In the 1960's when the world was introduced to me (and vice versa), if you walked into a store you were lucky if they didn't throw you out. At best, someone might have nodded at you and mouthed, "Hello." When you paid your money and left, maybe they'd remember to thank you, and if you could put a phrase on the prevailing mood of the salesclerk as you made your way to the exit, it might be, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out." Okay it probably depended on the store, but even the most ingratiating ones made do with little more than the sort of pleasantries you learn in first year language class (if not by osmosis from popular culture).
So the first time in the 1970's that someone in a fast food uniform uttered "Welcome to McDonald's. How can I help you?" to me in the kind of rushed robotic monotone that can only be learned from a corporate training video, it didn't hit my ears in the sweet way that corporate probably intended. And when the transaction was completed with an equally robotic, "Have a nice day." the wrong way it rubbed me was memorable enough that I'm telling it to you today.
Pretty soon, mandatory corporate ingratiation by rote was everywhere, and there are people reading this who know nothing else. The form of the greetings and departing words have gone through changes, with invocations ("What can I get for you today?" ) and benedictions ("Please come again.") sandwiching sales pitches ("Would you like fries with that?") While it's mostly boilerplate etiquette, it does evolve in a reflection of changing tastes and manners and times. For a while there cashiers at Walgreens were instructed to conclude each transaction with “Be well.” I always wanted to say “What am I, a hobbit?” But that would have been rude, and in any case, years of exposure to formulaic insincere sincerity (including certainly periods of my life where I've been forced to practice it myself in exchange for my weekly bread) have taught me not to take it personally, but to see it instead as the corporation wanting us to know that they care at least enough about us to make formulaic courtesy-by-the-numbers a condition of the continued employment of the serf performing it reflexively before us.
By now the pleasantries are so ingrained they've become part of everyone's social script, and new workers hardly have to be trained in coming up with them on their own. Without my realizing it I've adjusted to what I suspect was a worker innovation of the 90s: "Have a blessed day." Though the religious presumptuousness of it scandalized me the first few times I heard it, probably from a salesclerk at the mall, I now appreciate it as an assertion of the worker's soul on a soulless routine. Similarly, somewhere in this same time frame-- although it might have been earlier, it suddenly became fashionable for salesclerks and service representatives to respond to customer thanks not with "You're welcome" or with the much more ingratiating and common, "Thank you!!" but with what originally struck me as a non sequitur: "No problem!" I'm sure the first time it was said to me, it mortified me. Was the reassurance that it wasn't a problem a veiled tip-off that it in fact was? Was I contrary to the sentiment expressed a problem? I may have been on a limb with the paranoia. In conversation with others about it, I learned that some of my fellow consumers encountering the phrase reflexively took the informal substitution for the customary formal phrase as a slight and an insult. Maybe in reaction to the prevailing response of the prissy, I simply accepted "no problem" as a novelty, a colorful informal variation of "You're welcome", and adapted.
A couple of times recently, I've learned of a new bugbear for those inclined to be particular. A friend who I've learned over the years has standards of service for herself (unlike me who expects to be treated like dirt and doesn't really mind it all that much and am therefore frequently pleasantly surprised) recently complained about being the guinea pig for a very young waitress in training at a new restaurant in town. The girl was so young and green that when she brought the food -- an artisanal pizza too large for the table-- she attempted to set it on top of the tableware until she was stopped by my friend. My friend asked if the pizza could be placed on a nearby and empty table instead-- the restaurant had plenty of those at the time. So unsure of her own power and ability to use independent judgement was the waitress that she said, "I'll have to ask my manager" and left for just that with the pizza still in hand.
This was bad enough, but worst of all according to my friend was the girl's stock answer to every request -- "No worries!" To my friend this was the most insulting, thoughtless and annoying reflex, and as a former teacher, she was dying to break the girl of the habit, but in the interest of peace held her tongue. It was actually the second time this week that the phrase was mentioned as the cause of conflict between a zoomer and a boomer. My daughter at work, had overheard some Karen biting a kid's head off for responding to thanks with "No worries!" Rather than accepting it in the spirit it was intended, the to that point reserved older customer laid into her with a chilly and shaming, "Doesn't anybody say 'Thank you' anymore?" I had to agree with my daughter that whatever her intentions were with the outburst, the ranter had created worry where "no worries" had been invoked.
It got me thinking about the phrase. It hadn't originated with Gen-Z I was sure. I'd heard it before of course. And yet, there is something poignantly zoomer about it.* This is the generation that has known only the internet world. It has only known post 9/11, post financial crisis inequality and surveillance capitalism. It has come of age to massive college debt, sky high rent, the end of federal protection of abortion rights, reactionary anti-trans hysteria, an epidemic of right wing political movements assuming power across the globe and a climate crisis that is both obvious and stubbornly ignored by those who did nothing to prevent it, are doing nothing to prepare for it and are hogging the controls. It is a world of anxiety and an age of dread. In this milieu, how sweet is it that the de rigeur verbal social oil, the expression of hospitality and welcome is a simple wish: "No worries."
If only.
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*My daughter, who I sometimes refer to as a millennial was actually born on the cusp and confessed to me recently that she most readily identifies with the younger cohort. I think I might too.
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