For sure. Just seems to me (for what it’s worth, your mileage may vary, some restrictions apply, see your doctor before trying, void where prohibited) that EVERYBODY should treat EVERYBODY with respect and consideration and offer sincere thanks (doesn’t have to be flowery or prolonged, just sincere and to the point) for a job (reasonably) well done.
(Sorry for (all the (excessive)) parentheticals. :o )
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I learned about customer service working at McDonald’s. Back in the day, you would be fired if you didn’t thank your customer. The fact that people like you have abandoned this particular civility doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Incidently, every drug dealer I ever knew delivered.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
I worked at McDonald’s once upon a time. WAY back in the day (the 80’s). Nobody would have been fired for not saying “thank you.” That’s bullshit.
I haven’t abandoned it myself, I just don’t have any emotional need to hear it from clerks at SuperAmerica.
You’ve really had a different life experience than I have.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
In the early 70s, at the store I worked at, you’d be fired. I’ve seen it happen.
You’re in the minority.
Evidently.
Toast and jam. Spat. Not pretty. 
Cite, please.
My cite is my 50 years of life experience. And speaking of cites, those who refuse to provide one when asked should really avoid demanding them from others.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
I spent a good part of my wasted youth as a serial fast food worker. I went through a bunch of them, usually two or three at a time. I never heard of anyone even being verbally reprimanded for not thanking customers. Maybe you just witnessed a particularly psychotic store manager or something, but I know for a fact that it is not SOP in the industry to fire counter workers simply for not thanking a customer.
Cite? and so what? If not having an emotional need to be thanked for buying gas puts me in the minority, then I guess that just means I’m emotionally more mature than the majority.
You’re providing your age to support an assertion about how a majority of people feel about getting thanked by customer service workers?
The vast majority of people I’ve interacted with over my lifetime prefer a thank you to nothing at all. We don’t like to be treated poorly by inconsiderate clerks. You can defend rude behavior all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s rude.
But for the hard-of-courteous in this thread, here’s your cite:
http://emilypost.com/news_events/releases/news_rudeness_survey.htm
I see. You’ve actually asked everyone you’ve interacted with over your lifetime if they care whether the guy at the 7/11 thanks them or not and can therefore speak authoritively on who is in the minority. Well that’s a very thorough survey – a bit oddly obsessed, bordering on autistic – but thorough.
I don’t see how the omission of a single, trivial, social banality from a routine retail exchange amounts to “rudeness” or “poor treatment.”
I provided plenty. :rolleyes: Nice dodge, though. And sorry but your 50 years doesn’t cut it. It’s another case of ‘my post is my cite’.
What does this cite have to do with whether customers care about being thanked? Being ignored is not the same as not being thanked.
That’s right…I go around polling everyone I know to find out if it’s ok for them to be treated rudely. It never comes up in conversation during the course of a lifetime of interaction so I have to resort to the scientific method. :rolleyes:
That’s the thing about rude people. They don’t see it as rude. But it is. See cite above.
I saw a new checker at Walmart last year, that was always a craby bitch in Kmart. Instead of walking to the other end of the store, I gave her a chance because maybe it was a Kmart thing. I set the couple items on the counter so I can get out my wallet. She finishes the customer and I’m looking in my wallet for a while arranging a couple things. I look up expecting the order almost rung up, and she giving me the death glare. She decides to speak “I don’t know why people always put their stuff on that end of the counter.” and didn’t move a muscle until I pushed the fucking items 2 feet towards her. I needed to be some place else, so didn’t have the time to get the manager, and report the obnoxious bitch. I saw her at the registers for one week and never again.
The problem, Kalhoun, is that you seem to think that you have some consensus on what being treated rudely is, when you do not.
It is very true that no one likes rudeness. But read very carefully: Not everyone expects a cashier to thank them for shopping at BlahBlah Mart, and not everyone thinks that a failure to do so is rude, especially if the cashier has behaved in an otherwise pleasant and helpful manner.
Nothing in your cite specifies this issue.
It certainly can be, and probably IS what they mean. The customer is never “ignored” per se, as their purchases are processed by someone. It’s the lack of the finer points of customer service (which are apparently lost on you) that pisses people off.
It was a damned shame.
If you have 50 years of life experience, I’m shocked that not being thanked at a store warranted the time it took to write out a pit rant.
Your cite said specifically that customers were dissatisfied at having to wait for service, and at sales people “acting like the customer was not even there.” My impression is that those two grievance go together – that customers don’t like being ignored when they’re waiting for service. That’s an entirely different issue. I believe (notice I said “believe”), that most customers are probably satisfied as long as they get their transaction processed in a timely and efficient manner, and as long as the person at the till is not overtly rude. I think that not saying a word would be rude, but saying “Hello…that will be 5.99” is sufficiently (if minimally) civil and professional that most people would not feel that they had been treated poorly or rudely in doing their business.