Quarter past ten. This is a Christian time. A quarter past eleven in the morning. But that really works. You can have a coffee there in peace. Take a jog. Take a long shower. Massage some red onto your cheeks. Loosen the hair. Retighten the eyeliner. So it can go to the video conference. The first of the day. Man controls the …
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Quarter past ten. This is a Christian time. A quarter past eleven in the morning. But that really works. You can have a coffee there in peace. Take a jog. Take a long shower. Massage some red onto your cheeks. Loosen the hair. Retighten the eyeliner. So it can go to the video conference. The first of the day. You control the participate button. And shortly afterwards he looks into the faces of colleagues who have not switched off their cameras.
It is ten fifteen. And yet: not all of the patchwork of human faces look after ten fifteen. That may be due to teething children. On the third glass of beer the night before. On overtime until midnight. At the full moon, which is disrupting the biorhythm. Lo and behold: the eyes – squeezed tightly together. The skin – like whitewashed gray. The hair – as if it had been hit by a storm. And especially the mouth – the lips hang so low, as if you were about to win an Angela Merkel doppelganger competition.
Let’s put it this way: like Hollywood stars on the red carpet, none of them beam into their webcams. But that’s not that bad, is it? Anyone can have got up on the wrong foot. Let’s put it another way: At Canon China, the Chancellor would have a hard time in her job. Because the offshoot of the Japanese camera manufacturer in Beijing doesn’t like it when its employees piss off. After all, you are in the land of smiles. And thus owed something to its reputation.
Canon China is like a big brother that sees everything, monitors everyone. And has developed a system for this which is called “Smile Recognition”. That means: employees come into the office when they look into a camera. And just a smile opens the doors. The aim of this is to create a “positive working atmosphere”, the camera manufacturer justifies the obligation to smile and the requirement to be in a good mood.
Please smile! The request here means: at your command! Incidentally, “Smile Recognition” is also used in the West – for job interviews. What, you have an appointment there tomorrow? Are you smiling – or are you still practicing?
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