officers are called 'sir'

[beamMe]

MacLeod wrote:

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Agreed, it should be upto the customer to initate conversation like "How are you today?"

No I do not want to be greeted as I enter your shop.

Exactly. More than a simple, friendly "Can I help you?" or "Do you need any help?" really isn't required.

[T'Girl]

Remember customer service s a interactive process, the more of a (even brief) connection you have with a member of the wait staff, or store clerk, or whoever, the better the service.. These aren't little robots you brush past, people spend a chunk of their life's at work and enjoy brief moment of socializing with the folks that they meet on the job.

Trust me, working sales can be boring.

At the shops, restaurants, clubs and cantinas where I'm a regular, I know the names, marital status, and hobbies of the people who've been there for a while.

As a side effect of this, I've noticed that my drinks come faster, I get better cuts of meat, more time with sales people while picking out clothes. Bartenders use me to try out new experimentally drink concoctions as we talk sports. Sushi chef want me to provide opinions on different foods, while I tell him Japan stories.

When I was a bartender, the people who told me stories got dirtier drinks.

These are the people you meet during the course of your life, it's okay to talk to them.

beamMe, would it kill you to tell a joke?

[beamMe]

T'Girl wrote:

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beamMe, would it kill you to tell a joke?

Let me think of one...

Ah, yes...

.

.

.

.

Sorry, I must have fainted.
I'm not going to push my luck any further.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

beamMe wrote:

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Exactly. More than a simple, friendly "Can I help you?" or "Do you need any help?" really isn't required.

Agreed.

I try not to be mean to the customers in my store. If they need help, I'll give it. If they ask me a question, I'll answer it. But it is not my place to give small talk.

[teacake]

For a while my local supermarket had a new manager and the check out girls would ask everyone, "so what have you been up to today?" and "what have you been doing this weekend?" and EVEN making specific comments on what you might be doing with the groceries you were buying. It was very hard not to say something utterly crass when asked direct questions about what I'd been doing that day.. oh I had some awful things on the tip of my tongue.

The process you describe T'Girl of getting to know people in shops etc.. best happens organically. It is actually stymied by there being a script the shop people have to run through in the guise of friendly customer service.

[Nerys Myk]

Being friendly and greeting the customer is usually a job requirement in most service positions. Your supervisors expect it and will evaluate you on it. It's not really so horrible to be greeted with a hello or how are you and a smile, is it? It's supposed to a way to start a conversation that can help the customer find what they need.

[teacake]

There are many reasons online shopping has conquered the world.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

teacake wrote:

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For a while my local supermarket had a new manager and the check out girls would ask everyone, "so what have you been up to today?" and "what have you been doing this weekend?" and EVEN making specific comments on what you might be doing with the groceries you were buying.

Some of my coworkers talk like that. I fucking hate it. I wish they'd just shut the hell up already. I'd make it a workplace law if I could. "Thou shalt not bullshitteth the customers."

[Nerys Myk]

teacake wrote:

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There are many reasons online shopping has conquered the world.

For me its convenience. I dread having a problem though. Too many hoops to reach a human being. Even when you do reach one, it can be a bigger problem that when dealing in person.

[teacake]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Some of my coworkers talk like that. I fucking hate it. I wish they'd just shut the hell up already. I'd make it a workplace law if I could. "Thou shalt not bullshitteth the customers."

This manager must have been a real piece of work because for a while they ALWAYS chatted you up about what you were buying. "Oh steak for dinner?" "Wow, you must really like broccoli!" "I guess your family will be clean tonight!" (when I was buying a bunch of soap on sale).

I was soooo tempted to buy several boxes of condoms, plonk them on the counter after one of these groceries comments and say "and AFTER dinner you know what I'll be doing!"

[scotpens]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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. . I try not to be mean to the customers in my store. If they need help, I'll give it. If they ask me a question, I'll answer it. But it is not my place to give small talk.

Most of the store clerks and other retail workers I've encountered are pleasant and polite. They'll chitchat with customers only if the customer initiates it.

What's silly, though, is when supermarket checkout clerks ask if you need any help carrying your purchases to your car, when all you've bought is a loaf of bread and a roll of toilet paper. I know it's store policy -- it just seems pretty dumb.

[iguana_tonante]

T'Girl wrote:

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I think I'm picking up a pattern. You (perhaps as a group) deride actual customer service, then wonder why you don't receive it as a standard?

I think I'm picking up a pattern. You purposefully misinterpret what people say and then reply in the most sneakingly insulting way possible, then end it with a smile so you can pretend you were joking?

[MacLeod]

What some people have said anything over and above being polite and offering assitance to a customer, should be initated by the customer. It should be upto the customer to initate small talk, that way they don't feel obliged to do so if a member of staff initates it.

Sure staff get to know the regular customers and what kind of interaction they like.

[Ian Keldon]

horatio83 wrote:

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You can only be proud of personal achievements, not of the state of an entity that consists of millions of people. Only nationalists feel pride or pain concerning a nation (hence the term nationalist).

There's nothing wrong with feeling pride about your nation when you are a citizen of a great nation, such as most Western nations and many Eastern ones. Conversely, if you are a member of a bad nation you SHOULD feel shame at the fact.

Oh, and horatio, the only reason keyboard philosophers (You know the type...) are able to sit and badmouth great nations and the militaries that protect them (and sometimes entire ungrateful foreign nations) is because better men (and women) than they were willing to offer their time, effort, and even lives if necessary in their defense.

[horatio83]

Lovely anti-intellectualism. Screw the philosopher, hail the soldier.
You ever read Hamlet? Probably not but if you actually have you might have realized that there are two guys left in the ending, the soldier AND the intellectual.
About your jingoist remarks concerning the great USA having protected ungrateful Euroscum from the grips of Stalin, no American soldier died in the process. Nuclear weapon did the job. You really gotta use that thing inside of your skull more instead of ranting about "keyboard philosophers".

Talking about anti-intellectualism, only pathetic creatures who have not achieved anything in their life and nothing to be proud of feel pride concerning the achievements of others, the anonymous social as such, the nation or however you wanna call it.
I admire and abhor many people but pride and shame are personal feelings.