I was watching a video from two years ago about different social norms and this showed up. Found someone questioning the same eight years ago on reddit (when it seemed less normalized). It feels so weird not being aware of this shift, even as a foreigner.
Everyone seems to be glossing over the mmhmm part of this post. That’s the weirdest thing.
I do love a good “You’re welcome”
But I only ever do it like if I hold a door open for someone then they walk through without acknowledging me. “You’re welcome! … cunt”. But Americans largely don’t get sarcasm.
Huh, I didn't even know this as someone born and raised in the US. I do say "no problem" or "no worries" a lot more than "you're welcome" these days, but I do tend to use the latter in more formal situations. I do think an "mmhmm" might strike me as cold or condescending. Then again, I've been out of the country for the better part of a decade now.
That’s interesting, as a British English speaker “your welcome” to my ear sounds quite American - that may be just me. I’d be more likely to say “no problem”, “no worries”, or “don’t worry about it”.
@elfpie Somewhat tangential, but this sort of thing is why I almost categorically disregard any review that primarily complains about how "rude" staff was. More often than not this seems to translate to "acted in a way not exactly in line with my cultural and generational norms" or "didn't give me exactly what I wanted." Give the underpaid service workers some slack.
A friend of mine worked at McDonald’s for a while. The amount of people who take that as license to treat retail workers like shit is quite unbelievable. And indeed: When customers hurl racial or homophobic slurs the manager basically says the customer is king.
I always wondered why they have such high turnover?!? /s
This is the most non-issue article I’ve seen in a long time. We’re apparently seeing a language shift between generations and the argument really comes down to “kids these days”. If retailers thought this was important, they’d set a policy on it.
I found it really interesting. As a Canadian, I always found it jarring getting an “mmhmm” in response to my “thank you”.
Canadians are generally so conditioned to be polite that we both say sorry after stepping on someone else’s foot: the person being stepped on saying sorry for getting in the way, naturally!
Saying “you’re welcome” to a “thank you” is as automatic as a “you too!” after an “I hope you have a good day!”
Hearing that Americans consider “thank you” rude made me rethink my cultural biases. I literally just thought Americans didn’t value politeness as much, but now I’m questioning that prejudice.
Almost every time I say it, it means “Actually nothing but worries, but it’s socially unacceptable to talk about our declining mental health and I have shit I need to get back to in order to distract myself from this hell that was created to squeeze maximum productivity out of me with minimum investment in life support, so I’m going to end this exchange by pretending everything’s okay.”
I feel out of the loop. Not sure if it’s me just getting old or not understanding social nuances, but this all feels like people drawing lines and taking sides on something that’s going to vary based on cultural background, age of peers, personal experiences and idiosyncrasies, etc. I don’t feel like it’s a good situation to have two (or more) sides each claiming that it’s offensive to them if someone who doesn’t know them responds using a different side’s preferred response. Kinda puts customer service workers in an impossible situation.
I reflexively say “thanks” when another human does something for me, and I don’t particularly care what their habituated response is. Especially for people working customer service, who are just getting through their day and running their script. Mostly people echo the response that they’re used to hearing from others, so unless I have some reason to think they’re being snarky…??? Your noncommittal phrase of thanks received a noncommittal response, and both parties can move on from the exchange and do something else with their time and energy.
This is every bit a “kids these days” article. You hit it on the nose–it’s a generational shift and older people are clutching at pearls. For funsies, there’s a piece of ancient Roman writing I came across when studying classics (I’m sorry that I don’t recall who it was) that said essentially “young people don’t speak Latin right”. This is basically a thing as old as time.
ive worked customer service for a few years now and I don’t really ever say “you’re welcome.” I dunno why but I just say “have a nice day/evening/night”
I’m exactly the same. I also used to use a generic “have a good one” because I didn’t know what time it was during my evening shift. I did have a person make a minor scene once, saying he hated when people said that because he didn’t know what “one” was in reference to, though.
In pretty much every situation I’ve ever been told thank you, I’ve felt that “No Problem” is a much better representation of how I feel than “You’re Welcome”.
I agree 100%. “You’re welcome” is the phrase that everyone knows to be the direct response to a “thank you”, so using it implies the necessity of a prerequisite thanks. So really it’s just a polite way of saying “yeah you better be thankful.”
Whereas “no problem” seems to be a fairly sincere way to say “no thanks are needed, I’m helping because I want to.”
“No problem” always makes me think that a problem was expected, or that even there might be problems soon!
“You’re welcome” to me sounds like a natural, polite acknowledgement that I’ve appreciated what they have just done. It feels like it would be weird for someone to pretend they haven’t just brought me food or whatever.
makes me think that a problem was expected, or that even there might be problems soon
We’re using “problem” to mean “imposition”, not “difficulty”/“error”.
“I had no problem with having to do this for you”, not “I encountered no problems while doing this”.
‘No problem’ is me telling you that I was happy to do the service for you, such that it wasn’t an imposition to do. When I do something for a person I like, I have ‘no problem’ expending the effort to do it.
If I have to do the same for someone I don’t like, I will have a problem with having to do it, but since it’s my job I will not begrudge them whatever it is: they are welcome to it, since it’s my job to provide it. But I don’t have to be happy about it.
‘Sure thing’/ ‘ya no worries’/ ‘ya of course’, etc are neutral phrases.
Bear in mind though that tone and body language are ultimately what you should be cuing on. When I deliver an unhappy “you’re welcome”, it will be deadpan, and I won’t be smiling.
No, I know, but it still sounds bizarre, as if it were going to be an imposition to be brought food, or that asking for a jug water might be. Imposing on someone is still a difficulty & as a customer, one is imposing on the worker to a degree.
I agree that tone & body language are far more important than the words, and also that a lot of people use whichever phrase their boss prefers them to use.
Interesting. I’ll have to find some of these videos. I worked customer service in the early 2000s. We were trained to never let a customer be in a situation where they would need to say “thank you,” and that we should thank them. This was in Canada, by the way. If we did get a thanks, we would never say, “you’re welcome.” We would say something like, “don’t worry about it.”
In France, where I live now, in some of the situations mentioned in the article the response would be a simple “c’est moi,” meaning, “it’s me who thanks you.” In a restaurant setting the waiter might just answer with “bon appétit.”
Thanks for this share, because I teach international business and communication and this will be an excellent subject for discussion.
It sounds absurdly rude if not sarcastic to me, I think I’d rather even a sarcastic “you’re welcome” than that because at least it sounds like the person acknowledged your gratitude. Really, if you’re gonna use “mmhmm” you might as well just stay silent.
Ah so that’s what that means. I thought I was mishearing. That’s pretty close to what I was brought up with, “it’s my pleasure” (meaning it’s me who is pleased to be helping).
The informal/vernacular in my country (NZ) is “sweet as” which puzzles most visitors, or sometimes “it’s all good”.
I was a little lost too for the first few weeks I lived in France. Equally, when they said things like “il (n’)y a pas de quoi” which I had to figure out on my own. I finally just straight up had to ask someone after asking for a lighter and thanking them.
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