If they ever introduce face-to-face webcam/phone interfaces at work, my career in travel is so over. I’m what you might call a… hard-featured woman. When in repose, I always look like I’m frowning slightly. Gravity has taken its toll on my face somewhat, and it takes extra effort to lift it into a smile, so most of the time, WHY BOTHER?? unless I actually have something to smile about. As you might have guessed, I’m not a natural smiler, don’t have a particularly attractive smile anyway, and can’t stand people who walk around with big smiles on their faces all the time, when there is nobody else around even. What are they smiling at?? What drugs are they on?.

When talking to a complete idiot who wants me to do the impossible 15 minutes before closing time on a Friday, I sometimes have to put the caller on hold to roll my eyes, grimace, grumble, and vent to my neighbor before going live with a silky-warm sounding “Thank you so much for holding, I was able to make that change for you…”

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Rail staff face ‘smile police’

A Japanese rail firm has introduced a system to check that staff are smiling enough at all times.

Computerised scanners around 15 Tokyo stations will measure the smile’s curvature to ensure it is broad enough.

Oh, good LORD, I hope this is a crock.

A few years back, the Safeway grocery chain instituted a “look them in the eye, smile, and call them by name” policy, which eventually had to be scuttled because too many male customers became Beavis and Butt-Head when a female checker followed company policy.