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Sorry; I accidentally posted a reply to this thread instead of starting a new one. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Depending on the situation, I commonly use the following:
“You’re welcome”
“No problem”
“Any time”
“No worries”
“Of course”
I don’t think anyone else is a jerk for saying ‘you’re welcome’ - in fact it seems perfectly polite to me when I hear it. I just don’t like to say it personally, and I don’t like to be attacked for saying ‘no problem’ as though that’s terribly rude. There’s lots of things other people say that I probably wouldn’t say (eg. ‘no worries’), but that doesn’t mean I get all bent out of shape when I hear them.
You have got to be kidding me.
Where are these people coming from???
Yet another issue about which I am an alien in comparison to the Dope. “You’re welcome” sounds like anything other than a polite response to “thank you?” In what universe?
“Oh, no problem” is something I use informally, with friends, but in a more formal or unfamiliar situation, I can’t imagine “you’re welcome” sounding anything other than polite.
This is completely reversed.
“No problem” is what conveys the idea of a huge favor, and it carries with it
the added baggage that it might conceivably be a “problem” for you to take
my money.
It could not possibily be a “problem” for you to do your job right, so there is no
reason to allude to the possibility you might be doing it wrong.
This is an utter corruption of anything that the word “welcome” can mean.
“Welcome” is always a good word, except when used in a sense of childish
sarcasm, which would not occur to anyone doing business with a paying customer.
For every customer who says anything about it you can be sure there
are several who choose not to speak. That definitely includes me.
You could and should have tried to defuse the situation smiling with all the
sincerity you could muster, and saying “I’m sorry, M’am, and I promise you
that you are welcome, and I appreciate your business”, and…
…and how much money you were making doesn’t have a damn thing to do
with it. I can tell how sorry you felt for yourself. Poor dude! Lif’e’s a bitch
and then you get a 25-cent an hour raise, eh? Noooo problem!
May I ask did you learn from the expereince and put your learning into practice?
As in trying to remember to say "“You’re welcome” to the types of customer who
you say you identified as the ones likely to object to “No problem”? Or were your
little feeling so hurt that you stuck to your rights, by golly, and it was “No problem”
and screw anyone who doesn’t like it. Frankly I hope you have grown up a lot in the
last 10 years, but I see no evidence of it from your post.
I agree, I always say “you’re welcome.” I just think it’s a standard response
I say you’re welcome, no problem, and sure pretty interchangeably.
The one that drives my mom crazy is how my brother and I say “That’s okay,” instead of “No thank you” when offered something we don’t want. Like:
Older Relative: Do you want another slice of this?
Me: Oh, that’s okay.
I feel like my tone is implying polite refusal, but my mom thinks it’s ambiguous and dislikes it. I’ve made a conscious effort to start saying “No thank you” because of this, but I don’t see the big deal.
LOL, no it doesn’t. The only people that think that are the aforementioned 50+ old ladies who will find fault with *anything *a cashier says.
Mothers are occasionally right, and your mother is right this time:
“Oh, that’s OK” IS ambiguous, and it is not as polite as “No thank you”
Does it really hurt you and your brother all that much to use an expression
containing the words “thank you”?
Get real, and do yourself a favor and eliminate that Junior HS acronym
LOL from your vocabulary. It makes everyone who uses it sound like a
1990 Valley Girl who has never let a serious thought enter her head.
Did you catch the part where I pointed out that the word “problem”
has a negative connotation whereas the the word “welcome” has positive
connotaion? A “problem” is something that is wrong, and needs to be
fixed, am I right? Something that is “welcome” is something that you
would like more of, with no fixing at all, as in your customer’s business.
Usually, nothing.
I absolutely ***hate ***the British “ta” short for “thank you.” It’s so cumbersome that you have to *shorten *it?!?
And “you’re welcome” is the only polite & respectful response to “thank you.”
Casually, “no problem” or “de nada” will do, but definitely NOT in a business environment.
Part of my job is answering the phones and transferring calls and answering questions (basically I’m a backup operator along with several other people–there is no designated “operator” person) and much to my dismay I find myself replying with “thanks!” when people thank me for something. Then I feel like an idiot. Oh well.
I like saying ‘cheers big ears’ in every context no matter how formal.
LOL@contention between ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘no problem’. They’re both fine choices, it’s whatever floats your boat. To be quite frankly honest, it mostly depends on how you say either, and what company you’re in. The connotative meaning of either is absolutely irrelevant, of course, because nobody actively makes a semiotic analysis of words when they’re using phrases in casual conversation.
If your last posts are to be the example of good manners that we should all strive for, I believe I will stick with my opinion on the matter.
You are wrong,
You’re Welcome
It’s situational with me. When I have given someone something, be it a gift, a drink, or a plate of food, a “thank you” will elicit a “you’re welcome,” or sometimes a “you’re quite welcome.” In such an instance, I don’t feel awkward in accepting a “thank you” as well, my due, if you will.
When I’ve responded successfully to someone’s request for assistance with something, it’s generally the case that I feel that to have refused the request would have been either unprofessional or churlish. In these cases, accepting a “thank you” as my due simply feels wrong to me. So I bust out with a hoity-toity way of saying, “It was nothing.” My response is “notatall.”
When I’m thanked for paying a compliment, I play it by ear.
The connotative meaning is exactly the thing I object to in “no problem”.
It is more than the connotation, however; it is the complete and utter
incoherence of the response. It is clearly established in this thread that
there are a lot of people besides me who object, and I think is is reasonable
to assume most if not all of them do so for the same grounds as me.
Casual conversation? Casual? There is damn sure nothing “casual”
about any conversation between business staff and their customers!
In real life my manners are usually quite good.
Internet chatrooms are an exception I allow myself, one reason being
that it is too much of a problem for me to be polite to so many blockheads.