Cashiers: would it kill you to be friendly to a customer?

The BBQ Pit
41

Couple of other points already touched on by others. While a simple human show of courtesy is welcome - eye contact and a nod of the head can well be sufficient - obviously artificial “flair” is a turn off.

But I’m not too sure I appreciate too much friendliness. In the grocery checkout line there are times I’m trying to pay attention to things - whether items rung up correctly, whether the bagger is crushing my produce, whether the cashier gives me my cash-over-charge. (At some stores, you can charge a certain amount over your purchase and receive that in cash. Easier than a separate trip to the ATM.) It doesn’t happen often, but there have been occasions when I was engaged in a pleasant conversation with the checker and only later realized they had not given me my $50 cash after the transaction.

Also, if I want to divulge personal information, I’ll choose to do so. Every once in a while I accompany my wife while shopping, and I’m astounded at the degree of faux friendliness displayed in some stores. At a Coach store recently, the staff were asking more personal questions about our plans for the weekend than I would expect of my immediate family! And in one store - J. Jill I believe - the staff are so aggressively friendly to a degree that I have seen other customers respond very negatively. So it can be taken too far.

42

Yes, it might actually kill them to be friendly to customers. When I worked in service, I died a little bit inside every time I smiled at or was welcoming to someone and he or she not only couldn’t acknowledge it, but at best treated me as a prop or a piece of furniture, or at worst would look snidely at me as if they were thinking “just ring up my purchases and don’t bother me with your humanity.”
It wasn’t my dream job by any means, but I did it because there were bills to pay and I take my responsibilities seriously. I think I have a pretty great work ethic, no matter the job. But dealing with one snatch-faced customer after another after another can figuratively kill you a little bit inside.
The corner store I generally stop into on my way home in the evenings has one cashier who has been there for years and he obviously HATES most customers. It’s obvious because he’s told me so. :stuck_out_tongue: But he likes me because I acknowledge him as a human being, rather than a drone, and I sympathize with him and life’s circumstances.

43

Yes. Yes, it would.

hi how are you will this be all regular or premium do you have a speedway card would you like to buy some of our candy enter your pin or hit the red button for credit thank you have a good afternoon i can help the next in line please

44

It certainly doesn’t help that some retailers actively court people who are bad at the job, by offering low wages and part time (no benefit) work. The only people taking that job are people who are desperate, worthless, or just passing the time until something better comes along.

45

Being neutral or non-communicative does not bother me much. They are just minimum wage employees.

They should, however, at the very least not chit chat with other employees when checking you out. That’s just rude.

46

Ha! As I read this thread, one incident sprang instantly to mind. It was at a McDonald’s in DC. Not only did the cashier have no word to say to me, she was careful not to let her gaze at any time come within a foot of my body.

47

It’s DC. I’ve noticed that customer service and friendliness tends to be better at smaller businesses like my local coffeeshop or the butcher at Eastern Market but generally, people won’t be too superficially smiley. I kind of like that.

48

Huh. I also live in DC, and as far as I can recall almost all my transactions with retail people have ranged from neutral yet polite to reasonably friendly. I’m sure I’ve had a bad experience but I cannot remember one.

49

Likewise.

50

Hmmm, do you tip hookers? You are already paying them!

51

I hate the canned friendliness. I don’t care if the cashier smiles at me or not, as long as s/he is paying attention to the job at hand. I actually like it if I’m asked if I found everything OK. Yes, it’s a trite phrase, but it’s damn useful in a retail transaction. This gives me an opportunity to mention that I couldn’t find the Pretty Kitty cat brush that was advertised, or whatever. I don’t particularly need to hear a religious or political phrase, and I’m not just talking “Merry Christmas!” either.

What I really hate, though, is the “active listening” that some phone tech support companies do. If I call up because I can’t get online, I don’t want the CSR to sympathize with me for a couple of minutes. Spend that time getting me back online, dammit! Or else I’m going to get stabby. OK. Stabbier.

I’ll take efficiency over fake friendliness every time. Efficiency doesn’t have to mean rudeness, unless getting rid of someone who is bothering other customers is considered rude. But I don’t want or need to be best buds with random workers.

Having said all that, if someone asks me how I am, I’ll usually say “fine, and you?” rather than growl. Even if I’m tempted.

52

Yes, some of the responsibility for these relationships must go to customers. Every service worker deals with many more of ‘you’ than you do of them. They have faced people with all manner of social defects, and they can’t get away when they’re having a bad day.

Be nice to them, and cut them some slack if they aren’t always as nice as they could be back.

(I still agree that there are some people who flat don’t belong in service work, and whenever possible I will choose businesses where service workers seem more genuinely human and happy to be there.)

53

I wish they wouldn’t be friendly as they are to be honest. They don’t care how my day is going and often all I want is whatever I’m purchasing and to get the hell out of there.

54

OP, I think your answer is in this thread. Cashiers who meet the expectations of their employers never know how friendliness will be received. If your cashier is less than enthusiastic, it’s probably because the customer in front of you was one of these brusque, all business people who hold friendly behavior in contempt. If some eye-rolling, patronizing a-hole before you regarded them with scorn, they will quickly learn to scrap any attempt at pleasantries in favor of doing the absolute minimum necessary to avoid getting fired.

55

You can never, ever, ever please everyone in retail. Ever.

Even if you come in for your morning shift, brimming with coffee and happiness, it doesn’t matter. Your first customer will be grouchy because it’s morning and rebuff your “Hi! How are you?” and the next customer will be upset that you didn’t greet her with “Hi! How are you?” because the last guy was such a grouch. The next customer just wants you to maintain a laserlike focus on the goods you’re scanning and not to bother with pleasantries like “Hello.” The next 97-year-old customer wants to chat and chat and chat and tell you about how they couldn’t find Brand X bread any more, and did you stop carrying it, and why did you stop carrying it, she likes it, she’s been buying it for 64 years, why would you stop carrying something so popular? Page a manager to come talk to her about her bread-buying needs.

The next person is crabby that the 97-year-old took up so much time and they snap at you. The next customer you don’t say anything to but “Hello,” because the last one was grumpy and they don’t like that, they want you to be as cheery and happy as THEY are! The next customer has a baby in the cart and you coo and wave at the baby while Mom is fussing trying to find her debit card, and the baby laughs and everyone’s day is a little better. Next customer is trying to find their bag of coupons in their enormous handbag while you wait and your line of customers grows longer. Your coworker comes up and asks if you have another roll of register tape, and you hand it to them from under the counter, and the customer on the Great Coupon Hunt bitches you out for having a “personal conversation!!!” while you ought to be serving them. The person after them is upset that you made them wait so long, even though it wasn’t your fault, it was the Great Couponier. Smile and wave at the baby in that cart, and Mom snaps at you not to wave at her baby! Just check my groceries!

Next customer says “My, aren’t WE in a mood” when you say “Hello” without any other pleasantries. Grumps at you for asking if they want their receipt in the bag. “NO, with my CASH, please.” Next customer with three bratty kids uses it as a teaching lesson–“No, Brayden, that’s not how we give the money to the cashier!” after Brayden rubs the $20 on his snotty nose. You use some hand sanitizer after they leave and the next person goes “What, are you afraid of my GERMS?”

And that’s one hour.

A cashier cannot tell from looking at you whether you want them to be happy and bubbly or brisk and efficient or whatever. So they default to whatever A) won’t get them fired, and B) is closest to their normal expression. And it may not be what the customer personally wants, but again…the cashier has no way of knowing. The same way the cashier has no way of knowing whether you want the receipt in the bag or with the money, or whether you want your change first then bills, or bills then change. Or a zillion other things. Everyone thinks their way is obviously the best and most efficient, but you can’t know from seeing that unless you wear a placard.

So yes, ideally it would be nice to be served with a pleasant efficiency, but I’m not going to snap at a cashier at the 7 1/2-hour mark of an eight-hour shift. It’s a store. Who cares?

56

apollonia, you just gave me a flashback. That’s retail in a nutshell right there.

57

Seroiusly, it’s like PTSD. Add to that list the amount of customers who complain about something totally not in your control, and the person who gets snide after eight hours because you can’t instantly calculate their change in your head, especially after they’ve changed it “Oh wait, I have a dime, hold on”. I’m tired, give me a minute, I got an A in algebra and I know my maths but I’ve been here since 6 am.

Ugh. I never want to be in retail again.

58

Appollonia just described a cycle of an hour of a cashier’s day, that just repeats until the shift is over. I understand that as a consumer, shopping is just another errand in a long list of errands. Would it kill people to be better customers?

Don’t hand me a fistful of coupons and say, “Try these.” You know you have to pay, why do you start fishing around for your cash or card at the end like paying is a big surprise? Stop inflicting your packing fetish on me. “Meat in the plastic, everything else in paper, pack it lightly and make it all fit into two bags.” Don’t tell me how to do my job. I respect your need to use your bags to pack your purchase. Could you wash them once in a while? They’re dirty and they fucking stink. Don’t don’t don’t hand me your garbage. It skeeves me out.

Why can’t a shopping transaction be a polite, efficient exchange between two people? On one hand, we have people branding us as personality free automatons and on other people telling us to eat up every little bit of shit people give us because that’s our jobs. That’s how little people think of retail slaves.

59

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays.

60

YMMV, but this is not my experience at CVS. I get my prescriptions there and the staff is generally friendly and helpful. The pharmacists usually greet me by name as I walk up to the counter. The whole staff usually is genuinely friendly and seems to enjoy helping customers. Even as I walk out after paying for my prescriptions, the cashier at the front register will call out, “Have a nice day,” or “Thank you. Come again.” Of course, they’re probably instructed to do the latter, but they always sound sincere.

I can understand how some people can view this as a negative, but I have never encountered surly employees at CVS. I always feel treated like a human being there.