Your super cool, stylish, uber-metro image goes right out the window when you pull out your royal blue velcro wallet to pay for your Axe deoderant body spray, deli sushi and your Diet Rite (white grape).
I wonder what my 'retail attendants' think of me, though I'm no GQ (or Elle or Cosmopolitan) shopper. I'm sure I really don't want to know the answer to that question.
We had two German foreign exchange students when we lived in Granville (at different times, which made this particular conversation topic so memorable). They both thought it was funny/strange, and very disingenuous, when checkers would begin the usual checker-banter with us, like 'How are you?" or "How's it going?" I guess in Germany, there is no checker chitchat. Their argument always was that the checker really doesn't care, so why would they ask, and what would the checker do if someone really started discoursing on the lousiness of of their state of being. Whenever I get a really gregarious checker, I always think of Pep or An Ja and what they would think. Think on these things at your next check-out (not to be confused with make-out) session.
Kristi, you would be surprised. Carole, I ask because I actually care. I have had some really great conversations where I have been able to encourage people having difficult days. That's part of the reason I see this as my ministry! I encourage stay at home moms, I chat with divorced dads, I even met a woman transitioning her alzheimer's father into a nursing home. We both cried. I know it sounds like a reach to call my cashier job a ministry, but that's how I view it. :)
I tried to explain that to them that i thought the interest was genuine at least to a certain extent, and that generally, American's are a friendly lot. And that if someone really did begin to expound on a truly lousy day, they would probably get at the least some genuine sympathy, or perhaps even a helping hand. They didn't believe me.
One of the students went home and had a retail job in a gift shop for a while. She tried the American approach and was met with some pretty bummer reactions from the locals. However, when an American tourist was in, she was surprised (compared to German patrons) how much longer they stayed, and how much more they bought! Since it was a small shop, she was excited to have someone to talk to! Maybe the Americans were just happy to be a place where the clerk spoke pretty perfect English, or maybe because they were tourists they would have bought more anyway. Cultural differences are pretty interesting to observe.....
5 comments:
Was he 14? Axe, really? Axe should have a warning on the label: Not to be worn by anyone over the age of 15.
I wonder what my 'retail attendants' think of me, though I'm no GQ (or Elle or Cosmopolitan) shopper. I'm sure I really don't want to know the answer to that question.
We had two German foreign exchange students when we lived in Granville (at different times, which made this particular conversation topic so memorable). They both thought it was funny/strange, and very disingenuous, when checkers would begin the usual checker-banter with us, like 'How are you?" or "How's it going?" I guess in Germany, there is no checker chitchat. Their argument always was that the checker really doesn't care, so why would they ask, and what would the checker do if someone really started discoursing on the lousiness of of their state of being. Whenever I get a really gregarious checker, I always think of Pep or An Ja and what they would think. Think on these things at your next check-out (not to be confused with make-out) session.
carole
Kristi, you would be surprised.
Carole, I ask because I actually care. I have had some really great conversations where I have been able to encourage people having difficult days. That's part of the reason I see this as my ministry! I encourage stay at home moms, I chat with divorced dads, I even met a woman transitioning her alzheimer's father into a nursing home. We both cried. I know it sounds like a reach to call my cashier job a ministry, but that's how I view it. :)
I tried to explain that to them that i thought the interest was genuine at least to a certain extent, and that generally, American's are a friendly lot. And that if someone really did begin to expound on a truly lousy day, they would probably get at the least some genuine sympathy, or perhaps even a helping hand. They didn't believe me.
One of the students went home and had a retail job in a gift shop for a while. She tried the American approach and was met with some pretty bummer reactions from the locals. However, when an American tourist was in, she was surprised (compared to German patrons) how much longer they stayed, and how much more they bought! Since it was a small shop, she was excited to have someone to talk to! Maybe the Americans were just happy to be a place where the clerk spoke pretty perfect English, or maybe because they were tourists they would have bought more anyway. Cultural differences are pretty interesting to observe.....
Happy checking!
Carole
wait. i'm confused. what part of this ISN'T super cool, stylish, and uber-metro???
:)
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