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> This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't c

> This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't care how my day is going, I don't really care about yours. Let's keep this transaction professional and solely focused on this exchange of money for burger. As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I help you?"/a "have a nice day", and an actual conversation involving smalltalk, then you clearly don't know about what you're criticising. In our part of the world, is there a social/cultural difference in expectations of the interaction with people around us, including workers in the service industry? Yes, absolutely. Is there something "weird" about that? No, absolutely not, and you can put down the superiority complex.

coldtea 3y ago
>Is there something "weird" about that? No, absolutely not, and you can put down the superiority complex. There is something weird though. Getting service from those minimum wage workers is not enough: people also demand their fake pleasure to serve and sympathy.
- aatd86 3y ago
  That's the other way around. They should be paid more. ;)
- notyourwork 3y ago
  Humans are all humans. Irrespective of their income level. Not sure what minimum wage has to do with whether or not being polite and pleasant conversation is exchanged.
  - Ar-Curunir 3y ago
    It's much easier to be polite when you're well-paid and not overworked.
  - alvarezbjm-hn 3y ago
    Economic hardships cause emotional distress, and you can't rationalize feelings. Your civil expectations probably match your income level, but not that below you. E.g. Not getting enough sleep because your poor neighborhood is a ruckus provokes bad mood, chronically.
    - notyourwork 3y ago
      My civil expectations match what I expect from other people and how I treat people in the world. Has nothing to do with my income and is based on how I was raised by my parents to treat people you interact with in the world. I've done hard labor (construction, landscaping), I've done food service (sandwich shop) and I've done lots of white collar office work. Wealthy people can be nice and decent to people who have a much smaller income AND vice versa.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Humans are all humans, but some humans have it better than others, and even have the gal to demand those less fortunate, working some mind-crushing job for a pittance, put on a show for them... At least waiters and strippers get tips for their show...
  - chrisnight 3y ago
    Politeness and respect is sadly a service in the world of consumer-facing business, which means the amount of it that you get is going to correspond with how much you pay and how much the server is willing to give away for free. If the argument is that politeness should be a free service, same as a bathroom and drinking water, then just be mindful of the quality of said bathroom and water relative to the amount the employees are being paid to take care of those things, and wonder how politeness would fall into it.
    - CoffeeOnWrite 3y ago
      Yep. I’ll choose UPS ;)
  - cassepipe 3y ago
    Well if I don't like my job and I am only doing it in order to feed myself being nice to you when I am tired and want to go home and it's only 15:00 is work. I get that some people are naturally nice and some others are not and find excuses not to be but all of cashiers in the supermarket I go to give you tired unconvincing robotic "Good morning/evening" and "Goodbye" and you can tell they are tired of it. Also they have to. Would I be nice in a restaurant as a worker where people come to spend a special moment ? Yes, and I expect to be paid accordingly as it is part of my work. Serving people waiting in line in a fast food, will I be hostile ? No. Would I care about conversational etiquette serving people waiting in a fast food ? Hell no, I am not a smile delivery machine. In the end it's all about stepping out of yourself and consider the reality the person in front of you is facing. Of course, if you've ever had to do a shitty job, that may help you.
    - notyourwork 3y ago
      It sounds like you and I were raised differently. In the end, it is all about stepping out of yourself and understanding the reality of the person in front of you. That is a two way street.
      - cassepipe 3y ago
        """ In every single person there's a Slim Shady lurking He could be working at Burger King, spittin' on your onion rings """ Given long enough doing robotic work under what you seem unfair/dehumanizing conditions, the Slim Shady may come out. But who knows maybe you are a different breed, good for you.
        notyourwork 3y ago
        I don't think it is a valuable use of your time to try to dismiss me or try to generalize humanity.
- macinjosh 3y ago
  At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being? Why does one's income level dictate how they treat others? I was always told treat others how you would like to be treated.
  - _jal 3y ago
    The better question is at what level customers start treating service employees like real human beings.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being? At a sufficient enough and above. Below that the Clerks (as in the Kevin Smith movie) treatment is good enough. In any case, "treating like a real human being" and putting on a show of smiles and friendliness US-style, is not even close to being the same thing. In "real" human interaction, we understand the other as a person with their own feelings and mood, and we don't demand from anybody to exhibit a certain cheerful mood for us. But of course this isn't about real human connection. It's more about "When I pay I demand those serving me to entertain me with smiles and pleasantries". The customer could not care less about the person serving them, or their condition, otherwise. "Real person" my ass.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Exactly. There’s something fundamentally sadistic about American culture, I expect inherited from its legacy of slavery, where customers demand that workers perform a frightened but also “joyful” subservience to them as evidence that they’re getting their money’s worth.
      - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
        This is an unbelievable take that I suspect if fueled by an over extrapolation of online culture and the news. Get a grip.
- smcin 3y ago
  Barbara Ehrenreich (RIP) wrote several excellent books about that.
- lioeters 3y ago
  Customer: Not only should the servants serve, but smile while doing so. Worker: F you, pay me.
- imacomputertoo 3y ago
  Amazon delivery drivers make around $20/hr. that's well above the federal minimum (about 7.50) and above all state minimums. it won't make you rich, but it's not minimum. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2022/10/24/how-much-do-amazon-drivers-make/10350464002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2022/10/24/how-... Also, expecting friendly service is reasonable. Expecting poor service because the pay is low is backwards. We should expect better pay.
  - AaronM 3y ago
    Flex drivers don't get mileage though. If a driver drives 25 miles an hours they are making more like ~8 dollars and hour.
- petsfed 3y ago
  This is it in a nutshell. I could always put on my game face when things were going bad at home, but if you caught me after another customer calls me stupid or lazy (for having the job I did, during a recession, instead of, I don't know, being on welfare, I guess?), then the facade started to slip. I'm not really inclined to assume good intent from yet another rich asshole complaining about over-priced Chinese crap in regards to the $40 printer they're loading into their brand-new Porsche Cayenne.
Zircom 3y ago
>As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I help you?"/a "have a nice day", and an actual conversation involving smalltalk, then you clearly don't know about what you're criticising. That's literally his point, the whole friendly-service-with-a-smile thing is forced on them by their managers/corporate, it's not from a sincere desire to have an actual conversation with customers. And people will literally complain and get them in trouble if they don't do it. Talk about irony, sitting here talking about a superiority complex while defending requiring that kind of stuff of "lowly" service industry workers.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  > That's literally his point, the whole friendly-service-with-a-smile thing is forced on them by their managers/corporate, Courtesy with customers is forced on them? My god! The next thing you'll tell me they're expected not to curse at their co-workers, too! What kind of world is this?! > it's not from a sincere desire to have an actual conversation with customers. Once again, and as I already said in the very text you quoted, no one is expecting a "conversation". Maybe you just misunderstood my point? I admit I was being a bit circuitous, there. > Talk about irony, sitting here talking about a superiority complex while defending requiring that kind of stuff of "lowly" service industry workers. I never mentioned anything about their being "lowly", and I'd appreciate you not insinuating such things about me. It's a veiled insult and it's unwarranted and unnecessary. See, courtesy. It's a thing, both in the real world and online.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    “Unsmiling” is not “unprofessional”. Smiling isn’t about courtesy, respect, or professionalism. It’s a US cultural habit that is not universal in the rest of the world, ingrained into service industries, in service of demands that workers subsume all emotion in favor of providing “service with a smile”. Covid masking protocols were looked upon fondly by service industry workers specifically because they didn’t have to fake-smile anymore. Don’t hold your breath for the return of fake-smiles, and don’t confuse the absence of a smile with the presence of negativity, discourtesy, disrespect, or unprofessionalism. It’s just a neutral face, delivering a neutral package to a neutral stranger.
sfcarrot 3y ago
The reality is no matter how genuinly your delivery driver ask "hi how can I help", he/she does not care about it. There is simply no time for him to care about it. Otherwise, you will see your delivery fee increase since.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  Great! Delivery fees are already unsustainably low. Getting a product to my door cannot possibly be free! That cost is simply being borne somewhere. And since the cost of products isn't rising (or wasn't until COVID), then those costs are being borne elsewhere, and that very much includes the workers who are seeing lower salaries, longer hours, and worse working conditions. So I say yes, please, bring on the shipping fees. And if that means my delivery person smiles while dropping my package, and then goes home a wealthier, healthier person, then absolutely I am all for it.
  - chrisnight 3y ago
    > Great! Delivery fees are already unsustainably low. Just where are you from? Sure, I see delivery fees that are "free", which means they're included with the cost of the product. But any time I see a delivery fee tacked on, it's almost always in the double digits, many times up in the 20-30s for a box that is about the size of an Micro ATX computer case. Not to mention when I have to ship stuff internationally myself and it goes into the triple digits, not even doing UPS which would have costed almost half a grand. Edit: And I'm just in the US
    - BaseballPhysics 3y ago
      I take it you've never heard of Amazon? You know, the company this article is about? The largest online retailer in the world? The one that typically offers free two day shipping?
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Nobody expects a delivery driver to ask "how can I help?" because their job isn't to take requests. They expect that from workers who's job is to take requests. A simple smile and "what can I get you?" from somebody taking food orders or the like is the expected norm in most of North America. It's just common decency. Imagine I'm having a bad day and go to shop to get lunch where I meet a worker who's also having a bad day. We could both smile and say hello/thank you and go about the rest of our days, or we could both lay into each other and make our bad day the other guy's problem. If we both choose the first, we both benefit. If we both choose the later, we both come out worse. So which is better?
phpisthebest 3y ago
>>is there a social/cultural difference in expectations of the interaction with people around us For me, that is why I am glad automation is decimating the service sector. for the first time in years I was traveling so i decided to go into a fast food place so I could stretch my legs. I walked in, Ordered my meal on a Automated Kiosk, no one even around to talk my order verbally. Then when my order was ready someone called out my number and sat a bag on the counter. I took the bag and that was it, No interaction at all It was the BEST experience getting food... I almost want to go in more because it had even less interaction than the drive thru.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  And I'm glad that, for those more introverted among us and/or find those social conventions difficult or tiring, that you have that option!

coldtea 3y ago

>Is there something "weird" about that? No, absolutely not, and you can put down the superiority complex. There is something weird though. Getting service from those minimum wage workers is not enough: people also demand their fake pleasure to serve and sympathy.

aatd86 3y ago
That's the other way around. They should be paid more. ;)
notyourwork 3y ago
Humans are all humans. Irrespective of their income level. Not sure what minimum wage has to do with whether or not being polite and pleasant conversation is exchanged.
- Ar-Curunir 3y ago
  It's much easier to be polite when you're well-paid and not overworked.
- alvarezbjm-hn 3y ago
  Economic hardships cause emotional distress, and you can't rationalize feelings. Your civil expectations probably match your income level, but not that below you. E.g. Not getting enough sleep because your poor neighborhood is a ruckus provokes bad mood, chronically.
  - notyourwork 3y ago
    My civil expectations match what I expect from other people and how I treat people in the world. Has nothing to do with my income and is based on how I was raised by my parents to treat people you interact with in the world. I've done hard labor (construction, landscaping), I've done food service (sandwich shop) and I've done lots of white collar office work. Wealthy people can be nice and decent to people who have a much smaller income AND vice versa.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Humans are all humans, but some humans have it better than others, and even have the gal to demand those less fortunate, working some mind-crushing job for a pittance, put on a show for them... At least waiters and strippers get tips for their show...
- chrisnight 3y ago
  Politeness and respect is sadly a service in the world of consumer-facing business, which means the amount of it that you get is going to correspond with how much you pay and how much the server is willing to give away for free. If the argument is that politeness should be a free service, same as a bathroom and drinking water, then just be mindful of the quality of said bathroom and water relative to the amount the employees are being paid to take care of those things, and wonder how politeness would fall into it.
  - CoffeeOnWrite 3y ago
    Yep. I’ll choose UPS ;)
- cassepipe 3y ago
  Well if I don't like my job and I am only doing it in order to feed myself being nice to you when I am tired and want to go home and it's only 15:00 is work. I get that some people are naturally nice and some others are not and find excuses not to be but all of cashiers in the supermarket I go to give you tired unconvincing robotic "Good morning/evening" and "Goodbye" and you can tell they are tired of it. Also they have to. Would I be nice in a restaurant as a worker where people come to spend a special moment ? Yes, and I expect to be paid accordingly as it is part of my work. Serving people waiting in line in a fast food, will I be hostile ? No. Would I care about conversational etiquette serving people waiting in a fast food ? Hell no, I am not a smile delivery machine. In the end it's all about stepping out of yourself and consider the reality the person in front of you is facing. Of course, if you've ever had to do a shitty job, that may help you.
  - notyourwork 3y ago
    It sounds like you and I were raised differently. In the end, it is all about stepping out of yourself and understanding the reality of the person in front of you. That is a two way street.
    - cassepipe 3y ago
      """ In every single person there's a Slim Shady lurking He could be working at Burger King, spittin' on your onion rings """ Given long enough doing robotic work under what you seem unfair/dehumanizing conditions, the Slim Shady may come out. But who knows maybe you are a different breed, good for you.
      - notyourwork 3y ago
        I don't think it is a valuable use of your time to try to dismiss me or try to generalize humanity.
macinjosh 3y ago
At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being? Why does one's income level dictate how they treat others? I was always told treat others how you would like to be treated.
- _jal 3y ago
  The better question is at what level customers start treating service employees like real human beings.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 3y ago
  >At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being? At a sufficient enough and above. Below that the Clerks (as in the Kevin Smith movie) treatment is good enough. In any case, "treating like a real human being" and putting on a show of smiles and friendliness US-style, is not even close to being the same thing. In "real" human interaction, we understand the other as a person with their own feelings and mood, and we don't demand from anybody to exhibit a certain cheerful mood for us. But of course this isn't about real human connection. It's more about "When I pay I demand those serving me to entertain me with smiles and pleasantries". The customer could not care less about the person serving them, or their condition, otherwise. "Real person" my ass.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Exactly. There’s something fundamentally sadistic about American culture, I expect inherited from its legacy of slavery, where customers demand that workers perform a frightened but also “joyful” subservience to them as evidence that they’re getting their money’s worth.
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      This is an unbelievable take that I suspect if fueled by an over extrapolation of online culture and the news. Get a grip.
smcin 3y ago
Barbara Ehrenreich (RIP) wrote several excellent books about that.
lioeters 3y ago
Customer: Not only should the servants serve, but smile while doing so. Worker: F you, pay me.
imacomputertoo 3y ago
Amazon delivery drivers make around $20/hr. that's well above the federal minimum (about 7.50) and above all state minimums. it won't make you rich, but it's not minimum. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2022/10/24/how-much-do-amazon-drivers-make/10350464002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2022/10/24/how-... Also, expecting friendly service is reasonable. Expecting poor service because the pay is low is backwards. We should expect better pay.
- AaronM 3y ago
  Flex drivers don't get mileage though. If a driver drives 25 miles an hours they are making more like ~8 dollars and hour.
petsfed 3y ago
This is it in a nutshell. I could always put on my game face when things were going bad at home, but if you caught me after another customer calls me stupid or lazy (for having the job I did, during a recession, instead of, I don't know, being on welfare, I guess?), then the facade started to slip. I'm not really inclined to assume good intent from yet another rich asshole complaining about over-priced Chinese crap in regards to the $40 printer they're loading into their brand-new Porsche Cayenne.

Zircom 3y ago

>As a Canadian cousin over here, if you can't tell the difference between a smile/a polite "Hi, how can I help you?"/a "have a nice day", and an actual conversation involving smalltalk, then you clearly don't know about what you're criticising. That's literally his point, the whole friendly-service-with-a-smile thing is forced on them by their managers/corporate, it's not from a sincere desire to have an actual conversation with customers. And people will literally complain and get them in trouble if they don't do it. Talk about irony, sitting here talking about a superiority complex while defending requiring that kind of stuff of "lowly" service industry workers.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago
> That's literally his point, the whole friendly-service-with-a-smile thing is forced on them by their managers/corporate, Courtesy with customers is forced on them? My god! The next thing you'll tell me they're expected not to curse at their co-workers, too! What kind of world is this?! > it's not from a sincere desire to have an actual conversation with customers. Once again, and as I already said in the very text you quoted, no one is expecting a "conversation". Maybe you just misunderstood my point? I admit I was being a bit circuitous, there. > Talk about irony, sitting here talking about a superiority complex while defending requiring that kind of stuff of "lowly" service industry workers. I never mentioned anything about their being "lowly", and I'd appreciate you not insinuating such things about me. It's a veiled insult and it's unwarranted and unnecessary. See, courtesy. It's a thing, both in the real world and online.
- altairprime 3y ago
  “Unsmiling” is not “unprofessional”. Smiling isn’t about courtesy, respect, or professionalism. It’s a US cultural habit that is not universal in the rest of the world, ingrained into service industries, in service of demands that workers subsume all emotion in favor of providing “service with a smile”. Covid masking protocols were looked upon fondly by service industry workers specifically because they didn’t have to fake-smile anymore. Don’t hold your breath for the return of fake-smiles, and don’t confuse the absence of a smile with the presence of negativity, discourtesy, disrespect, or unprofessionalism. It’s just a neutral face, delivering a neutral package to a neutral stranger.

sfcarrot 3y ago

The reality is no matter how genuinly your delivery driver ask "hi how can I help", he/she does not care about it. There is simply no time for him to care about it. Otherwise, you will see your delivery fee increase since.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago
Great! Delivery fees are already unsustainably low. Getting a product to my door cannot possibly be free! That cost is simply being borne somewhere. And since the cost of products isn't rising (or wasn't until COVID), then those costs are being borne elsewhere, and that very much includes the workers who are seeing lower salaries, longer hours, and worse working conditions. So I say yes, please, bring on the shipping fees. And if that means my delivery person smiles while dropping my package, and then goes home a wealthier, healthier person, then absolutely I am all for it.
- chrisnight 3y ago
  > Great! Delivery fees are already unsustainably low. Just where are you from? Sure, I see delivery fees that are "free", which means they're included with the cost of the product. But any time I see a delivery fee tacked on, it's almost always in the double digits, many times up in the 20-30s for a box that is about the size of an Micro ATX computer case. Not to mention when I have to ship stuff internationally myself and it goes into the triple digits, not even doing UPS which would have costed almost half a grand. Edit: And I'm just in the US
  - BaseballPhysics 3y ago
    I take it you've never heard of Amazon? You know, the company this article is about? The largest online retailer in the world? The one that typically offers free two day shipping?
mcpackieh 3y ago
Nobody expects a delivery driver to ask "how can I help?" because their job isn't to take requests. They expect that from workers who's job is to take requests. A simple smile and "what can I get you?" from somebody taking food orders or the like is the expected norm in most of North America. It's just common decency. Imagine I'm having a bad day and go to shop to get lunch where I meet a worker who's also having a bad day. We could both smile and say hello/thank you and go about the rest of our days, or we could both lay into each other and make our bad day the other guy's problem. If we both choose the first, we both benefit. If we both choose the later, we both come out worse. So which is better?

phpisthebest 3y ago

>>is there a social/cultural difference in expectations of the interaction with people around us For me, that is why I am glad automation is decimating the service sector. for the first time in years I was traveling so i decided to go into a fast food place so I could stretch my legs. I walked in, Ordered my meal on a Automated Kiosk, no one even around to talk my order verbally. Then when my order was ready someone called out my number and sat a bag on the counter. I took the bag and that was it, No interaction at all It was the BEST experience getting food... I almost want to go in more because it had even less interaction than the drive thru.

BaseballPhysics 3y ago
And I'm glad that, for those more introverted among us and/or find those social conventions difficult or tiring, that you have that option!