Pleasantries Over-Automated, Leading To Stupid Responses

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You know how people have pretty scripted things to say to you in certain situations? Examples that I will deal with in a moment is a friend, when seeing you, who usually asks "How're you?" or people at the checkout who say "Have a nice day."

Well, I've become so used to these pleasantries that not only have they become meaningless, they've become automated. So, for the first example, when a friend asked me last week, "What's up?" I replied, "Good." Today, in a convenience store, the guy behind the counter said something (I forget what, but it wasn't "Have a nice day") and I said "You too." Neither person seemed to notice, thank god.

Anyway, anyone else ever do this (accidentally respond in an automated way even when it doesn't make sense)?

Last edited by Serissa on 17 Sep 2005, 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yep.

I'm only like that when working. I work at a grocery store.

It is slightly annoying and false but infinately preferable to staff that have a chip on their shoulder and are really grumpy.

Cashiers give automated responses all day long, so there's nothing odd about giving an automated reply back. That's how I cope with shopping.

I prefer it when they are automated. Less pressure to say anything unautomated back.

TRhe story that comes to mind for me is a trip to the cinema to celebrate the end of exams at school. We saw the Arnold Swarzenegger film "Jingle all the way". I don't remember anything about it, but anyway it was no Terminator. When we were walking out my friends kept going on about about bits in the movie they thought were funny, and i was just answering by saying "yeah I know". Anyway a girl I was going home with asked me outside "is this the bus were getting?", and I automatically said "yeah I know". Everybody laughed and said "that made no sense". So ever since then I always watched out for my automatic responses.

There is a particular exchange that goes on in Ireland all the time, that I don't seem to experience as much in the U.S. (which is probably why the Irish think so highly of American customer service compared to their own), and this actually happened to me today when I entered a newsagent's. The cashier asked, "Hey, love, how're you?" and I said, "Good, thanks, how're you?" expecting an answer, but never received one. This happens all the time here, giving it away that the person asking doesn't actually care and is only asking to be polite. It annoys me. Typically, in the U.S., if someone were to ask me how I am, we'd at least have a very short conversation, but I also have to admit that that would be equally meaningless. The only people with whom I ever have meaningful exchanges of this kind are the folks who work in the local shops, especially the greengrocer around the corner who gives me free parsley for my rabbits and wants to know how everyone in the house is doing - and I mean really wants to know. People caring about each other is something that makes me feel immensely good about the world; it's all the false, meaningless stuff that depresses me.

I do this all the time because I map out the whole conversation in my head before it happens and when the other person says something my response comes out and it is often humorous, so for example, "Thank you for shopping with us," will get, "You, too." as a response because I thought they were going to say "Have a nice day."
Or, "how are you?" gets "thanks"
and so on.

I was going to say actually that i wish that was one bit of American culture that i wish was imported better. Over here there are a lot of places that make me feel i am dispositioning them by giving them my business. People seem to put up with a lot of bad manners from employees over here. I have heard numerous people say that the service industry is far better and more polite in the US.

I laughed out loud at that one. Sounded familiar.

When I was living in New York City, I knew many people of color who decided to move to places like Alabama and Georgia. When I asked them why, they told me that it was because even though people were openly racist, at least they were honest about it,
I really like it when people here are honestly nice and helpful, and you are right, there are many. You can tell because they engage in spontaneous and original conversation.
It scares the dickens out of me to engage with people, but it seems easier with the honest ones.

What do you mean by 'having a chip on their shoulder'? Do you mean 'being poor and minding it'?

The reason I ask this is that the charge of 'chip on the shoulder' is usually levelled against someone who is underemployed and conscious of the fact, by those who are 'lucked into' a situation by dint of birth and parental advantage, or social connection, or the ability to 'play the game' with the herd, to ensure that they obtain a position above their natural aptitude.

If having a 'chip on the shoulder' means not being bothered with trotting out the wearisome pieties in a servitude skivvy-sector role, then I am probably 'guilty as charged', so to speak.

One interesting corollary to this however, is that there are lots of 'customers' who imagine themselves to be 'lords of all they survey'; they go into the cheapest pub in the area, to buy the cheapest drink on offer, and they expect to be treated like royalty for doing so.

Apparently, it is. Many Service Sector roles are remunerated through a mechanism known as 'tipping', which means that the consumer of the servie you are providing pays you almost directly, rather than the employer you are working for.

This may be a reasonable proposition for certain kinds of service, for certain demographic profiles, but one soon gets to the point where this becomes infeasible.

My view on this is that if you are working for an employer, then they employer should be paying you a wage for the work that you do. The idea of having a perpetual 'begging bowl', even though you are ostensibly 'employed' is something I find both disturbing and incomprehensible. Let's face it, if a service sector employee wants to carry on earning for the work that they do, they are either literally or metaphorically going to have to end up putting their tongue somewhere it really ought not to be.

Yep that's pretty much what i meant, just because someone feels they should be rich and of high position in life doesnt mean they should treat me with anything less than civility. They should do something about their position in life instead of taking it out on a good customer such as I. It shouldnt matter if someone buys the cheapest or dearest, civility costs nothing. (in fact saves a bad reputation)

Dont go into the service industry if you dont like to service people. With all due respect anyone who shows good work with the right qualifications will be rewarded for it with a good job. Most employers look for production though i know full well that politics plays a part.

Last edited by eamonn on 17 Sep 2005, 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I forgot about that. Good idea, we should bring it into play here.