"Jill, I'm afraid we have a problem. Your quality of work is very high, as always. But you don't look enough like your job isn't soul crushing. I'm not saying you look like you're bored out of your mind or that I think working here is depriving you of your will to live. I'm just saying that there are times when you're not smiling like a completely unhinged person and that makes me question whether you really want to be here."
Reminds me of my art professor's story about getting her doctorate, in which a bunch of tenured professors came together to review her work to give her the degree. One professor disagreed with giving her doctorate because apparently she didn't look like she had a tough time getting it. That sent my art professor over the edge because she'd worked so hard and suffered so much for it so she started crying in front of the professors and told them she wasn't going to bother getting her doctorate anymore and that she was quitting right there and then. The other tenured professors were quick to convince the other to change their mind and eventually gave the degree, but my art professor still remembers how shitty it was to decide something so important to her on the basis that she suffered much less than her peers in producing something good or better work.
