Not an uncommon feeling at a Waffle House.
Just make sure to ask for an extra helping of grease with your grease. 
-Joe
Why is that either/or? That both are true seems like the most plausible hypothesis.
In my Florida experience, they are cigarette blondes* that get too old to be flight attendants in American Airlines. They just say “hi dahling” when you walk in and try not to faint from the exhaustion.
*cigarette blondes: old ladies with white hair turned yellow because of their chain smoking habits.
Greeters are (thankfully) a largely unknown phenomenon in the UK, although my local B&Q (a big DIY/hardware/furniture store) has one or two old retired guys on the door to greet customers. The one who’s normally there looks about 75, and I don’t think he’d be able to do much to keep “undesirables” out. Still, he’s friendly but not annoyingly so.
A red dot as in a round red sticker? If I was an exceptionally cunning thief, I might be able to come up with a way round that system!
Yeahbut, it the South, I think they actually *mean *it! And when they say, “Come on back now!” when you leave, I really believe they want me to, you know, return. And not just for my money. Maybe they’re just better at faking it.
Indeed.
I think I can explain the purpose of greeting customers at a store. A few years back in my previous job the head company sent trainers to talk to all the managers about how important it is to greet a customer within 15 seconds of entering the store. They apperently did a study and found out the people were more likely to buy if they were greeted imediately upon entering.
I know blockbuster does this too, no matter how busy they are they have to say “hi” to all customers.
Fry
The greeters usually don’t bug me much on the occasions that I run into one. Since I’ve only ever been to Wal-Mart twice in the last three of four years (this past Saturdays as a matter of fact; one of the only clean Wal-Marts I’d ever been to), most of the greeters are at other stores. In fact, I remember greeters greeting me at Meijer long before there were even any Wal-Marts in the state of Michigan. Aside from the duties described above, they also hand out the in-store circulars. Oh, yeah, the reason they don’t bug me much is usually because I’m not a slow poke like 95% of the rest of the people in the world (maybe “the world” is too broad; let’s say “shoppers” instead). While the greeters are busy fussing with all the pokey people, I just breeze on through.
The Targets the I have the pleasure of going to don’t have security guards, but they do have greeters. The Home Depot that’s right next to my office has a security guard, though, and I always say hi or 'morning or something on my way in, and about half the time I’m acknowledged in return. If you know Home Depot, though, the way in isn’t the way out, and there’s no guard on the way out, so I’m not sure what good the guard really is. The other Home Depots or Lowes that I go to don’t have security guards at all, at least not visible.
I read an article about WalMart greeters a while back, which included some explanations from a WalMart executive. They serve a couple of purposes - as the title suggests, saying “Hi” to people when they walk in to be friendly, help with shopping carts or buttons or whatnot, and also to deter shoplifters. WalMart found that simply having someone look everybody in the eye when they walk in the doors helped cut down on theft. Thieves do not want any confrontation at all, including just being spoken to by a store employee.
It’s rare that I’m in a WalMart but it doesn’t bother me at all. Sure it’s an artificial greeting but so are the checkers at Safeway who have to look at my receipt and say “Have a nice day Mr. XXX” (and they invariably mispronounce my name). Like others have said, it beats a scowl.
I can understand how that would happen. Is it pronounced “ecks” or “icks”?
Actually, I wasn’t talking about grandpa Fife tackling an undesirable so much as his signaling security about someone that they should spend extra time watching on the security monitors.
-Joe
It’s not a red dot at our local Wal-mart. It’s a rectangular green sticker like a price sticker, which has printed on it “Wal-mart” and some numbers, which, I suppose, indicate that you are the whateverth person returning something.
“Crucifixion? Right you are. Out the door, line on the left, one cross each.”
Please do not disparage the WalMart Greeter job lest it be eliminated.
With the single exception of mild Asperger’s I am certain I am otherwise qualified, and I am working on the former. Two more years, baby, and I’m goin’ for the Vest.
My Wal-Mart greeter seems to be broken, they don’t greet.
The dyslexic Wal-Mart graters are really unpleasant, though. Ugh.
-Joe
Shoplifters are less likely to steal from a store if they’ve had contact with an employee. The store is no longer a faceless entity but now a place where Nice Grandpa Joe works. At least according to every loss-prevetion seminar I’ve ever attended. This is part of the reason why many stores want staff to greet every customer within 5 seconds or something.
Not possible. Chimpanzees are unionized and prohibited from working at WalMart.
At the Wal-Mart near me (Cleveland Heights, Ohio), it’s usually a retarded person. Sometimes the greeting sounds like a long moan. In this case, I don’t think the greeter can do more than just greet.
If you think Waffle House is bad, you haven’t been to a Gates Barbecue restaurant in the Kansas City area.
HI MAY I HELP YOU!!!
Seriously, they yell it.
Bingo. That’s the theory I was told loooong ago. A lot of stores now make the point of turning and saying hello as you enter, even if serving another customer.
From my brief experience in shopping at the super malls in Japan, I noticed that nearly every store there has it’s employees greeting the customers as they enter.
“Konni’chi wa” followed up with my robust “Howdy!”
I think it’s to make the customer feel a tad more at ease, to make them feel that their patronage is valued.
In the case of WalMart, there may be secondary purposes, too, like the shoplifting/security suggested above.
Also, they may be able to answer the silly questions like “Where’s the restroom?”