I live near Chicago, and one thing that regularly irritates me is how often store employees treat customers as annoyances. With irritating frequency clerks fail to make eye contact or speak clearly, decline to provide more than the bare minimum info to get rid of you, express complete ignorance of their stock and evidence no desire in satisfying a customer, or even conduct personal telephone calls or chat with co-workers instead of acknowledging a waiting customer.
I have gotten so that I expect lousy service when shopping, and am surprised and pleased when I receive anything approaching decent service.
We just returned from a trip to Memphis, New Orleans and Fla, and were stricken by the different attitude we perceived on behalf of store employees south of Chi. People in gas stations appeared to actually want to help us out when we asked questions, and they looked us in the eye when talking to us. Sales clerks actually seemed to know something about their and their competitors’ merchandise. And we experienced this both in “touristy” places at our destinations as well as “holes-in-the-wall” along the route.
Wondering if any of you had any thoughts on this phenomenom. Is it real, or was I simply transferring my Hurricane-induced good mood? Are people more polite in different regions, or is in-store service universally horrible? Tho I comment on Chicago rudeness, I have heard New Yorkers comment on how friendly folk are in the midwest.
It always strikes me as sorta odd that I hear of the US moving towards a “service” economy, and I so regularly encounter such crappy service!