it leaks out whether we intend to be cranky or not.
I'd rather be outside sweating in shorts and a cool top then buried under layers that would be comfortable in the winter months, inside a building with faulty air conditioning, Seriously....
Ok..whine over..time to move on.
~K
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