chapotraphouse

Ya people complaining that being a decent friend and listening to other people vent sometimes is too much “emotional labor” is some kind of expression of some terrible process of neoliberalism and atomization

This one kills me, when I read the original definition and realized that people were studying the forced emotions required of customer service workers it felt good, like, almost relieving, that an academic, someone in a position of authority, recognized and took seriously the toll that that takes.

Now it means like, listening to your friend complain about their boss or something?

I'm not even upset that "the strain of hearing about other people's hardships" has a term to describe it, but why use one that was describing the way servers, baristas, flight attendants, cashiers and call center agents have to maintain a constant appearance of happiness while being degraded by the people speaking to them?