customer service is dead

I am often tempted to ask Wal-Mart employees if they really support the "we can help" philosophy that Mr. Walton tries to portray. Is their icon really a smiley face? Or perhaps I should just ask if somebody died. I can't say how many times I have actually had a Wal-Mart cashier say "hello" to me when checking out my groceries, but I would imagine that I could count these rare occasions on my fingers, of my right hand, the fingers with rings on them.

I've worked retail before, and I know that being "chipper" for every customer is something that only the brainwashed can handle day in and day out, but I never had a problem with being courteous. When I worked at a grocery store as a teenager, we always addressed customers with the basics:

1) Hello. How are you doing today?
2) Did you find everything you were looking for?
3) Paper or plastic?
4) Thank you. Have a nice day.

Granted, the third one is pretty much dead in our plastic-soaked universe, but the others are common courtesy. At the least, it would be nice to be acknowledged with a simple "hi" or "hello" when I get my turn to pay. Most times, all I get from the cashier is the grand total, and even that is being nixed, what with the automated credit card option. I'm sure that Wal-Mart employees get pretty disgusted with their jobs, and at times don't feel like putting on a smile, but it could be worse - they could be unemployed.

Now it may seem as though I am picking on Wal-Mart employees, but I am more than happy to share the love. Even the cashiers of the "family owned" grocery store near our home are rude. They are usually young, chatty teenagers - the type who shoot each other silent glances as you walk up to their checkout stand as if they have something nasty to say about you once you're out the door. Sometimes, they carry on a conversation with their coworkers at the same time they are checking us out. Multitasking at its finest (but saying "hello" to the customer was one task too many). Ironically, the store advertises itself as "more than just a grocery store, but a social center" for the town. I guess it is a good place to run into neighbors, but don't plan on getting more than two snotty words out of the employees - "anything else?"

I know I'm not the first person to have said this, but customer service really sucks nowadays. Some may blame it on the fact that employees are under so much stress, or that we live in tumultuous times, but I'm leaning more towards placing blame on the employers. When all the owners care about is money, and their managers are jerks, those reporting to them are certain to be lacking in morale. And you know what they say - it all rolls downhill.