I am waging a private war (not so private now, I guess). I am tired of spending money at retail stores and then having the clerk say to me, “Have a Nice Day” instead of “Thank You.” If I hear it one more time, I swear I will never return a shopping cart to its parking space ever again!
Seriously, where is their training coming from? When I was much younger and working at the Dairy Deli in Woodland Hills, the owner Elsworth Ely trained us to say thank you and to mean it. If he caught us NOT saying that or saying anything else, we were re-trained (and that is to put it mildly). His thinking was rather simple: People were spending their hard-earned money at his store and he wanted everyone of his employees to express his gratitude.
Here is what none other than Wikipedia has to say about the phrase Have a Nice Day:
Have a nice day is a commonly spoken expression used to conclude a conversation (whether brief or extensive), or end a message by hoping the person to whom it is addressed experiences a pleasant day. Since it is often uttered by service employees to customers at the end of a transaction, particularly in Israel and the United States, its repetitious and dutiful usage has resulted in the phrase developing, according to some journalists and scholars, especially outside of these two countries, a cultural connotation of impersonality, lack of interest, passive–aggressive behavior, or sarcasm. The phrase is generally not used in Europe, as some find it artificial or even offensive. Critics of the phrase characterize it as an imperative, obliging the person to have a nice day. Other critics argue that it is a parting platitude that comes across as pretended.
I wonder if Sam Walton had the same ethic. My guess is that he did. And then there’s Ace Hardware, where yesterday Cindy and I spent about $500 on an outdoor grill. We got a thank you, not “Have a Nice Day.”
Ace Hardware was founded in 1924 by Richard Hesse, E. Gunnard Lindquist, Frank Burke, Oscar Fisher, and William Stauber in Chicago, Illinois. Ace Hardware, incorporated in 1927 as Ace Stores Inc., was founded to provide a centralized purchasing organization to supply the founders’ and members’ stores. The company was named after the ace fighter pilots of World War I, who were able to overcome all odds. Hesse, et al, no doubt thought a lot about gratitude.
Overcoming the odds is what a good business is all about. The odds that you could fail almost as easily as you could succeed and the difference is the customer. The more the better. Being grateful for that ought to mean saying thank you at every turn, including thanking your lucky stars.
Have a nice day means nothing to me after spending my hard-earned money. Thank you makes me feels good about it.
