People, mostly older, who get peeved by retail and service workers saying "No problem" instead of "You're welcome"

In My Humble Opinion
121

That’s not at all what anyone is thinking when they say “no problem”.

The purpose of language is to communicate thoughts and ideas from one person to another. In face to face communication, language does this alongside things like tone, cadence, and body language to communicate more complex ideas.

If you want to ignore the other person’s intent and app the other ways they communicate it in order to zero in on the “etymology” of a given phrase - something that almost certainly was not part of the equation at all when they chose to use that phrase - that is essentially you intentionally sabotaging the successful exchange of ideas.

I have no idea why anyone would choose to do this. It seems like a recipe for misery.

122

Inspired by this thread I have noticed my service provider automatic response to “thank you” expressions is “my pleasure!” rather than “you’re welcome” … how’s that one play?

123

One more year until I can retire from the service industry. One more year until I can retire from the service industry. One more year until I can retire from the service industry. One more…

124

She’s doing it in the course of her job. She’s required to ask that of every customer.

– I see this has already been addressed in the thread, and acknowledged; but will post this to clarify that yes, that’s the context that I meant.

125

I am of the opinion that if you are the sort of person that gets annoyed or offended by a cashier saying “no problem” or any other non-offensive variation of “thank you”, “right away”, “have a nice day” or other phrase of acknowledgement, then you are a giant pretentious asshole. Probably a racist too. I mean if you get that upset because someone talks a bit different from what you would like, imagine if they LOOKED different!

And it is people like that who make things worse for everyone in the world because they will write a sternly worded letter to Corporate. And the next thing you know every low-wage employee of whatever chain retail store or coffee shop that idiot frequents will have their workday made that much worse by some Corporate mandated set of phrases they are permitted to use when interacting with customers. Thus helping to create a word where people behave like corporate robots instead of actual people.

126

I’m not your buddy, pal!

127

Once again, that assumption is a leap. People are capable of being huge assholes without being racist, bigoted, or otherwise selectively hateful.

128

Don’t call me sweetie chucky

129

What really twists my knickers are the USians who respond to Thank You with “mmm hmm”…

130

What customs behaviors and / or phrases and terms are acceptable or not change with time, of course. Just today, I was just at a graduation ceremony and one of the fathers was wearing a straw hat.

https://www.muji.com/public/media/img/item/4550583515973_1260.jpg

At some point in time, that would definitely be an appalling breach of etiquette, but then I realized that I was one of the very few men not wearing a suit. Fortunately, two of the others were also Westerners, so it was less likely that I would be singled out for ridicule.

The service industry has become far more casual and the formality reserved for customers is far less noticeable than it was when I was a child, seemingly billions of years ago.

131

Honestly, I just want a life so trouble free that I have band-width left to complain about something so trivial. Have I ever had a single day when I could have raised this to the top of my priority list? I doubt it.

I seriously wonder about people like this. What must it be like to be them?

132

“So what’s your only problem?”
“That someone else has no problem.”