They already are expected to perform emotional work. Now they'll be measured, but measurement or not that expectation to smile depends on the business culture of your nation. In the US people are expected to smile.
Imagine customers think you're an unhappy waiter. Should they be able to withhold tips because on their romantic evening they're spending time thinking about your personal circumstances? If we say yes then we're basically talking about financial carrot and stick to making people smile.
Employers only care insofar as customers care. The customer is the root reason.
> Now they'll be measured, but measurement or not that expectation to smile depends on the business culture of your nation. In the US people are expected to smile.
You might have missed this. I'm expecting this technology is going to have impact beyond Japan so I specifically mentioned the US. If you want to keep on talking about Japan and not broader impact that's up to you.
> Employers are often disconnected from reality and don’t care about what customers feel. They think they have a great idea and implement it anyway.
Employers are allowed to run their own empiricism. This is no different than people being expected to dress as Donald Duck in Florida, except dressing as Donald Duck is likely much more awful work.
And if you think employers are disconnected then having less data is only going to worsen the situation. That's going to lend to more business superstition.
Being polite often IS emotional work, even for neurotypical people operating within normal environments. The nature of customer service is that you are dealing with the general public and expected to not tell them "sir, you're a raving lunatic" with any particular regularity (despite the fact that a pretty substantial portion of the population are in fact raving lunatics).
Even non-service jobs regularly involve emotional labor just to maintain good relationships with your colleagues, because some emotional labor is involved in almost any collective endeavor of human beings.
Imagine customers think you're an unhappy waiter. Should they be able to withhold tips because on their romantic evening they're spending time thinking about your personal circumstances? If we say yes then we're basically talking about financial carrot and stick to making people smile.
Employers only care insofar as customers care. The customer is the root reason.