[altairprime]

“Unsmiling” is not “unprofessional”.

Smiling isn’t about courtesy, respect, or professionalism. It’s a US cultural habit that is not universal in the rest of the world, ingrained into service industries, in service of demands that workers subsume all emotion in favor of providing “service with a smile”. Covid masking protocols were looked upon fondly by service industry workers specifically because they didn’t have to fake-smile anymore.

Don’t hold your breath for the return of fake-smiles, and don’t confuse the absence of a smile with the presence of negativity, discourtesy, disrespect, or unprofessionalism. It’s just a neutral face, delivering a neutral package to a neutral stranger.

[BaseballPhysics]

> “Unsmiling” is not “unprofessional".

And now we're back to cultural norms and expectations, and there's no point in arguing about something so very subjective.

The original complaint was about "weird" Americans and my entire point was that it's not that weird, it's just different.

And now we're just around and back where we started.

I've offered my perspective and there's little point in repeating it again. If you want to know how I'd respond, just go read my first comment on this thread.

[altairprime]

Please don’t frame your personal disinterest in discussing subjective viewpoints that contradict your own, as though everyone at HN becomes disinterested in discussing subjective viewpoints once disagreement occurs.

HN users regularly discuss conflicting subjective cultural norms and expectations: when discussing Linux window managers, emacs, tabs versus spaces, the expectations of junior engineers in a startup, how much oncall is too much, the exact bytes of the new SVG logo when it first launched, and your own subjective viewpoint expressed above: whether smiles are a necessary part of courtesy at all.

[BaseballPhysics]

> as though everyone at HN becomes disinterested in discussing subjective viewpoints once disagreement occurs.

Except you didn't present your viewpoint as subjective, did you?

No, like many of the other folks participating in this thread, you delivered it as objective truth:

> “Unsmiling” is not “unprofessional”.

> Smiling isn’t about courtesy, respect, or professionalism

Now in fairness, I'm not sure you even realize that's just an opinion.

Unfortunately, if you can't see that difference, then conversation devolves into an argument about those supposed "truths" and that's a conversation that cannot go anywhere since they aren't truths at all.

A meaningful conversation about differing cultural norms, how they might've come to be that way, how they work today, etc?

Yeah, that's interesting!

But if the goal is to just sling insults at folks and call people "weird" for having different subjective values? Yeah, I'll pass.

[altairprime]

> I’m not sure you even realize it’s an opinion.

All descriptions of cultural norms are opinion by definition. Cultural ‘norms’ are, themselves, vastly more complex and interesting than any single statement can declare. Editorial word choice is necessary to express and discuss those perceived norms, and care must be taken to not overstate a viewpoint. I appreciate your concern, however. Thank you for taking the time to express it.