Grinning Malice

Many of us start our day in pretty much the same way. At about 6:30 in the morning, your blaring blow horn goes off, waking up practically everyone in the house. You shut it off and continue to sleep for another half hour. In a half drunk like stupor you make your way to the bath, brush your teeth, shower and admire yourself for ten minutes. You then get into your Calvin Klein GQ ensemble, a Ermenegildo Zegna necktie, the Bulgari watch – your New Year’s gift to yourself and as a final touch you spiff on some of that lovely Davidoff fragrance. Women of course spend an extra hour with Mary Kay’s ninety-nine colours while deciding whether the blue MNG top or the blue Guess top would go with the black pin-stripped skirt; wait maybe we might go with pants today but if we do then we would have to decide on a different top. The smart ones spend their time debating with the closet the night before. Armed with the latest Nokia N70, you hop into your 2000cc internal combustion engine and ride off into the sun for another hard day at work. You battle through traffic, curse every driver on the road while listening to some half wit radio deejay, miss breakfast and bursting into office with a mood that could sink the Titanic.

Welcome to the real world.
I had recently found myself in a rather difficult predicament – unemployment. For those of you who have never been through it I do not recommend it unless you have already sorted out your monthly fifty thousand Ringgit of passive income. Some of you would think that you have been through this stage like some war hero out of our Neo-Roman empire. I do not believe that you could truly understand the gravity of such a situation unless you have had experienced it for at least 2 months after you depleted all your backup funds. I suffered four gruelling months with no source of income except borrowed money from friends whom began seeing less of me. So there I was a Ronin – a masterless Samurai seeking employment anywhere he can find it.
It was towards the end of March 2003, after a rather wet evening caused by the winds blowing in from the West. Andrew had just flown in from Germany two weeks before and he and I were having a casual chat about all sorts of stuff over teh-tarik at the local mamak. We got to talking about my previous work experiences and I told him of how only after leaving the agency had I noticed a significant difference between the promoters trained at the agency I used to work with as compared to all other promoters. It was a point that was brought to my attention on several occasions by the promoters I had previously trained. On one occasion I was hanging out with five girls when we were approached by promoters from another agency promoting a mentholated brand of cigarettes. Four of the five whom I was with had been previously trained as promoters by yours truly. We did not make a purchase; in fact we were not in the least enticed even though it was a rather good offer. As the cigarette girls left us, the one girl who had never worked with me before made a comment – “They were so unfriendly. No smiles at all.” Someone else continued about how they were trained to smile and of how much I had pressed on the topic of smiling during my training sessions. A week later, I made a casual visit to the agency and met up with several team supervisors of whom I had the pleasure of working with. I made a joke about forgetting everything related to promotions and my previous job there when one of them replied, “But I am sure that you had not forgotten to smile, right?” Well that got my attention. Since then I had been observing.
It has been said that we Malaysians are friendly people. We are always there to help. And we always have a smile. To all you urbanites out there, this may possibly be farther from the truth than Katmandu is from us. I find it strange that in a country whose culture is the child of a multi-racial community busting with history of brotherhood and unity, the smile is more of a rarity than diamonds on the sidewalk.

Have we all forgotten the most basic human communication tool?
No – not the Motorola L7 or the Nokia N70.
Have you noticed how a person reacts when you smile at them?
They almost always stiffen up like a gladiator in the arena. It's almost as if they are worried you have something up your sleeves or that you are somewhat senile and so they grip hard on the hilt and raise their shields up to their nose. And how can you blame them. Society it seems have lost all characteristics of good honest living that any avenue to make a buck is used and abused. I am certain that at some point in your life, you would have been told by a parent or teacher not to smile at strangers, “You cannot be too friendly with people” and the most common is “You cannot trust anyone”. I know many people who grew up thinking this and even worse transferring this somewhat distorted lesson in life to the next generation. What started off as a statement of caution have grown into a beastly excuse to trample over the weak and the more forgiving kind-hearted minority. Survival of the fittest has evolved into “All for one and more for me”. I believe that the adoption of selfish values caused a chain reaction that had eventually led to the paralysis of the smile. It has even got to a point where greetings are about as familiar to the common urbanite as is haggis.

At work, a smile is consider inappropriate and yet your boss would query your performance and passion with such a question as, "Aren't you happy working here?"
Happy? Am I HAPPY?
How can anyone possibly be happy at a place where smiling is considered unprofessional?
The mere act of it would send brutal thoughts of distrust, scandal and malice. Yet that is what is expected of us when meeting with clients? The smile is only a means to an end. Nothing more. Do you remember the last time someone smiled at you? I mean really smiled – pure, innocent, friendly and honest. Did that not make blood rush to your face leaving a warm fuzzy feeling in size you and the sudden courage to take on a little bit more of a bad day at work? How does it make you feel when your loved one smiles from across a crowded floor of strangers at you? Doesn’t a picture of a child smiling make you melt and go, “Awww! So cute!”?
Or have we simply forgotten how to smile?

Too many a times have I walked into convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, hotels, cafes and such only to be greeted with eyes that say, "Why are you bothering me?"

Do these people not realize that it is their job to entertain the needs of the people who patronize the establishment? My personal experience had revealed that in the many industries I had work with, the lack of friendliness often reflects the management's true image.
I used to tell every promoter to smile till their teeth fall off. In fact every time I walked into a 7-Eleven or a fast-food restaurant, I would greet the person at the counter with a smile. It was so uncommon for customers to smile, much less greet them, that I would get confused looks on their faces every time. I used to do this for fun and I would encourage the habit with the promoters too.
Why is it so difficult to smile at someone much less return the gesture? I have known managers and executives who felt it was inappropriate to smile at the office. I think that some of you out there need to evaluate how you interpret a smile. Do you think that a smile makes you look stupid? Or maybe you think a smile is a waste of time. How much does it cost to smile? How much time does it take?

The next time you spend that ten minutes with the man in the mirror – smile. Has frowning or cursing ever made your day any better? Instead of cursing that typical lady driver, smile at her. Who knows you might just meet her some place else one day and get a date, just because you smiled. Is it so dangerous to smile at you office colleagues? The next time you get angry, just smile. Smile every chance you get.
As you face your day tomorrow think about the worse thing that could possibly happen to you – getting fired from your job, a car wreck, a tsunami, a piano dropping on your head. How much would a smile cost you if you were going to die tomorrow? Would you not like to see one before you go?

A frown almost certainly gets you nowhere
A scream and a riot would only scare
But a smile on your face today
Would most certainly make someone’s day

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