Do you miss every day ordinary service?

[Anonymous]

You know how the worst thing about getting a speeding ticket is not the fine, but how you feel like you have to drive super carefully for the next few months? Imagine Bill Clinton sitting at his desk at the Clinton foundation & thinking, “Damn, I remember when sitting at a big desk used to come with oral pleasure & funky tasting cigars.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I miss having my servant help me squeeze into my corset as the damnable Yankees burn the fields around my family’s huge home.

Oh, stop! Black people my age are complaining about the same decline in customer service and maybe even more so. As neighborhoods have gentrified and racially mixed, people actually socialize with their neighbors less and become more suspicious of them. As I said, diversity has hurt neighborhoods of all types. People want to live among people who are like them. It’s a basic human need.

I don't like socializing with racists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised no one has mentioned how we used to be able to call up a business and get an actual person on the other end rather than be put through endless messages to press 1 for this, 2 for that, etc. Bothers me most for medical related offices.

Yes….and no one ever returns calls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm pushing 50 and you're either from a different place than me, or a couple decades older. I was pumping gas before I was old enough to drive. While the gas tank was filling I'd clean my parents' windshield.

At 14 I worked at a grocery store as a cashier and we didn't have baggers or anyone who pushed the cart to the car for you.

I've never taken anyone up on an offer to start a dressing room for me. I want to hold everything I'm considering so I can put back what won't work.

All the high end restaurants I go to involve offering wine, dessert, etc., and they automatically offer water (except when we're in a drought) and put bread on the table. I don't want anyone putting anything in my lap. My hands work, and I'll invite you to touch my body if I want you to.

I’m 45 and grew up in an UMC city. I remember everything OP listed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 55. Life has changed, and not for the better.

I have fond memories of getting all of my Christmas gifts wrapped (for free!) at department stores like Leggett, Miller & Rhodes, Thalheimers, and JC Penney. Sales clerks would ask if they could help you find merchandise, start a dressing room, or bring you another size to try. Yes, lingerie departments had bra fitting ladies.
A department store is where you went as a newly engaged couple to register for gifts. A staff member would help with your selections and make recommendations. Service was given with a smile and people were polite and courteous. Stores were clean, well-stocked, and organized.

Department stores are just one example, but service was better then in all areas of life.

People were just nicer. Now, much of life has gotten to be a slog. It’s very depressing as someone who remembers how things were not so long ago. I think much is to blame - corporate greed, decline of church attendance, changing demographics (diversity really isn’t all that great and hurts communities of all races).

I feed sad for the younger generations.

Yeah, and then she posted again in another comment, since her first time spouting her racist tripe didn’t garner the attention she’d been seeking.

[Anonymous]

Yes, probably regional. The grocery store I worked at was in Orange County, California.
Everyone in that store had to start as a bagger. A lady in her 30’s was hired around the same time as me, and even she was started as a bagger; but she was really nice and a hard worker and they promoted her to service desk within a couple months.


I live in southern California, I've lived here my entire life, and I'm the OP's age. We STILL have all our groceries bagged, by people whose job description is solely to bag the groceries, and often they are the ones who bring the carts in from outdoors, too. All the big chain grocery stores still have this, including Stater Brothers, where I shop every week. The only stores that don't have this are the bulk item, and the wholesale, economy stores like Winco and Costco, where they scan and ring everything, but you bag everything.

Then there is Walmart, gone is the Greeter, and they now makes you make you scan, ring, pay for, and bag everything all by yourself, but God forbid, they ALWAYS hire that prison warden receipt checker at the exit door. So most of us have not set foot inside Walmart in years. It's so much easier to order everything online, and have delivered later that day, or else you can pick it up in the parking lot. I think this is the direction the stores like Walmart would like to go and get rid of in-store shopping altogether, so in the interim, they are determined to make in-store shopping as Hellish as possible. They certainly are succeeding.

We also had the dressing room attendants who would follow you the second you touched an item, carry all your stuff, and offer to start your dressing room, in ALL the stores, everywhere, right up until COVID. Long after the stores opened, they still kept the dressing rooms closed, by law... But, somewhere along that time, Corporate America (in California, anyway) discovered if they could make their stores function and exist during COVID with a skeleton crew of two employees, why not do it all the time? So, long after COVID Mandates have ended, the store dressing rooms have rarely opened again, and gone are those employees whose sole job was to get your dressing room ready for you.

Instead, all the stores continue to operate with COVID Skeleton Crews, for corporate greed. I believe the lack of employees, is why our shoplifting rates are so high, nowadays. It wasn't like that before. They want to blame Prop 47, but, the reality, is none of the stores have any employees. And, rather than hire more employees, paying forth the abundance of having many customers again, they began covering everything up in these huge, plastic enclosures, that require the customer to walk all over the store, hunting down the poor, lone employee that the store has, who is busy already doing the job of four employees stocking shelves, ringing customers up, bagging their items, so that they have to stop what they are doing, walk clear back across the store with you, to unlock your six dollar disposable razors, or eight dollar drug store lipstick, or whatever crappy item, that's being held under lock and key like it was diamonds.

The level of time and patience this requires for both parties is not worth it. Honestly, if there are no employees, and the few employees a store has are working like dogs doing the job of four, people gonna steal. What do you expect? Try hiring employees. Instead, they voted to repeal Prop 47. Wait til they discover people still steal because no one cares anymore about the store's profits. Not the overworked employees, not the paying customers being treated like criminals. And we really are.

It's crazy, ever since they took away everything good, like greeters, and replaced it with everything toxic, such as Big Corporate Is Watching You locking cabinets, and prison warden receipt checkers, all so they could have more profit, instead of better pay for the employees, better benefits, and even a legitimate sized crew for the store, shoplifting has skyrocketed. People began hating the billionaire CEO's and corporate greed more... There's an intense, heavy, anticipatory, anxious, and angry, apathy. It's interesting how that worked.

I don't know why they are continuing to make these awful business decisions. But, you are one hundred percent right, the feeling of caring, pampered customer service by even the most basic business establishments, in reciprocation to their customers for their kind generosity in supporting the business, seems long ago and forever gone, all for profit and greed. That feeling, is indeed, A Thing.

[Anonymous]

I don't miss someone pumping my gas. (Partly because every time I drive through New Jersey I have to suffer through it.) You pay extra to wait for a service I don't.

I don't miss napkins and lap. Honestly never thought about it until this post, but then again, I don't think it happened often in my experience.

I don't miss people starting a dressing room for me. People still do this in certain places! And if anything , I feel more pressure to buy to pay for a service I didn't ask for.

As far as packing groceries, who cares who does it if it gets done? Why would I prefer that it be a second person? Doesn't make sense. Plus in many grocery stores someone will come over and help if the lines get long. Re: carrying groceries... that is not something I need but if I didn't, I can see missing it. At Trader Joe's someone always asks.

In sum, I don't miss ordinary service and am glad life has become more efficient and that I don't have to think about tipping at every turn.

Also, I feel like people are often courteous and helpful. I am from the Northeast and am not conditioned to expect it so I am pleasantly surprised when it does. That said, I do feel like our population has become more impatient and rude at the slightest provocation. I date it back to the pandemic or maybe the first Trump presidency.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting how when I visit my hometown in Appalachia clerks are polite and often wish me a nice day upon paying for my purchase and exiting the store when here I am treated to silence and a scowl. I wonder what explains the difference in norms of behavior.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I am not sure how this discussion has anything to do with race. The service I referred to was mostly white people in a working class neighborhood. My mother enjoyed sewing. There was a very nice and knowledgeable African American woman who worked in the fabric department of our neighborhood TG&Y, like a Woolworths. My mother respected her knowledge about fabric and sewing. I wasn't raised to treat people in different occupations as different people.

In countries like Italy, most service workers are Italian. It's an interesting contrast to the U S. where a lot of our service industry workers are not Caucasian, nor do they often speak English as their first language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am not sure how this discussion has anything to do with race. The service I referred to was mostly white people in a working class neighborhood. My mother enjoyed sewing. There was a very nice and knowledgeable African American woman who worked in the fabric department of our neighborhood TG&Y, like a Woolworths. My mother respected her knowledge about fabric and sewing. I wasn't raised to treat people in different occupations as different people.

In countries like Italy, most service workers are Italian. It's an interesting contrast to the U S. where a lot of our service industry workers are not Caucasian, nor do they often speak English as their first language.

It’s a big country. You should try seeing some of it before making idiotic proclamations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am not sure how this discussion has anything to do with race. The service I referred to was mostly white people in a working class neighborhood. My mother enjoyed sewing. There was a very nice and knowledgeable African American woman who worked in the fabric department of our neighborhood TG&Y, like a Woolworths. My mother respected her knowledge about fabric and sewing. I wasn't raised to treat people in different occupations as different people.

In countries like Italy, most service workers are Italian. It's an interesting contrast to the U S. where a lot of our service industry workers are not Caucasian, nor do they often speak English as their first language.

It’s a big country. You should try seeing some of it before making idiotic proclamations.

I am from fly over country not DC. I have traveled all over the U.S. In most cities, other than Salt Lake City, very rarely do I see service workers who are Caucasian.

Real data:

Race/Ethnicity: While White individuals are the most common racial group in service occupations, Hispanics are often overrepresented in certain service roles like cleaning and food service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am not sure how this discussion has anything to do with race. The service I referred to was mostly white people in a working class neighborhood. My mother enjoyed sewing. There was a very nice and knowledgeable African American woman who worked in the fabric department of our neighborhood TG&Y, like a Woolworths. My mother respected her knowledge about fabric and sewing. I wasn't raised to treat people in different occupations as different people.

In countries like Italy, most service workers are Italian. It's an interesting contrast to the U S. where a lot of our service industry workers are not Caucasian, nor do they often speak English as their first language.

It’s a big country. You should try seeing some of it before making idiotic proclamations.

I am from fly over country not DC. I have traveled all over the U.S. In most cities, other than Salt Lake City, very rarely do I see service workers who are Caucasian.

Real data:

Race/Ethnicity: While White individuals are the most common racial group in service occupations, Hispanics are often overrepresented in certain service roles like cleaning and food service.

DP here. I don’t get why this matters. So non-white service providers shouldn’t provide good service? It’s their job! Chick Fil A figured it out.

[Anonymous]

The service industry should be a respectable and respectful occupation. Consumers should not have to pay more for less or no service. Corporations should return to treating their employees better.

"Cheap goods" and "cheap labor" are not necessarily inexpensive anymore.

[Anonymous]

I don’t miss any of this stuff, because I would rather not have to talk to people I don’t know. It’s stressful. I like being able to grocery shop, use self checkout, and leave the store without ever needing to talk to anyone else.

I will say, though, that at our local hardware store, when you walk in, the employees ask what they can help you find, walk you to the correct location, etc. So that stuff still happens some places, even in the DC area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t miss any of this stuff, because I would rather not have to talk to people I don’t know. It’s stressful. I like being able to grocery shop, use self checkout, and leave the store without ever needing to talk to anyone else.

I will say, though, that at our local hardware store, when you walk in, the employees ask what they can help you find, walk you to the correct location, etc. So that stuff still happens some places, even in the DC area.

Ace Hardware has customer service as their main selling point. Whether or not it's worth the premium they charge over home depot is up to the customer