Commercial laughter

La Revue de l'Épicerie, which, I like to believe, is written by professionals (that is to say by grocery journalists, and not by journalism grocers), publishes a very interesting on the commercial value of laughter.
This article contains extrafine and superfine aphorisms that should be displayed in every grocery store worth its salt:
“Laughter increases performance.
“Laughter prevents misunderstandings.
“Laughter is a lubricant. It softens friction...
There are professions where, to succeed, you have to laugh. There are others where you have to be as serious as a donkey being groomed.
You have to be serious when you have a funny job. You have to be funny when you have a serious job.
A professional comedian must never laugh, otherwise he will never make his audience laugh. Montel and Raimu enhance the funereal seriousness of the great classic clowns and by this means alone unleash hilarity; while Mr. Fursy, as we remarked the other day, dismays his audience by the excesses. of a joviality whose reasons we do not see at first, and even less when we think about it.
A pope must not laugh, at least in the exercise of his pontifical functions. A croupier must not laugh, at least when he is behind a roulette or baccarat table. A colonel must not laugh under arms, even when he makes a comical entrance into a village, with music and at the head of his regiment... A head of government must not laugh, even in a cemetery. Generally speaking, a politician must be serious when he is in front of voters or in front of a stenographer, that is to say in those moments when he is making fun of the world.
Should a doctor laugh? It depends. It depends on the customer.
When the client is very ill, the doctor should laugh; The doctor's laughter is a powerful tonic in cases of anxiety and depression.
When the client has nothing at all, the doctor must remain serious. A client who has not sent for the doctor to find something for him would be greatly unworthy of being treated with hurtful levity.
The laugh of the surgeon whose face the patient spies on is extremely comforting. The surgeon laughs; so he is not worried... But I do not advise a dentist to laugh while introducing the first of these gentlemen or the first of these ladies into the torture chamber; when one suffers from a toothache, one is rather ill-disposed to cheerfulness, and one does not even understand why others are cheerful... Even more so if the gentleman who laughs is the enemy, the executioner, the dentist... A dentist who laughs after the extraction runs the risk of losing his client. A dentist who laughs before the operation would expose himself to serious harm... (In the ingenious way in which their mechanical chairs are arranged, the patient's head being lower than his legs, I am surprised that dentists do not don't get kicked in the gums more often... But they probably get kicked in the gums and don't brag about it.)
But laughter is necessary and commercial in truly serious professions, that is to say in professions which consist of selling something to someone. The butcher, the dairywoman, the grocer must at least smile. If they can laugh for just ten hours a day, they are assured of success.
On the main boulevards, three hundred meters from each other, there are two shops which, specializing in chocolate cakes, are especially recommended to the public between Christmas and New Year's Day. In one of these stores, you are greeted by young people who laugh with a friendly, stupid and ultimately unjustifiable little laugh. In the other, you are served by saleswomen who certainly have heartache or who are constipated from having eaten too much chocolate praline... All droppings being equal, the first store refuses people and the other is almost desert.
Commercial laughter and the increase in prices are the two breasts of commerce... Even then, the increase only takes place thanks to laughter... The teaching of commercial laughter should be the main subject of instruction given at the Pigier School.
Only one trader has an interest in remaining serious. It's the bistro... Because the bistro, through its social role, is above all part of the nature of the politician.

G. DE LA FOUCHARDIÈRE.