Centives previously looked at the lengths that Pret A Manger goes to in order to ensure that employees are perky. Perhaps they’re afraid that without this policy their servers will act more as they did in the former Soviet Union, writes Peter Frase:

• When Pizza Hut opened its first outlet in the former Soviet Union in 1990 international managers had to teach local stuff how to smile, make eye contact, and generally interact with the customer.
• A Soviet teenager asked why as a McDonald’s server he was expected to be nice to the customers. After all – he reasoned – he had control of the burgers, and the customers didn’t.
• All of this likely happened because under the Soviet Union people had housing, education, and health care. They had no reason to do a good job and be passionate about their work.
• In the service industry, the product and the worker are inseperable.

Read more about what this says about capitalism over here.

Source: Jacobin