Keep your retail nose out, please
I don't know if it's some kind of New Year retail 'engage with the customer' exercise, but practically every shop I've been in so far this year has required me to fend off personal enquiries from the sales assistant. Let's be totally clear here. I do not want to tell you:What I've got planned for the dayIf I've got the day offIf I'm having a relaxing dayWhether I have a full calendarOr any other personal details of my lifeYou get the point. I go into a shop to buy something. I do not want a conversation. I do not want a fake friend pretending to take an interest in me. I have a life, but I have no interest in sharing it with a complete and often spotty stranger.
To be fair, I don't blame the sales assistants - they have no doubt been told to do this. But please be clear, retailers. Don't assume that all your customers want to share details of their day with complete strangers. Stop instructing your sales staff to ask about it. Or you are going to drive me entirely to online shopping.
Got it? Good. How's your day going so far, by the way?
Rant over.
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Jim wrote: "I think it's been 25 years (in Alaska anyway) since I first encountered a waiter who thought to give his/her name. Slighty younger than me he/her and the rest have all been post-"me generation". ..."
I don't mind too much them giving their name if they want, though I would never use it - it's more a dislike of them asking what I'm doing for the rest of my day, which a) they don't care about and b) is none of their business.
I think I might start saying 'Robbing a bank' or 'Taking over a small country.'
I don't think that was corporate nonsense - unlike Safeway (a grocery corp) which would ask for my date of birth at their liquor store - of course with a poorly paid minion as proxy.
"December 7, 1941" was my answer - too infrequently to a knowing smile.
Also address:
"1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC - I'm sorry, I forgot the zip code."
They only did this for a couple years.