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Railway Workers Get Daily Smile Scans

More than 500 workers at Japan's, Keihin Electric Express Railway, must have their faces scanned each morning to determine their optimum smile. The "smile scan" analyzes a smile based on facial characteristics, from lip curves and eye movements to wrinkles. After the program scans you, it produces a smile rating that ranges from zero to 100 depending on the estimated potential of your biggest smile. If your number is sufficient, you can go about your day grinning like a maniac. If your smile number is too low the computer will give you a message such as, "lift up your mouth corners" or "you still look too serious." Every morning employees receive a printout of their daily smile which they are expected to keep with them throughout the day.

21 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Bad news... by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those employees about to be terminated receive the following critique:

    "WHY SO SERIOUS?"

    1. Re:Bad news... by wbren · · Score: 2, Funny

      In that case, they're just lucky to be railroad workers instead of pencil factory workers. Actually, I'm not sure which is worse...

      --
      -William Brendel
  2. Flair! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And be sure to wear some flair. That would be great.

    1. Re:Flair! by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Funny

      See James over there? He's got a fantastic smile! Customers really like him... you could just do the minimum smile, but you don't want to be a minimum kind of employee, now do you?

  3. Re:Because large smiles are so comforting... by hairpinred · · Score: 2, Funny

    For that matter, There's Smiling Bob, too.

  4. Life in Japan must be tough by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The overcrowding, intense pressure to conform, the legacy of the 90's real estate bust, and now this? Well, at least they have a lot of robots.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Break out the happy helmet by SendBot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sing along everybody...

    "Happy happy. Joy joy!"
    "Happy happy. Joy joy!"

    "I don't think you're happy enough"

    "I'll teach you to be happy. I'll teach your grandma to suck eggs!"

    "and the little critters of nature. They don't know that they're ugly."

    "I TOLD YOU I'D SHOOT, BUT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME!!! WHYYYYY WOULDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME!!!???"

    "Happy happy. Joy joy!"
    "Happy happy. Joy joy!"

  6. Re:I can say only one thing by iron-kurton · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays

    --
    Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
  7. a company that cares - that's so sweet by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Beatings will continue until morale improves!
    - The Management

    ps Have a nice day!

    (Seriously, have a nice day, you little piss-ants, OR ELSE.)

  8. Re:I can say only one thing by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fuck. Right. Off.

    I can be polite and professional without smiling.

    There's something contradictory about these statements... but I can't quite put my finger on it.

  9. Re:Japan is insane. by HappyHead · · Score: 5, Funny

    Happiness is mandatory citizen! Smile, and move along.

  10. Re:Fake smile by maugle · · Score: 2, Funny

    Good point. Is this smile scan able to distinguish between genuine smiles, fake smiles, and scary psychotic "I will kill myself and everyone within a five-meter radius in 4..3..2.." smiles?

  11. "Your smile is perfect, Yoshi!" by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thought bubble over Yoshi's head:

    "It is so easy to smile like this when I think about pulling out Boss-san's intestines with rusty fish knife and feeding them to my dog in front of his dying eyes. His time to visit honourable ancestors comes faster than he thinks.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  12. amateurs by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Funny

    just dose the railway car's air supply with xanax

    if you are going to ignore free will, you might as well go all the way

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  13. Re:Japan is insane. by digitig · · Score: 4, Funny

    Over here if you smile all day at work they test you for pot.

    --
    Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
  14. Obligatory Paranoia Reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The Computer is your friend. Happiness is mandatory. Not being happy is treason. Treason is punishable by death. Are you happy? I knew you were.

  15. Re:I am not a morning person by tibman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Whatever makes you happy, man

    --
    http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
  16. Re:Japan is insane. by pnuema · · Score: 3, Funny

    The computer is your friend!

  17. Re:Japan is insane. by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Funny

    MTA workers are in a union and you have to have all these rules since the union wants there to be a good reason to fire anyone. where i work there is a 30 page book where half of each page is empty.

    So they can write in a reason to fire someone?

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  18. Re:Japan is insane. by Baseclass · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sound like somebody could use a little reNeducation.
    Now just relax and let the hooks do their work

    --
    ^^vv<><>BA
  19. Re:Japan is insane. by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Funny

    This especially bugs me because I'm not a smilier and I like being bitter, damnit!

    You should get a job over here in germany. You'd be perfect for german customer-service. Learn to utter something that might sound like german, and you're perfect employee for the national railway service.

    --
    bickerdyke