This week, we will delve further into the culture of service.
First on asceticism.
As awkward as it may sound, asceticism is at the heart of service culture.
We often talk about relaxation in services.
Relaxation is a theme in luxury hotels.
Hosts at restaurants and bars emphasize that customers should be relaxed.
Although it is often said that hospitality is about making guests feel at home and relaxed,
we have moved beyond such a common view.
If you want to be relaxed, you should just stay home and lie on your couch.
Then, what is the relaxation in service?
You feel relaxed when hospitality is extended to you.
But we already know that hospitality is a power struggle.
We can turn to Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist.
Here is a quote from his book, "Distinction."
The dominant aesthetic proposes the combination of ease and asceticism.
Here, the dominant aesthetic refers to aesthetic standard of a higher social class
that dominates others in lower classes.
Such combination of ease and asceticism is seen in self-imposed austerity, restraint, reserve,
which are affirmed in that absolute manifestation of excellence, relaxation in tension.
Let's see this in the data we have already seen.
Here is the upscale apparel store.
In this case, the store employee continues looking at the customer,
while the customer is walking around shopping for clothes.
The employee stands still and does nothing else than looking at the customer.
This is really a high-pressure situation.
Because every action is watched carefully, customers feel pressured to behave properly.
You cannot easily take a look at the price tag, for instance.
In contrast, the popular apparel store lacked this kind of pressure.
A store employee looked at the customer,
but she shows that she is not doing so explicitly.
Instead, she is showing that she is busy with some other work like folding clothes on the shelf.
In other words, she is looking, but not staring at the customer.
Here, the tension is minimized.
We can see something similar in the restaurant data we have seen.
In a popular restaurant, customers are typically given ample time to choose their drinks and dishes.
On the other hand, as soon as they have decided on their drinks and dishes,
an employee rushes on and takes an order so that customers do not have to wait.
In contrast, the upscale restaurant is organized in an opposite way.
That is to say, an employee stands still and waits for orders after handing the menu to the customers.
Customers are given little time to think of their choices.
On the other hand, customers are left on their own and kept waiting
before the employee comes with the menu or after taking the orders.
In short, relaxation is really in tension.
The more expensive the service is, the more pressure is added on the customers.
In high-end services, customers are under pressure and need to behave with ease, elegance and confidence.
As Bourdieu wrote,
the aesthetic of the high-end service is characterized by "self-imposed austerity, restraint, and reserve."
In popular services, this tension is consistently removed.
Customers are left alone to behave more freely and casually.
At the same time, they are attended to so that they can seek help from employees when necessary.
But attention is done in a subordinate manner.
Next, we will discuss the theory behind this different aesthetic in service.