Have a nice day, you guys

As Wil and I have made the rounds of American stores, shopping for everything from toilet paper to sandals, I’ve been struck by how often store employees greet us. Everyone wants to know how we’re doing, are we okay, having a good day, liking the weather? “Hey, you guys” they say casually, our buddies, our friends.

The same thing happens in restaurants. The waitresses and waiters all introduce themselves: “Hi, I’m Cassie, and I’ll be your server tonight.” They all seem eager to please, plying us with refills of coffee and soft drinks, often without asking. A waiter at a Don Pablos, a Mexican-style chain, seemed personally deflated when Wil declined to order a second plate of burritos, despite the fact that it was all-you-can-eat night. Or, at a grill restaurant, the waitress sadly tut-tutted when I refused the offer of a doggy bag to take home the remainder of what had been a gigantic sandwich.

Do they really care or are they just going through the motions? I can’t say for sure. With sales clerks, I think some of it is just simply a defense against boredom. Quite often they’ve been assigned to stand next to a display of sweaters near the entrance. If you had only a pile of pastel colored sweaters – two for $30! -- to keep you company all day, you’d probably be eagerly greeting any human who happened to pass within 10 feet of you. My own experience as a waitress at a Big Boy, back in college (“Hi, I’m Susan …”), involved a lot of friendly banter with strangers, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. It helped to make my shift pass more quickly.

After three years in England, where sales clerks and wait staff tended to operate clandestinely, it’s throwing me to have so many strangers so concerned again with my welfare. If I were jaded, I’d say it’s just a marketing technique – engage me in conversation and I’m less likely to walk out without buying something, or I’ll tip you more. And I’m sure that is part of it. But some of it is just simply what we Americans – at least us Midwesterners – are trained to do. We make eye contact with strangers. We say excuse me constantly. We say yes please, no thank you, and have a nice day with reckless abandon. We aren’t annoyed to find a new friend in every doorway, someone who wants us ‘guys’ to have ourselves a nice day. And thusly encouraged, we just might.