My best friend just wrote a highly entertaining post discussing the inanity of the American customer service mechanism and what it's like to work in the service industry.
a choice excerpt:
"yet for the most part, i'm smiling. it can become a reflex, the polite smiling, if you're not careful. at one point i had heard myself saying "have a great day!" so much that i started playing with the delivery, just to ground myself:
"have a great day."
"you have a great day."
"would you do me a favor? have yourself a great day."
(that last one is best delivered in a half-whisper, like a precious secret.)"
~~~
When I moved back to Chicago for the summer last year and got a (horrific) job working the front desk at a posh hotel catering to stupidly rich, affected 20-somethings and even richer, entitled businessmen , it was my first job out of the confines of a restaurant in 2 years. I found myself accidentally suggesting "Enjoy!" to everyone I handed something to, be it a room key, a pen, a map.Palms outstretched over the high marble-topped desk, I would hand over a duplicate key because the guest had lost the first one. "Enjoy!" I would doltishly twitter. You enjoy that new room key!
At 6 am, when the newspaper delivery woman would collect the room lists from me, I would hand over the document and say "Here you go, enjoy!" like some sort of Pollyanna automaton. Because that woman is going to have a great time dropping USA Today's in front of hundreds of rooms for the next three hours of her life.
And when I moved to London, I realised that America is the only place where it is not only okay, but expected, that people wish others to have a great day. The French and Germans actually take offense to it -- something about strangers telling others what to do with their day and how to live it doesn't appeal to them, they find it an ingratiating American-ism. And the English customer service ethic (fairly oxymoronic) does not include well wishes for the customer's day. You're there to get a service, and you get it, and everyone acknowledges this and goes on their merry way. It's not someone's job to wish the customer anything beyond the confines of the service being doled out. Instead, I more often than not find myself suggesting to the shop keepers that they have a great day "Bye! Thank you! Have a good day/weekend/afternoon!" whilst exiting the shop, which consistently meets a bewildered look followed by a "...thank you?"
I'd stop doing it, since it's obviously not necessary or all that welcome here, but I kind of...can't.
(photos via reinagnoma and chuckbiscuito)
4 comments:
haha! i totally do that "enjoy!" thing myself, and also in contexts that make no sense! handing someone a pen to sign their credit card receipt, for example. you ENJOY that pen.
i love that we both know this all too well. i nearly brought up SMILING! in the post, but i couldn't bring myself to tackle that beast.
Merry Christmas - who doesn't want to be merry at christmastime?
Happy Birthday - I'll have any kind of birthday I choose - what's it to you anyway?
Verbal baggage? Maybe; but who does it hurt? Oh, right. The Germans and the French. How dare we wish them anything other than what is.
Bye now. Have a Thursday. There's no disputing, it is Thursday.
Ohh your blog is a delight! Back in the Philippines we have this manic tendency to end every conversation with "Take care." I brought the habit with me on my time overseas and had to witness the discomfort of many who were not used to the brazen suggestion of concern for their welfare. It sounded too personal and God forbid people ever got really close! Or answered in earnest to a fleeting "How are you?" - meant more like a "Hey" than an interest in one's life. That one took me a while to learn in New York!
But, because this is such a nice little blog, I sincerely wish that you have a nice day! :-)
why thank you, sweet vanessa! your blog, too, is a delightful well of happiness, keep on keepin' on --! TAKE CARE NOW. ;)
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