Smile: makes you and others happier

I was on a flight back to Jakarta after a long session of strenuous meeting in Singapore. It was a one day trip (I hate one day trip meetings but do I have a choice?) and the meeting was pretty mind-squishing. This meeting, honestly, made me really nervous and stressed out for the last couple of days.

The stewardess woke me up for a light meal and asked me what I would like to have: seabass or satay. It is a standard question that she has asked to all the passengers: “Hello Miss …, would you like to have a Sea Bass with potatoes or Rice Noodles with Satay?”. “Would you like some tea or coffee, or some wine?” “Enjoy your meal”. I was sitting on row number 18, and she must have asked this to at least 70 passengers before she reached me. Can you imagine, same questions asked 70 times, yes she still has to smile while serving all the passangers?

Next to me, there is a guy, Caucasian, in his early 50s. So, maybe this cute stewardess asked the 70th question to him, “Would you like a Sea Bass with potatoes of Rice Noodles with Satay?”. The guy, without smiling, asked back, “Do you have chicken?” (if it was me, I would’ve asked back, “Are you deaf or just plain stupid?”) but, of course, the stewardess said, “No, we don’t”, then the guy gave a very ugly look to her, while she kept asking, “Would you like some desert?”. The guy shook his head looking pissed, “Wine maybe?”. He still shook his head while rudely returning the table cloth to her. The stewardess still tried to be a nice hostess and said, “I’m sorry”, yet she talked in Chinese to the other stewardess wondering whether there was any chicken curry left. The guy next to me then loudly put back his table and closed his eyes. Five minutes later, the stewardess came with a tray of chicken curry and served the guy, “Sir, we still have some chicken left, would you still like it?”. The guy then looked at her and said, “Yes”.

Through out the whole process, I was staring at the stewardess’ face and expression. Given the pissed off look of the guy, she was feeling uneasy and guilty, clearly not feeling good that one of the passenger was not satisfied. I felt sorry for her. I tried to strike a bullshit conversation just to make her feel better, like, “That was a very good meal, thank you. Do you know what bread that you gave me, because it was good”. In a second, her expression changed and she said, “Thank you, let me find out what bread that was”. Though I didn’t really care what the bread was. But I was certain that she was feeling much better after the short conversation I kicked off.

There are lucky people that have interesting jobs but also those who have just plain boring jobs. Living in Jakarta, which is an overpopulated city, lots of people will just accept the most boring jobs with low pay to survive. Stewardess, I think, are one of those job which must be very boring, trying to keep smiling and asking the same questions over and over again during meal time. There are several other jobs that I find that must be extremely boring, which the Busy Brain keep seeing are such as:

• The security guy that checks the bomb in every cars, let it be in the office buildings or malls.  Going around and around your car with that giant dentist mirror.  Opening all the doors and luggages, although I sometimes wonder are they going to find any bomb in my car.  Just a simple, “Pagi, Pak”, will do for them
• The security guy that opens up the gate to enter the parking building: can you imagine that is what he does for, say, 8 hours? Open up and close down the portal? I usually smile and wave to him.
• The girl/boy in the parking ticket box: especially those who are inside the parking building. No sun, no good circulation, small space, doing the same thing over and over again. Not counting if the machine goes wrong, which then they get all stressed out. Usually, I smile and wave and say, “Pagi…” and amazingly they smile back.
• The girl/boy in the ticket box on the toll road: same as above. But more difficult to strike a conversation with them because we only stop for 5 seconds. A simple greeting wouldn’t even do. At least some of them put on music in their small cubicle.
• The cashier in the supermarkets: especially those in the hypermarkets like Carefour, Giant, etc. Where the queue is always long and they only swipe the items to get the price.
• The guy in the immigration at the airport: just swiping and stamping your passport. A simple greeting like, “Hi, good evening” usually works quite well.
• The girl who press the buttons in the lift at malls: just going up and down and up and down…I don’t know for how many hours and how they deal with the boredom. Maybe by looking at the people in the lift.

I don’t know how many boring jobs are out there, where the job is so repetitive it just kills the brain. Sometimes I fell overwhelmed by my job, I mean, everybody has their bad days in their office, but at least there are variations every each day and we interact with our colleagues. There are good days and bad days, but those I described earlier, where is the ups and downs there?

I’m not saying that I have always been polite to them. Sometimes when I had a bad day, I don’t even smile. I bet I’ve pissed off some people in the market when I look at their merchandise but not buying them. But when I think of them, I feel blessed that I still have a job that pays good and has all the ups and down, which gives colors in my life. With all the variations, stress, deadlines, arguments, and the next day you have different kind of stress and color.

And just try to give some warmth to them. Like, have a BS conversation with taxi drivers. Although taxi drivers have more variations in their work, but constantly fighting the traffic in Jakarta, that could be pretty frustrating. Sometimes I chat with them, from traffic, cars, people that they meet, or even politics.

At least, try being nice. A smile won’t hurt, it always works. And for some reason, it also makes me feel good. Because, they smile back. And it’s always nice to be smiled at.