paper(800 words)

Sample Summaries of Emily Raine’s “Why Should I Be Nice to You”

Sample Summary 1

Most people at some point in their life have worked in the service industry. This particular industry can be quite satisfying whether it be working in fine dining, as a cocktail waitress, or at a local diner, but for Emily Raine, who had done all of these things, the only place she ever felt “whipped” was working as a barista at one of largest specialty coffee chains in the world (358). Raine is bothered by how the café industry has set up the impersonal server/customer relationship and feels the best way to solve the issue is be to “be rude” (365). In 2005, Raine expanded in an essay that appeared in the online journal, Bad Subjects, on her frustration within the service industry and what good service really means.

Good service in the coffee industry does not require much skill these days. Most people are usually talking on their cell phone while ordering their daily coffee and pastry while also paying and then out as fast as they walked into the café probably not even noticing or acknowledging any interaction with the people serving. The coffee sector has recognized this and has set up the counters as linear coffee bars that act the same as an assembly line. The workers are trained and assigned specific jobs in the coffee preparing process, such as taking the order, handling the money, making the drink, to delivery. This makes the interaction with the customer very limited, mostly just seconds. This is where Raine feels some of the problem with the customer and server interaction. Although this is the most effective and efficient way of working, Raine describes productive work as “dreary and repetitive” (359).

Since the 1960’s companies have been branding themselves with the quality of having “good service” distinguishing them from the rest of the competition. Raines explains that in good service there is an exchange between two parties: “the ‘we’ that gladly serves and the ‘you’ that happily receives,” but also a third party, the boss, which is the ultimate decider on exactly what good service will be (360).

Companies in the service industry must market their products on servers’ friendliness; therefore it is monitored and controlled from the people on top. Raine notes that cafés “layouts and management styles” help create a cozy atmosphere that plays a factor in good service, but in a way that will not disrupt the output (361). In Raine’s essay, she gives the example of an employee Starbucks has branded; “The happy, wholesome perfume-free barista” (361). She points out that the company offers workers stock options, health insurance, dental plans, as well as other perks of discounts and giveaways, while also using moving personal accounts from workers who “never deemed corporate America could care so much” (362). Raines also adds that the company does not give into unionization and although the company pays “nominally more” than minimum wage, the shifts are scheduled oddly and never add up to 40 hours (362). Starbucks has so much pride about having the happy worker, but Raines suggests that the workers are not all smiles.

Raine expresses her frustration with how the café industry is run. She compares it to a “smooth piece of machinery” and says she found that most people “pretend they are interacting with and appliance” (362). As she is very versed in the service world, Raine claims that the customers are much ruder to café staff than any other sector of the service industry.

The average barista worker is not hired as an individual, but rather as another piece of the whole puzzle to sell the image that the corporation advertises and wants the customer to believe. Like any other service job in America, there are standards in hygiene and appearance in the work place. “The company issues protocols for hair length, color and maintenance, visible piercings and tattoos as well as

personal hygiene and acceptable odorific products,” writes Raines, as well as a uniform to wear to show they are staff and unify them as one (363). It seems reasonable that a coffee shop would not want baristas to wear strong odors as it would contradict the atmosphere they are working so hard to provide to each customer that walks though their doors. As Raine states, these rules are not “alarming” and have actually been in place for hundreds of years (363). This is what helps make the distinction from server and customer and makes the contact between them simply functional. This division is vital to good service because class distinctions cause notions of service quality. Raine admits that good service quality does not only mean serving well, but also to allow the customer to feel good and okay about being served, usually resulting in “one-sided politeness” (364).

Raine concludes by declaring that “There is no easy way to serve without being a servant.” She goes on to say that the best thing for her to do is to just show her “actual emotions” rather than practicing patience and good will and as a server she would have an individual identity at work and refuse class distinctions; she would be rude, not all the time, but when she felt it necessary (365).

Sample Summary 2

In Emily Raine’s 2005 essay “Why Should I Be Nice To You? Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service,” posted in the online journal Bad Subjects, readers are let into the darker side of coffee shop hospitality. Raine reveals just how limited baristas are when providing customer service. Specialty coffee shops have created robot-like employees where individuality can rarely be seen. Raine points out the limitations of the workers and the amount of control from management and the overall corporation..

Raine begins by elaborating on the process of working at Starbucks. Customers are shuffled through a line watching an assembly line of workers prepare different parts of their indulgence. Not more than a few seconds are spent with each employee. This limited time does not prove to be enough to provide true friendly customer service. Each one only has time for a smile before their task is complete and the customer is shifted to the next step in the process. In creating this process, Starbucks has bred a new class of employees. The employees are just as branded and marketed as much as the coffee they sell. They make it very public about how well the employees are treated with benefits that many others in the industry do not offer. They even go as far as referring to the employee as “partners” that are genuine in their great customer service. Yet, there are ways they get around it by never giving a full forty hour work week, scheduling abnormal shifts, and paying very little over what the standard minimum wage is set at. Starbucks next way of controlling the employee is by regulating their appearance. Standards are set for hair, acceptable smells to be worn, and any kind of visual piercing or tattoo that one has. This is to make the employees stand out as the ones who are serving. This many times gives the feeling to the customer that they are above the employee since they are being served by a person in uniform. Customers tend to be bothered if an employee asks anything other than a question related to their order or showing their personality. Starbucks also has policies on what consumers can see employees do. Workers are expected to enter and exit through back doors. They are not allowed to eat or drink in front of the consumers. These are all ways of setting the worker aside from the consumer. It gives the illusion that the consumer is in a class above the workers, “the public only see them as workers, as makers of quality coffee, and never as possible peers.” By giving the feeling of the class distinction customers feel it is justified to give orders, and give no respect. These consumers do not think about what the worker does on their personal time, or the fact that at some point the worker is the customer.

Those who work in these kinds of places usually do not argue the rules or fight the system in any way. The jobs are not meant to be long term so they simply quit and walk away. Raine felt better by being rude to her customers. She provided this rudeness when she felt the customer deserved a comeback of some sort.

Sample Summary 3

Emily Raine’s “Why Should I Be Nice To You? Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service” makes the case for the expectation of politeness from service workers, as being counter intuitive, both from the employer and the customer. Raine illustrates this point by providing several contradictions that exist in the modern management style of large service-oriented businesses. Her question of “Why should I be nice to you?”, is not put forth so much as a question that she attempts to answer affirmatively, but rather is the answer itself. She aims chiefly to say that the reasons for why she might be expected to be polite are all exceedingly questionable. Raine claims that the modern business model for large service-oriented companies, namely coffee shops, may often times work against itself. Many of the large service-oriented chain companies require politeness as a key element of the commodity known as “good service". The same companies’ “layouts and management styles preclude much possibility of creating warmth that this would entail.” Once defined by the business owners, the “good service” dictated by a business model defines proper and improper modes of behavior. The modern business model as dictated by the owners of successful coffee shop chains has created an environment of efficiency and specialization so maximized that there is little time for sincere contact with the customer. Raine claims that it in addition to time restraints that disallow interaction with customers, the “dreary and repetitive” nature of the work “curtails interaction with the clientele”. Repetitive and fast-paced interaction has led to assembly line style requirements demanding the baristas attention and focus be used to produce the physical product being purchased with great specialization. This reality can pressure the employee into a contracted form of politeness, or even a non-existent form. Politeness lacking may be perceived as rudeness, counteracting the companies’ requirement for providing politeness as part of the purchase price: the contradiction.

The perception of experiencing “good service” requires not only the physical product, but also The expectation of servitude in the form of mandatory politeness. The author cites the branding utilized by companies such as Starbucks as professing to “guarantee” “good service provided by employees that are genuinely happy to give it.” Raine claims that the ideal barista worker must conform to the dictated mode of behavior, which in turn suppresses much of the employees’ individuality, reducing employee-customer interactions “to purely functional relations”, and so, once again precluding any expectation of prolonged politeness: a contradiction. It is almost as if the proper barista is forced by job description to be too hurriedly preoccupied to dispense with sincere politeness. This business model is well entrenched as it has been “inherited” from a tradition of servitude that is centuries old, and that society is comfortable with. To throw a wrench in the awkwardness of corporate mandated, guaranteed politeness with every cup of coffee, the class distinctions mentioned by Raine observe an interesting twist: the servers are geared towards approximating the same class as the served. This consideration works well to support her overall tone in describing an illogical whirlwind of questionable expectations. Emily Raine’s purpose for writing this article is to illustrate the contradictory relationship that exists in the service industry’s expectation of polite employee-customer interaction. She also sympathizes with “Dissatisfied workers”, who”are stuck with engaging tactics that will change nothing but allow them to make the best of their lot”.