In my experience, the opposite. I have been told to smile only by women, never by another man.
“Oh, that’s a good idea! Would you recommend a fake smile like yours, that’s obviously hiding years of repressed pain and anger?”
“What are the customers at this store like?”
“What were the customers at your last job like?”
“They were miserable cretins who went out of their way to make my life miserable.”
“You’ll find the same customers here.”
“What are the customers at this store like?”
"What were the customers at your last job like?
“Wonderful, every day they were so grateful when I could help them. I felt sooo good about it.”
“You’ll find the same customers here.”
…of course, this doesn’t apply if the new job is at the DMV.
There’s a few exceptions, well, at least one that I discovered. I was certainly surprised to find sales tax on postage stamps in Canada. Pretty sure the clerk thought I was an idiot. I wasn’t rude though, just dumbfounded.
Unless you grew up in a state that did not at that time have sales tax. Bit of a jolt for an Oregon native moving to California, for example.
I think I told this story before, and it was told to me (a customer) by the clerk. I went into a record store (back in the Dark Ages) to buy the Seiji Ozawa conducted Firebird. I put the LP down on the counter, the clerk looked at it and burst out laughing.
I gave him a puzzled look, and he said a few days earlier a guy came in looking for The Sacred Printer. I said ‘huh?’ and the clerk said ‘that’s what I said.’ Then, the customer told him ‘You know, The Sacred Printer by Stravinsky.’
And we both had a good laugh then!
I don’t get it.
Another Stravinsky work is The Rite of Spring or Le Sacre du printemps in French. Don’t ask me how I could figure that out from The Sacred Printer as I have a heck of a time when a classical DJ talks about a work by Sasson (Saint Saens.)
I thought I got it, but then I reread the post…
Now I’m confused. Does it have anything to do with Firebird?
…
eta: Oui, I assumed Le Sacre du Printemps right away… oh, did Stravinsky write the Firebird suite, too?
They are both by Stravinsky. Seeing Firebird reminded the clerk of the other story.
Ah, got it. So I’m assuming I don’t need to figure out how Seiji Ozawa is a part of the mystery.
Thanks so much, I do appreciate the help. Would’ve bugged me all night…
Sorry all! I guess I should have provided footnotes. 
Yeah, Ozawa had nothing to do with the story. Neither did having it happen at the Century City shopping center…I managed to keep that confusing detail out at least.
I laughed!
Heh. I once heard about a tourist in NYC who wanted to see “Less Miserables.”
There was an issue of some journalism magazine I used to read that had a column of funny stories. One of them told a story about a college newspaper feature story that reported that a subject of a profile said his favorite work was Lame Is Rob.
Back when I worked at a coffeehouse, we had these regulars, a middle-aged guy who always wore Chicago Wolves gear and his older friend who looked like he could have been a sea captain in a previous life. They’d sit back in the smoking room (back when there were such things), and drink their cups of mocha java while puffing a few.
One day, after being back there for a while, he comes up to the counter and asks “Excuse me, can you blow up these balloons for me?” I stop for a moment, not expecting that request, but say “sure.” He gives me two balloons. I blow one up and start to tie it when he interrupts … “No, no, no … don’t tie it, don’t tie it. Just hand it to me.” So I do. I blow up the second balloon, and he takes it, too, untied, says “Thank you” and returns to the smoking room.
My coworker walks up to me after he leaves and says “I see Ray’s brought the balloons today.” I ask “what does he do with them?” She answers “Nobody really knows.”
I still don’t know what Ray and his friend do with the balloons. They never walk out with the filled balloons, and we don’t find any balloons in the back room. One coworker thought that they “breathe in the air.”
So, yeah, weird.
The cashier was laughing at all the times Ozawa was asked to conduct Freebird
So, Ozawa’s right in the third movement of The Sacred Printer, trying to do Igor proud, and all the good ol’ boys pull out their lighters… “Time for some Skynyrd, bro!”
And then there’s the record store customer who asked for the Taco Bell Cannon.
Reaching well back, there’s a tale of a customer asking in a record shop "Have you got A Fine Brown Frame? only to get the reply “No, a small white skinny one”.