No, sweetie, you are NOT the measure of all people. Humans are a social species, particularly the female moiety, and grocery shopping still heavily skews towards women. As I have already stated, MOST of my customers want the small talk. If I fail to provide this I can be disciplined by my employer.
If YOU do not want small talk then it is incumbent upon YOU to TELL THE CASHIER because none of us are mind-readers and we are doing what we do based on what the majority of our customers want. If you fail to communicate what you want then you have no right to bitch about not getting what you want.
Ideally, it seems that small talk would result from a natural escalation during typical communication. It should be possible to infer if the person wants to chat based on how they respond to initial greetings. If the person is not making eye contact and just responding with “Mmhmm”, then they probably don’t want to talk any more than is necessary. Before a cashier asks “Why you buying all this motor oil?” there should have been some indication that the shopper would be receptive to the question.
When I went to work at Macy’s the training included “engage the customer.” With of course lots of examples of ways to do this. One of the things they said was that if the customer didn’t want engagement on the selling floor, they could go to Target.
This has certainly got far afield of poor fat women, I must say.
I am not your sweetie, and you can cut that out right now.
What you don’t seem to grasp is that “why are you buying so much motor oil” is well beyond small talk. Also, cite, please, that you can be disciplined for NOT asking that question.
No, it’s not. It’s incumbent on the staff not to be nosy with their “small talk”.
Oh, sure, we’d been talking/interacting for about 10-15 minutes, not including the time I needed to fetch a forklift and get a pallet of oil down from the storage racks for him. I’d already inquired about whether or not he needed fuel filters as well (nope, had another source for those), oil pan(s), and other paraphenalia as well as chatting about other things like the weather.
And, by the way, I wasn’t the cashier for that interaction, I was still stocking shelves back at that point.
But yeah, like I said, I take my cues from the customer. Some are pretty clear from the get go they don’t want to talk. Some won’t shut up. The only ones that really bother me are the ones who expect everyone to read their minds and then get pissy when they don’t get what they want.
If you want/don’t want something SAY SO. If you aren’t willing to communicate don’t bitch when you don’t get what you want. Expecting everyone to be just like you is the height of arrogance.
Since this seems to have drifted from the topic of the OP to the conduct of checkout counter cashiers about five days ago, and the discussion is becoming rather snarky, I’m going to close this. Those wishing to continue debating proper conduct by supermarket cashiers can start a new thread in IMHO.