How much smiling is too much?

Did you think a smile is the most beautiful thing in the world you could give away without losing much? I thought I believed in it unless I saw the Wimbledon women’s single semi-final with the world no. 1 Justine Henin playing against the world no. 18 (not too sure) Marion Bartoli. As you all must have seen, heard or lastly read at least that the play was some superb tennis. And, of course, my broken belief has nothing to do with the match itself.

The story goes like this. Ms. Henin started off well and gradually as the wind started blowing the ends of Bartoli’s long hair to her shoulders, Bartoli started looking more confident and kept getting better at the play. All of a sudden I could see the quality in her technique. Not that I have seen Bartoli’s game before but I made an opinion by the commentators’ repeated blaming of the wind’s direction in becoming an obstacle to bringing out the real player in Henin. It takes an idiot’s brain to deduce Ms. Bartoli may not have proved herself as strong at the game as she was doing tonight against Justine. It took me a while to decide who am I siding up with, Justine, Marion or the harmless wind which didn’t quite blow to anyone’s advantage. Bartoli proved that there was more to her credit than the stupid wind. Her strokes were low, measured and she covered the court very well. Henin was made to run far and across the court, sometimes back and forth. Henin did give away a few points easily, but mainly Bartoli earned every bit of the mega-win all by herself using extraordinary techniques, timing the strokes perfectly and placing the ball right. She deserved to win – Bartoli.

Of course, during the last set the excitement was high, the air was rife with anticipation. The commentator sounded as if she agreed with me totally since she kept repeating aloud what I was thinking to myself – ‘Justine knows she can’t lose this. She must be hoping to catch up in this last set’. Right in the middle of all this nail-biting anticipation, they cut in for the sponsors to show some most-unwanted adverts [They better pay whoever a ransom for ruining the continuity of this heart-in-your-throat sequence for all of us viewers!]. It was the Thai Airways advertisement. Some women, some lamps, some sort of an aesthetic hot air balloon with the world map printed all around it and a lot of smiling. I realized I’m totally irritated. I decided I could attribute it to the way Justine was losing to a no. 3 in France player. Introspection confirmed the real cause of irritation was not that…thought a little more, no it wasn’t the interruption caused by the advertisements…I knew I was close and then I could see it. All the smiling in that Thai Airways ad had put me off completely.

I mean smiling is fine, but meaningless, extra-broad, see-through-fake smiles are just not in. I am serious when I say it harms more than it can do any good you think it is meant to do to the business. I got pissed with Thai Airways even before I could experience the service first-hand. Blame it all on that ‘too much smiling’ by a bunch of well-dressed women thingy.

The next time you are smiling at a total stranger for no good reason just think about the way I felt tonight and I’m sure you’ll never go overboard with the smiling business. And yes, watch your mindless smiling even when that’s the only sensible thing in your job description!