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Y'know, I may be missing something but I don't feel like I get much out of the fleeting interaction I have with checkout people. They are almost always "tuned o
by marknutter 13y ago
Y'know, I may be missing something but I don't feel like I get much out of the fleeting interaction I have with checkout people. They are almost always "tuned out" and any kindness they dispense is completely rote. If we're worried about human interaction, fire the checkout people and hire more greeters.
- lesterbuck 13y agoOddly enough, I find the "tuned out" nature of most checkout people to be an opportunity. At least for the past fifteen years, I play a game with checkout people. My goal is to get them to smile. I make some comment about something, anything, with the goal to get them to respond and hopefully smile at me, and take me as something other than one of the hundreds of people they contact each day. I'm about 90% successful, but I keep trying for 100%. Every once in a while, either I'm really distracted or I see they are so distracted that I don't try. I have an ulterior motive: as I polish my skill at making a random stranger smile, I get better at tossing out a verbal gambit on very short notice to an attractive stranger.
- robryan 13y agoYes, whether they are completely disinterested or overly cheery the majority of the time they appear that they couldn't care less about your transaction. Which is fine, it just feels less weird of an interaction when it is a machine that doesn't care.