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.

Comments

Japan is insane.

[Trinexx]

What the hell is wrong with the Japanese? What practical purpose does this serve?

Re:Japan is insane.

[jellomizer]

Simple, if you smile and pretend to be happy, you actually become more happy. When you are happy annoying people are less annoying and allows you to do service work more effectively.

If you fly a lot compare Southwest with American Air.

Southwest people are trained to smile and be cheerful. American Air doesn't.

Southwest has less delays and is more profitable and the passagers are better behaved and quiet and cuterious of others.

Re:Japan is insane.

[ShieldW0lf]

It's true. That's why when you take a sales job you have to get in a circle at 7 am and do the big "ra ra ra" thing. It allows you to be contagiously happy and make money. It's pretty commonplace in workplaces all over the world. The only difference is, the Japanese don't have enough population to be able to make ends meet, so they've created a robot to fill the role that would otherwise be filled by your "team leader".

Did you know Sadness is and has always been one of the seven deadly sins? Nowadays, they call it "Sloth".

Re:Japan is insane.

[Ohio Calvinist]

While it is kind of creepy, having worked in Technical Support, I found that when I made myself smile, even when I was furiously angry or irritated, it helped me "be" more friendly and attentive to my callers, than when I frowned, or wrapped my phone cord around my neck like a noose, etc...

When you are in customer service, it makes a huge difference, and belive it or not, it often makes a huge difference to customers who expect that you don't care about them and are just jockeying the time clock. Perception is everything.

However, rather than doing this, it might be better to just talk to the employee if you see them routinely looking like they ate a lemon.

Re:Japan is insane.

[betterunixthanunix]

This seems to be common on commuter railroads and subways. In New York City, the MTA has an entire "discipline department," whose job is the creation and enforcement of rules -- the rulebook is as thick as several of my engineering textbooks stacked on top of each other, and concerns everything from legitimate safety issues (employees cannot be intoxicated while on the job) to absurdities (procedures and times allotted for bathroom breaks, approved travel times when summoned for random drug tests, approved procedures for filing reports on infractions committed by other employees, etc.). It is also impossible for an employee to break any single rule, as one of the rules is "employees shall follow all the rules" and another is "employees shall be aware of all the rules." I am told that a typical disciplinary hearing involves 4-6 infractions, each of which is listed separately in the employee's work history if they are found to be in violation of the rules.

Re:Japan is insane.

[Anonymous Coward]

As insane as it may seem, being serviced by staff with an happy smile may really make your day a better day and reduce stress for a lot of people.
If you've been in japan you understand.

Re:Japan is insane.

[RabidMonkey]

Having worked in a very open company, which devolved into a restrictive one like you describe (books of rules) I can tell you exactly why they have books: because they need them.

There is always someone trying to game the system, someone looking for a loophole, an out, a way to abuse, steal, harass, annoy, slack, avoid and so on. So rules have to be made because one idiot decided to try and use $LOOPHOLE to get out of $WORK_BEING_PAID_FOR.

Add to that a union, and you've got a recipe for pages and pages of very specific rules.

For example, in that company, there was a rule: no tank tops. By common consensus, that meant no shirts without sleeves. But some would take that too far, and wear shirts that had very tiny sleeves, then claim, "its not a tank top". So they had to implement a rule that said "sleeves must be longer than 3" from the shoulder", but then someone argued about where the shoulder started, so they had to make an even MORE specific rule about the distance from the neck to the shoulder.

In short, there's one in every crowd. And that one ruins it for everyone else, in small, death-by-a-thousand-papercuts ways.

Re:Japan is insane.

[ShieldW0lf]

You are wrong. Japan is a society on its way to destruction because their population have intentionally sterilized themselves.

Some sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7084749.stm

Welcome to your future. The western world is on the same trend, just a little behind the curve. I wonder why the rest of the world doesn't want to be like us?

Re:Japan is insane.

[icebrain]

How the hell does this get "informative"?

Precautionary fuel stops are signs of a safe pilot.

When you start getting into the realm of commercial airliners, every extra pound carried on the aircraft equates to additional fuel burned--and therefore extra cost. The aircraft aren't usually filled up before every flight*--they typically only carry enough to get to the destination, plus reserves (30-45min or more, depending on weather and stuff) and maybe some to get to a preselected alternate airport, if required. But sometimes, even that isn't enough. Unexpectedly strong headwinds, delays on the ground or while airborne, mechanical issues**, etc. can all result in not having enough fuel to make it to the destination with the desired margin of safety. In that case, they will stop to refuel.

* One exception is called "tankering". Sometimes, the fuel at the destination is so expensive that it's cheaper to carry extra fuel for later and just eat the extra fuel burn.

** Certain mechanical issues (broken APU, one inoperative pressurization pack, etc.) are specifically allowed, within limits. And before you get your thongs in a wad, they don't affect safety of flight. Sometimes, though, those come with altitude, routing, or speed restrictions, which can increase fuel burn.

fake vs genuine

[prakslash]

This may seem bizzare but scientists have long made a distinctinction betwen "fake smiles" and "genuine smiles".
See this and this.

For people who have to deal with members of the public on a daily basis, being able to produce a smile that seems genuine may make a difference in how their customers perceive their service.

China is not oppressive - japan is

[furby076]

Really...at least in China they don't give a crap if you are sad. You can frown all you want. In Japan - smile or the "smile police" will get you. WTF is wrong with you? How will this do anything other then make people more annoyed. Instead of spending this time/resources on crap how about you spend this time/resources on 1) giving your employees a free lunch, 2) giving them a raise (way to make me smile), or giving them extra time off since you obviously have so much money to spend on stupid smiley police.

Twilight Zone

[PriceIke]

This is the creepiest thing I have read in a long time. Is this real? Am I the only one who see this device as the basis of an episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone?

Coincidentally

[32771]

Constant smiling is bad for you:

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/wearing-smile-masks-all-day-at-work-may-lead-to-depression_10016884.html

I wear my scowl with pride.

Re:Because large smiles are so comforting...

[Stormwatch]

Don't forget the Grinman.

Re:Another Great Leap Forward?

[PainKilleR-CE]

Here in Virginia, you're not supposed to smile in your DMV pictures any more because it supposedly messes up facial recognition software used by the state. Guess I have 4 years to find somewhere that doesn't do this before they start tracking my face all over town.

Not such a bad idea...

[tyroneking]

... smiling is known to improve one's mood and so even though it sounds really weird to the average morose loner on Slashdot (me included) I think it might actually help. Hell, I'd prefer an employer that encourages me to smile over the usual UK 'fuck-off-and-die minions' attitude.
In India (and spreading across yoga classes in the West) there are laughing clubs (improves mood and health).

Pretty much

[Unoriginal_Nickname]

The only first-world country with no laws about racial persecution. They are signatories to all of the applicable treaties, of course, but the national and prefecture governments have been playing hot potato with the blame for never ratifying any of them. Meanwhile you have employment, products and services that are unobtainable unless you are a Japanese citizen, born in Japan, pure-blooded Japanese, never lived outside of Japan and also fortunate enough for none of your ancestors to have butchered an animal or buried a dead body.

Mod parent up.

Re:Pretty much

[pegr]

Thanks for the support.

Funny thing is that you were modded up for the "Mod parent up." comment, while my comment sits untouched.

I admit that my screed might come off as an anti-japan racist diatribe from the likes of some right wing AM radio hack. (I listen to NPR, I swear!) But everything I wrote is the honest truth. Don't believe it? Find a japanese person and ask them. No kidding.

In spite of my comments, I find Japan and japanese culture to be wildly facinating. Its very interesting to see how Japan has adapted to maintaining social order with so many people in such a tiny place. Japanese ethnocentricity is SLOWLY falling away. Modern transportation and communication is responsible for the most of it, I believe. But the remnants of old Japan are a frightfully ugly thing.

(I'm thinking about getting the shirt from Jlist that has "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend" on the front in Kanji. ;)

Happiness can get you yelled at.

[meerling]

Guess they've never had someone jump down their throat for being cheerful.

I have.

A lot of Americans associate a business attitude with a neutral or even stern expression.
That person smiling all the time is assumed to be an idiot, disingenuous, or high.
Yes, smiling can be bad.

Individuels, slaves, and you.

[cenc]

Strange, you think what Japanese conformity is doing is all that different from Western culture.

This has worked to organize armies of every country and every race for several thousand years. It has worked so well, companies started adopting it almost as soon as the idea of the company was developed. Yes, eliminating the individuals desires for increased productivity seems to work very well. The Asian cultures have been doing it for thousands of years. You know back when Europeans were still swinging wooden clubs in the caves.

Why do you think armies are built first at boot camp? It is not to teach people how to clean a gun. It is to teach them to conform.

Why do you think everyone at Wall Mart has the same colored clothing on. It is to make them conform, work as a group, comply.

The concept of the individual, with individual rights, is a fairly new invention even in the West. Like only the last few hundred years new (even the last few decades for many). The Individual is something for "citizens" in the Roman sense of citizen, kings, emperors, lords, but not for slaves, surfs, cogs, employees, and other low life's of society. There are owners and their are the owned. Most of the World, falls in to the owned catagory in spite of what mommy and daddy tried to convince you of regarding being an individuel (while also telling you not to be).

It still is something relatively unique in most of the World, and I might venture to most of you that think of yourself as "an individual with rights and freedoms" to stop for a second, check your delusion at the door, and think long and hard about just how free you really are. It might scare you to find out that you too had your individuality most likly beaten out of you one way or another. Right down to the way you put you select which words to put together has developed over thousands of years to force to you to conform to a cultural norm of what is correct and mistaken. Even your reaction to the oddity of Japanese culture, is in part the oddity of your own cultural conditioning. The Western has its own "smile machine" known as "freedom". If you use the word "freedom" sufficiently, you will get a good smiley report. Does not mean you actually ARE any more free or even any more aware of your condition than your average Japanese standing in front of the machine.

O.k. I am sure I am going to get an lot of shit for this. Please let the lashing begin. Still, there is nothing in what I said that is any less true, in spite of all our egos.

been there

[type40]

I worked at a coffee shop for a time and the owner wanted to implement something similar. If we didn't smile and say the little schpeel when we greeted a customer, they would get a free muffin.
After he finished explaining the policy to me I told him I was going to repeat what I heard.
"If I talk to the customers (whose happiness I place a higher value on than yours) with a straight face, they get a free muffin."

Yup, that job didn't last long.