Proud To Be Of Service?

I can see the direction that American society’s “manners” are taking. Nobody wants to call people “Ma’am” or “Sir” - (especially not Ma’am; that topic deserves its own separate discussion). Instead service personnel, who should be saying “Good morning, Ma’am, may I help you?” say “Hi, how are you?” and even expect an answer.

I suppose if you live in a small enough town, you might know the store clerk who asks how you are, and the clerk might even care how you are. In the city, however, normally these people are strangers. “How are you?” is actually a can of worms which neither party wants to open. In that How Are You area could be dead or dying relatives, cancer diagnoses, painful joints, autistic children, lost jobs, cracked-up cars, alcoholism or drug problems, money problems, and more. Does the 7-11 clerk really want to hear about all that? NO! And s/he shouldn’t want to. That’s why s/he should just say “Good morning (afternoon/evening), Ma’am, may I help you?”
Clerks also need to say, at the end of each transaction, “Thank you” – and they should mean it.

There is a growing trend for clerks to try to manipulate the conversation so that the customer thinks s/he is supposed to say Thank You instead of the clerk’s saying it. This trend apparently comes from resentment of the service status. The clerk thinks s/he is waiting on you (which is different from waiting FOR you - topic for another discussion) and thinks s/he should be thanked for making change, or whatever it was s/he did. The clerk is missing the point! That customer is a patron of the business which employs the clerk/waiter/whatever, and without customers there would be no business and no job. The clerk/waiter/whatever should see herself as an extension of the business and the business owners, and should thank the patron (Remember this by thinking pay-tron! The one who PAYS is the Pay-tron, NOT a client. Learn your history!). If personal thanks are impossible due to a mean-spirited attitude on the part of the service person (obviously I suspect that), s/he should say “Thank you for shopping at (Seven-Eleven, CVS, Giant, whatever).”

I suspect these bad-manners problems are exacerbated by customer-service training which focuses mainly on loss-control (read: THEFT). Certainly, there is theft from shops and stores. That is not an excuse for being routinely rude to customers. I suspect that a lot of these clerks see themselves as cops, not cashiers, and the customers as Ones That Stole and Got Caught, Ones that Probably Stole and Didn’t Get Caught, and Ones That Probably Didn’t Steal – This Time – So I Won’t Assert My Authority – This Time. Note that this kind of training and attitude places the clerks above the customers instead of as service workers for them!

I further suspect that some workers – in restaurants especially – are carefully trained in BAD MANNERS. They are told to be FRIENDLY and are not taught to be respectful. “Hi, I’m Curtis and I’ll be taking care of you today.” (What are you, Curtis, a nurse? Am I hallucinating - is this a hospital?) The restaurants are probably walking a fine line and are somewhat aware of it. They don’t want the waiters to get disgruntled from realizing that they are in a service occupation; they want them to feel important and empowered (sort of) and enthusiastic about their jobs. They also want them to get tips so the restaurant won’t have to pay them a living wage. They also don’t want to alienate customers who have no manners by demonstrating too much high-quality behavior!

All this is complicated in large cities nowadays by the presence of varied cultures. I had one clerk ask me to PLEASE PLEASE explain the difference between Ma’am and Mom. Another clerk caused me to jump by saying loudly, “Hi, Mom!” (I do have two adult children, but . . . . she wasn’t one of them.) I am afraid that some service workers fiercely hate their jobs and especially hate waiting on women, whom they consider to be slime-bag animals. These men will call a male customer “Sir” over and over again in an obsequious manner (“Can I help you, Sir? Here you are, Sir! Thank you, Sir!”) and then turn to a female and say “Uh!” They do this with an air that sends a clear message: Women are nothing. (Can’t we give those guys jobs in the back room somewhere?!) The clerks who behave in this way make their views clear by using the multi-Sir approach even for workmen in soiled, busted-out work outfits and then using the Uh! approach as a woman steps up to the counter in a natty black business suit. (No! No! No! I am not saying that clerks should discriminate among various social classes of customers. I am saying that to some people, all women are automatically trash, especially compared to all men.)

All these problems almost - but not quite - make me like automatic checkout machines.