Why can't you remember to say 'Thank You'?

When reading these two articles: "Scripted Talk" by Adria Scharf and "On the Front Lines of the Service Sector" by Stuart Tannock, I was pretty sure it was written about my life. Many of the things that were said became reminiscent of the memoir that I just wrote.

In "Scripted Talk" Scharf discussed how each business has a specific way that the employees are to communicate with the customers (mostly those who worked in businesses like fast food). When I worked at the water park making burritos, we were to ask how the customer was doing, if they were having fun at the park, and then take their order. When working register is was necessary to say "Thank You" when they left. If you wanted to add a "have a nice day" or something at the end, that was fine, but "Thank You" must be said. In the mornings we would have meeting and the managers would always bring up that we aren't thanking the customers, and it really shouldn't be difficult to remember. We also had secret shoppers, who were discussed in those morning meeting too. The managers told us what to look for in a secret shopper so we could try and spot them, like how they ask a lot of questions and look around the stand more then a normal customer would. Scharf was right in all that she wrote. The fast-food industry is designed to have specific conversations with customers to sound polite, but not waste anytime in taking their money.

The article "On the Front Lines of the Service Sector" by Stuart Tannock, it was discussed that the jobs in fast-food and grocery are high stress, low status, and low wages. This is SO true! Customers will yell at you and tell you that you are too slow, when working a job like that is a huge juggling act. All of those jobs are so much more complicated then it looks like from the outsiders perspective.

I know from working in a business like that for two years, I have a lot more respect for those working in any restaurant or food industry.