The things employees say ...

I once worked in a job that involved near-constant face-to-face contact with customers. Management told us, under threat of "write-ups," that we must say certain things, every time. My experience was that when I said certain required phrases that I would nearly always get a negative response from customers. And my saying those things made me feel like a robot, getting in the way of my rather personable style. Here I would be having good rapport with the customer, then at the end I'd need to say some required garbage, that made the transaction more commercial than it needed to be. No, it wasn't upselling, but rather parroting some company nonsense. I admit, I soon stopped saying the more irritating phrases, and never suffered consequences. Perhaps a judgement was made that my performance was otherwise superior, and reprimanding me would not be worth the possible consequences -- such as my quitting. BUT, we continued to be reminded that we MUST say such and such, or else we would be written up. How demoralizing.

Another thing. Often clerks seem to be wearing a mask, their face being nearly expressionless. This can be off-putting, unless you understand where they are coming from. My experience is that the number of pleasant, or neutral experiences were were way up there -- let's say the percentile is in the nineties. Anyway, if you put some personality into your presentation there is always the odd one who will take offense, and possibly cause you a lot of trouble. The hundreds of others before them may have loved you, but those few who report you, for whatever reason, can get you fired. Folks, there are a lot of less-than-normal (to be generous) people out there, and if you are dealing with a large number of the general public, day in and day out, you WILL come tangle with some of them now and then. If you have management who understand, then you will probably survive. But if you have some pinhead manager who holds the nonsensical attitude that "the customer is always right," then you will be on pins and needles.