Complaining about your life to a complete stranger who you are supposed to be providing service for is not varying from a corporate-approved verbal cue, it’s being a fucking asshole. And while being an assshole is something many people apparently strive for these days, it’s not something someone in the service industry should be paid to do, minimum wage or not. If they want to complain about their lives, they should wait until they get off work and find someone who might have a reason to care.
You must either know an inordinate amount of un-assholish people, or we are talking about different types of sales whining. This doesn’t come close to being assholish as far as I can see. OTOH, I agree there’s no place for it - but I’d hardly think it was a sackable offence, hence my sarcasm.
My least favorite part of being a counter drone was that I said the same damn six sentences about five hundred times a day. I’d have to same the same stupid corporately mandated words (“Hello, How are you? Did you find everything all right? Have you heard about our new promotion? Will that be credit or debit? Your movies are due back next tuesday before noon. Thank you, have a great evening”). I’d have the same stupid fights (Press the green button and then slide your card. No, the green button. Now slide it. Umm…I think you got the wrong button there. Press the green button and then slide your card…") day in and day out for weeks straight. Imagine doing nothing for eight hours except going through a few repetative motions and saying a select few sentences over and over and over again. Really. Picture sitting down at your desk at work. Now imagine you have to say a mantra over and over and over again until you go home.
My one joy was the occasional customer that seemed cool that I could maybe stop being a robot for a couple minutes and have an actual conversation with a human being.
Of course, being a “counterperson” my life pretty much sucked, and was largely dominated by my sucky work. It was the only thing interesting I had to share with anyone.
I think you should patronize places that treat their employees better. Workers at independent shops may be a little more unpredictable, but at least they usually have more cheerful or interesting things to say.
Just remember, for every clerk just waiting to unload the horrors of their life on you, there’s a customer with a burning need to explain the details of their latest medical crisis. Maybe we should put them together and see what happens.
Clerk: “Man, my girl left me, and my car’s breaking down, and…”
Customer: “You think you know pain? Try living with these hemorrhoids!”
Mmmm.
“Counterperson”? I must have missed a memo – is “cashier” no longer PC?
Hijacking my own thread…
Nothing is PC anymore. The following words are prohibited by law:
cashier
fat
old
waiter/waitress
stewardess
fireman
spokesman/spokeswoman
policeman/policewoman
retarded
blind
deaf
actress
comedian (when used in the feminine)
Of course there are more, but that’s an entirely different pit. 
Adam
I don’t know, but I suggest “clerk” in place of “counterperson.”
Maybe you should try going up to a random stranger on the street and just unloading all your grief. How long do you think they’d stand there? Not friggin’ long.
Just because I actually need something from your establishment doesn’t give you the right to unload on me. It’s the same as the random stranger example above, but with a cash exchange.
BTW, the reverse of this applies. When a counterperson asks how your day is going, they probably don’t really want to hear the details of your day is going. They don’t care that you lost the wheelbarrow that you carry your goiter in. It’s just something you say.
Bottom line to me, I don’t want to hear about the personal problems of strangers.