Service with a smile

[JussiK]

Is service with a smile is getting worse in America? One apparently cannot sit down an have a conversation in an American restaurant or a bar without a perky waitress or a chirpy waiter presenting herself in every 5 minutes. "My name is Lucien and I'm your waiter today. Can I tempt you with our great special of the day? How's that salad? Oh GREAT, you know it's my all time favourite salad, great choice! Enjoy your salad! How's everything folks? How's your main course? How's The Great American cheesecake with the yummy strawberry topping? Have a great day! Anything else I can bring you right now? Oh wow how great! Is everything to your satisfaction? GREAT !" and on and on, relentlessly. Are these horrible people trained to interrupt you at set intervals?

[BrunoRepublic]

Are these horrible people trained to interrupt you at set intervals?

In a word, yes.

First of all, a lot of Americans have come to expect this sort of experience from shops and restaurants. When Wal-Mart opened up stores in Germany, they were stunned to find that customers there were quite irritated by it and preferred to be left alone. (They made a lot of other blunders too, a classic example of not doing one's homework... but anyway).

In many places, sales and service people are under strict orders to acknowledge each and every customer within a certain time period (90 seconds at the last retail job I worked at). The rules vary by establishment, but the big chains have more and more. At the aforementioned retail job, I became very upset when I was ordered to thank every customer who paid by credit card by name. I personally find this rather insulting when it gets done to me -- as they say on Springer, "You don't know me!!". You can't just ignore the rules, either -- even if there are no other staff around, these companies routinely hire spies posing as customers to ensure that everything is going according to their plan.

[QUINNY]

I don't know how different Canada is from the USA, but when I was there 3 years ago, I personally found the waiters to be very good with just the right amount of 'friendliness'. It made a pleasant change to be served by waiters and waitresses who actually appearaed to enjoy their jobs. English staff tend be either really clueless or sultry, in all but a few places and give the impression that their job really sucks and that you, the customer, is very low on their list of priorities.
Europeans do tend to find the 'have a nice day' and 'you're welcome' a tad wearing and false, but there again in Canada I was expecting to hear those phrases more than I actually did. Most of the Canadians were very friendly, gentle folks, but I guess that could be because I was in BC, which does tend to have a very green, very laid back but upstanding kind of reputation (if you get my meaning).